AUGUSTA — The Maine Women’s Lobby endorsed Democrat Troy Jackson for U.S. Senate on Wednesday.

Executive Director Destie Hohman Sprague said the organization tries to make the majority of its work bipartisan, but "the partisan tone of Augusta and D.C.” led them to make the decision to endorse Jackson over incumbent Republican Susan Collins.

“If we want to secure rights and health and safety for women in Maine, we need to make sure we are electing people who are representing our needs in Augusta and D.C., and endorsements are an important way that we can help do that,” Hohman Sprague said.

She added that she thinks Jackson, if elected, will advocate for abortion rights and both paid and unpaid women’s labor.  

“Troy understands that women's labor is also labor. And he has been fighting for it for years,” Hohman Sprague said.

The Maine Women’s Lobby has also endorsed Democrat Hannah Pingree for governor.

Several people also spoke out against a pair of campaign ads paid for by Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund that attacked Jackson’s family and included pictures of the speakers. The speakers included State Rep. Rebecca Millett (D–Cape Elizabeth), Portland Mayor Mark Dion and former State Sen. Cathy Breen. 

The television ad portrays Millett, Dion, Breen and others with black bars over their eyes, claiming “Jackson’s female colleagues were so disturbed by his temper they reported him to the governor.” 

Millett said the depiction made the group look like victims. Breen denied reporting Jackson to the governor. 

“They used my picture to attack my friend and colleague,” Breen said. 

The radio ad is in the form of a song and attacks his relationship with his partner, Lana Pelletier. Jackson and Pelletier have two children together. The chorus of the ad says, “If he’ll screw his own family, he’ll screw yours, too.”

Collins has said in an interview that Jackson and Pelletier are second-cousins. Her campaign told the Portland Press Herald that the ad doesn’t have anything to do with Jackson’s qualifications to be senator and should be taken down. 

Pelletier wrote an opinion article published in the Bangor Daily News criticizing Collins for bringing up Pelletier and their children on the campaign. 

“Collins has brought our family into this campaign herself. She has ridiculed us publicly, invoked my children in debates and treated deeply personal parts of our lives as fair game for political attack,” Pelletier said in the article.

Millett said the attacks against Jackson were “vile, nasty and untrue.”

“They [Senate Leadership Fund] are desperate for Susan Collins to hold onto her seat, and continue to deliver for Donald Trump and the billionaire class,” Millett said.