Jackson wanted to make the race about working people in northern Maine.
Less than a week into his campaign, everyone is talking about his family tree.
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson is in a long-term relationship with his high school sweetheart, who is also his second cousin, according to a new report.
The New York Post reported that Jackson, 58, and Lana Pelletier share two adult sons and the same great-grandparents.
The couple grew up in Allagash, a tiny northern Maine village near the Canadian border, and attended Fort Kent High School together.
Independent journalist Steve Robinson traced the reported family connection through genealogical records.
According to Robinson’s findings, Jackson’s maternal grandmother and Pelletier’s paternal grandfather were siblings. That made Jackson’s mother and Pelletier’s father first cousins, and Jackson and Pelletier second cousins.
The relationship is legal under Maine law.
While Jackson has previously referred to Pelletier as his wife, local residents told Robinson that the couple never legally married. Neither Jackson nor Pelletier appears to have publicly addressed that part of the report.
Maine’s marriage laws restrict unions between close relatives, including parents, children, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. First cousins may marry after receiving genetic counseling and submitting a physician’s certificate.
Second cousins face no such restriction.
Relationships between extended family members are also not unheard of in the remote North Maine Woods, where small communities can stretch across generations.
The report lands less than a week after Maine Democrats formally picked Jackson to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November.
Jackson, a former logger and former president of the Maine Senate, received the nomination during a special Democratic convention July 25.
He entered the race after Graham Platner, the winner of Maine’s Democratic primary, ended his campaign following an allegation of sexual assault by a former girlfriend. Platner denied the allegation.
Jackson is now carrying Democratic hopes in one of the party’s biggest Senate targets. Collins has held the seat since 1997, but Democrats see Maine as one of their best chances to flip a Republican seat.
Jackson has leaned heavily on his rural upbringing and blue-collar background throughout his political career. The new report puts an intensely personal piece of that small-town history into the middle of a national race.
Requests for comment from Jackson’s campaign, the Maine Democratic Party and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee were not immediately returned, according to the Post.
More over at The New York Post:
Maine Dem Senate candidate Troy Jackson fathered two kids with his second cousin: report https://t.co/yaHZLpbcdY pic.twitter.com/eAjXeNMObE
— New York Post (@nypost) July 31, 2026
