Maine Senate race: Democrats zero in on candidate

The field is clearing in Maine as Democrats in the state now move toward choosing a new Senate nominee to take on Republican Susan Collins in November. There's been weeks of uncertainty in the race after the primary winner Graham Plattner dropped out. Fox's Kaylee Schuyler joins us live from Kittery, Maine tonight with more on this race. So Kaylee, it looks like former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson seems to have locked up enough delegates to get on the ballot. Tell us about this. Hi Kelsey and Simone. So it's not exactly a done deal for Jackson just yet, but the crowded field of Democrats that existed just yesterday have now all but vanished because Jackson's top competitors have now dropped out of this race. That's because over the weekend, Democrats selected 500 delegates that would be part of selecting this new Democratic nominee and more than 470 of them said they were going to support Jackson. So the other candidates saw this and decided they might as well just go ahead and drop out now. So Kaylee, Senator Susan Collins has held this seat for decades of course, but this is an important seat for the Democratic Party. Why are they trying to position somebody in this particular seat to try to take it? Yeah, this is really an important seat for both sides because it really can determine, it's a key toss-up race to determine who has control of the Senate. So when I've talked to voters and heard from the candidates, really the main consensus with all of them has been that they want to find a candidate that is going to be to beat incumbent Susan Collins. So when I've talked to voters, a lot of them said, who is that that has that name recognition out of the candidates? Again, this was a couple of weeks ago before it looked like Troy Jackson was poised to be the new nominee. And then with the candidates as well, as they've been dropping out, some of them have been backing Troy Jackson now because they say this is going to be the best shot that they have. And as we talk about some of those big names, Kaylee, we have a big convention coming up this weekend. What can you tell us about that? Yeah, so I think it might look a little bit different now. Again, we're going to see all of the candidates who want to be part of this nominated convention have until midnight tonight to file their paperwork and get all of their I's dotted, T's crossed to make sure they can be part of this nominated convention. So there's going to be 601 delegates who decide who this new Democratic nominee is going to be. Again, right now it's looking like it might just be Troy Jackson that is going to be part of this convention. But again, we won't know until after midnight tonight. And we are hearing reports that even if it is just Troy Jackson, it's still going to have a nominated convention and we'll hear him address all of these delegates this weekend. All right. So much has changed like within the last week or two in Maine. Oh my goodness. It's been a lot of drama and there's a sense of urgency obviously with trying to get this figured out. All right, Kaylee Schuyler in Kittering, Maine tonight. Thank you so much for that report.