Troy Jackson doesn’t regret telling opponent Susan Collins to ‘shut up’

Democrat Troy Jackson said on Sunday he does not regret telling his opponent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to “shut up” during a candidate debate that was interrupted by an anti-data center protester.

During an interview on CNN’s “ State of the Union ,” host Dana Bash asked Jackson whether he regretted the comment.

“No, you know she said that it was a Troy supporter. I mean, she accused me of setting that up. I had no idea who it was,” he said. “I mean, I was surprised whenever he jumped up out of there.”

“You know, I’ve had four debates with Senator Collins. I shook her hand afterwards every time. But what I’m not going to be is, you know, talked down to by Senator Collins, I’m not going to be accused of things like that,” he continued, adding that he was “fighting for Mainers and I just think that was another situation where she was talking down to me and I’m not going to apologize for that.”

The incident happened when an anti-data center protester interrupted a debate. Collins said almost immediately as the debate was stalled, “So, this is obviously one of Troy’s supporters.”

Jackson interjected, “Oh, shut up. I don’t even know that kid.”

The anti-data center protester confirmed on Saturday he had “zero coordination” with Jackson’s campaign, adding that he did “not know Troy Jackson personally or at all…but I think he should be winning,” according to the New York Times .

Collins discussed the incident on Fox News , telling Sean Hannity she was “struck by how reflective the response, ‘Oh, shut up,’ was.”

“But then I thought about the reputation that Troy Jackson has in Augusta particularly when he’s dealing with women with whom he disagrees. So, in some ways it didn’t surprise me,” she added.

The Maine Democrat discussed this “reputation” further with Bash detailing stories from GOP members alleging that during his tenure as President of Maine’s state Senate, Jackson was “sort of aggressive in [his] tone” to women.

“Some Republicans have been spending millions of dollars attacking me and my family, making untrue claims, things that they had to take off the air, and so it doesn’t surprise me that some Republicans would be making any claims,” Jackson responded.

The Maine Senate contest is one race Democrats hope to pick up in their effort to regain control of the upper chamber. Jackson leads Collins with a razor-thin margin in a recent Suffolk University poll , but since the result is within the margin of error, both candidates are statistically tied.