Charles Schumer

Maine Democratic Senate frontrunner Jackson Tuesday said he won’t back Sen. Chuck Schumer to be the party’s leader and suggested he doesn’t want financial backing from the national party in his high-stakes fight to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

The nearly certain Democratic nominee said he doesn’t think Schumer has the right profile to lead the party’s caucus after the fall midterms.

“The Democratic Party needs to have a different approach — getting people back in the party, getting working-class, everyday people back in the party — and I don’t believe it’s going to happen with Senator Schumer,” Jackson told the New York Times in a new interview.

Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, also sounded very wary of taking financial backing from Schumer, saying he’d have to find out out what that entailed.

“I mean, if his help comes, absolutely no strings, I would say, you know, possibly,” Jackson said. “There’d have to be no strings.”

Schumer didn’t mention Jackson by name when asked about the Maine race on Capitol Hill.

“Susan Collins is going to lose, and we’re going to take back the Senate. We’re going to be united and strong,” Schumer said. “People in Maine don’t like Donald Trump, and they don’t like that Susan Collins always votes with him.”

Jackson recently finished third in the Democratic primary for governor in Maine. He is the overwhelming favorite to replace Democratic primary winner Graham Platner on the general election ballot after Platner withdrew from the race over a rape allegation.

Jackson has won nearly all the delegates elected at Maine county party meetings ahead of a statewide caucus to formally pick a new standard bearer ahead of a Monday legal deadline.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and state public health official Nirav Shah were considered potential formidable opponents, but both dropped out after failing to drum up significant support.

Jackson is a popular figure in his northern Maine home turf but is a halting orator and has struggled to raise large sums of money like he will need to topple Collins.

A CNN report Tuesday said he has a short fuse and once threw a water bottle during a dispute over legislative strategy at a 2021 closed-door Democratic Senate caucus meeting.

He’ll have to unify Democratic voters and independents to knock off Collins, who has repeatedly won reelection even as the state’s electorate has moved to the left.