Maine Democrats will gather Saturday in Bangor to install a U.S. Senate nominee chosen by 500 convention delegates instead of primary voters — and the man poised to win just lost a different statewide primary last month.

Former state Senate President Troy Jackson effectively locked up the nomination before the convention even gaveled in, after county-level meetings stacked the delegate slates with his supporters. The other prominent candidates — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former CDC director Nirav Shah — dropped out and fell in line. The message from party leadership was clear: unite behind one candidate to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins. As Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson put it, the goal is to "choose the strongest nominee to defeat Susan Collins."

But the process reeks. Graham Platner won the June primary, then withdrew July 10 after a former girlfriend accused him of sexual assault, which he denied. That triggered an abbreviated replacement window under Maine law — and Democrats chose a closed convention over any process that would let regular voters weigh in.

Jackson isn't just any replacement. He finished third in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in June. Now, weeks later, he's being handed a ballot line he couldn't win at the ballot box. Republican state Rep. James White flagged the problem in a letter Friday to Bellows, arguing that Maine's Title 21-A bars candidates from filing for more than one office "at any election" and requires vacancy replacements to be "qualified persons." White contends Jackson fails that test. Maine has no explicit "sore loser" statute, but White says the existing provisions, read together, create one. He cited the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Storer v. Brown, which held that a primary is "an integral part of the entire election process."

"The integrity of Maine's elections depends on the faithful application of the law, not on whether bending the rules may benefit one political party or another," White wrote, according to Breitbart.

Here's where it gets worse: the person who'd rule on White's challenge is Bellows — the secretary of state who was herself a candidate in this same Senate race until she dropped out Sunday to back Jackson. Bellows also barred Donald Trump from Maine's 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment. A partisan official who just exited the race is now the arbiter of whether her chosen successor's rival qualifies.

Jackson's record offers its own contrasts. The fifth-generation logger and Allagash native ran as a Republican in 2000, then as an independent, then became a Democrat. He's aligned with Bernie Sanders and supports progressive policies. But the Portland Press Herald reports his temper ruffled feathers even within his own party, including an incident where he yelled and threw a water bottle during a heated argument with a fellow Democrat.

The convention delegates aren't legally bound to vote for Jackson, but CBS reports they're "widely expected" to do so — because the slates were built that way from the start.

The open question: can a candidate who lost a primary in June be handed a Senate nomination by party insiders in July — and will an official who just backed him be the one deciding?