New Delhi, July 28 -- BANGOR, MAINE - The call from Kamala Harris came within hours. Troy Jackson, a logger-turned-state-lawmaker from the far north of Maine, had been selected by Democratic Party delegates on Saturday to replace a scandal-undone nominee, and before his campaign infrastructure was operational, the country's most prominent Democrat had placed her endorsement behind him.

Harris, who has spent the months since her 2024 presidential defeat quietly reassembling her political influence, endorsed Jackson for Maine's United States Senate seat, making her among the first major national Democrats to back the emergency nominee. The timing was deliberate. Maine Democrats had just endured the spectacle of watching Platner's June prim...