hill country observerThe independent newspaper of eastern New York, southwestern Vermont and the Berkshires

 

News & Issues July 2022

 

In Vermont, a season of political change

Wave of retirements sets up a series of competitive primaries

 

By MAURY THOMPSON
Contributing writer

 

Open U.S. Senate seats rarely come along in Vermont, but when they do, the state’s lone U.S. representative usually is well positioned to step up.


Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s independent junior senator, served 16 years in the House of Representatives before 2006, when he won the Senate seat that opened with the retirement of former Sen. James Jeffords. And Jeffords, a Republican turned independent who served 18 years in the Senate, was the state’s House member for 14 years before that.


Now Rep. Peter Welch, who has represented Vermont in the House for 16 years, hopes to be the next to move up.


Welch is one of three Democratic candidates running in the Aug. 9 primary to succeed Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat who is retiring after representing Vermont in the Senate for 48 years. There also are three candidates competing for the Republican nomination.


Welch is widely viewed as the strong favorite in both the primary and general election. But his Senate bid has set off a spirited race for the House seat he’s leaving open. The competitors include Lt. Gov. Molly Gray, whose candidacy has created an open-seat race for her current position.


All of that, coupled with several other retirements among the state’s top elected officials, has set off a season of transition in Vermont politics.


“So, Leahy’s retirement sets up a domino effect,” explained Matt Dickinson, a political science professor at Middlebury College. “We’ve had a log jam for years.”


The result is that six of the eight statewide offices on the ballot in November, including the U.S. Senate and House seats, will have no incumbent running. Only Gov. Phil Scott and Auditor Doug Hoffer are seeking re-election to their current positions. (Sanders’ term isn’t up until 2024.)
In addition, a wave of retirements among state legislators means at least one-third of the lawmakers who gather in Montpelier in January will be freshmen – the highest rate of turnover in decades.


Dickinson and others said some of the retirements are likely related to the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly among legislators, whose positions are part time with relatively low pay.
Jim Dandeneau, the executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, suggested some veteran lawmakers had become frustrated with having to work remotely and meet via Zoom calls.
“Three years of pandemic legislating has taken its toll,” he said.

 

Competitive primary races
The many open seats are making for an unusually active and early campaign season leading up to the Aug. 9 primary.


In addition to the U.S. Senate contest, there is a four-way Democratic primary and a three-way Republican contest for the U.S. House seat Welch is leaving.


On the Democratic side, the candidates in addition to Gray are: state Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint of Brattleboro; Sianay Chase Clifford of Essex, a social worker and former congressional aide; and Louis Meyers, a physician affiliated with Rutland Regional Medical Center.


Running in the Republican primary are: Erica Redic, a Burlington accountant; Anya Tynio of Charleston, a conservative activist who unsuccessfully challenged Welch in 2018; and Liam Madden of Rockingham, a former Marine Corps sergeant who, after leaving the military, was a leader of Iraq Veterans Against the War and now runs a solar energy business.


Some are referring to this year’s crowded U.S. House contest as “the year of the woman” because of the many female candidates. Vermont has never elected a woman as its U.S. representative.


The lieutenant governor’s seat being vacated by Gray has attracted four Democratic candidates and two Republicans.


On the Democratic side, former Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, who held the position for two terms before mounting an unsuccessful bid for governor two years ago, is seeking his old job back. He faces competition from state Reps. Charlie Kimbell of Woodstock and Kitty Toll of Danville as well as Patricia Preston, the executive director of the nonprofit Vermont Council on World Affairs.
In the Republican primary for lieutenant governor, moderate state Sen. Joe Benning of Caledonia County faces Gregory Thayer, a former Rutland County GOP chairman.


For state attorney general, where incumbent TJ Donovan resigned last month to take a private-sector job, Donovan’s former chief of staff, Charity Clark, is competing against Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault in the Democratic primary. The winner will face perennial Republican candidate H. Brooke Paige, who is also the lone GOP contender for state treasurer, auditor and secretary of state.


For secretary of state, there’s a three-way Democratic primary between state Rep. Sarah Copeland Hanzas of Bradford, Montpelier City Clerk John Odum, and Chris Winters, who has served as deputy secretary for the past seven years under incumbent Jim Condos, who’s retiring.
And Scott, a moderate Republican who waited until mid-May to announce that he’ll seek a fourth term as governor, faces two intraparty challengers in the Aug. 9 primary, Stephen Bellows of Grand Isle and Peter Duval of Underhill.


Dickinson, who pointed out that the governor enjoys higher approval ratings among Democrats than among Republicans, predicted Bellows and Duval likely will split the conservative vote in the primary. The GOP winner will face Democrat Brenda Siegel and Progressive Susan Hutch Davis in November.


The result of the many competitive races is a “very un-Vermont-like” level of early television advertising, out-of-state campaign contributions and, in the case of the U.S. House race, “behind the scenes sniping,” a style of campaigning Vermont voters tend to dislike, Dickinson said.

 

Six U.S. Senate hopefuls
In the Senate race, Welch benefits from quasi-incumbent status, having already represented the entire state in the House for eight terms.


“The conventional wisdom is that Peter Welch is going to win this,” Dickinson said.
But Dickinson cautioned that, although Welch is clearly favored in the primary and again in November, pundits should not be too quick to write off Republican Christina Nolan, whom he described as the likely GOP nominee.


“She has been really successful at building on her brand name,” he said. “So, I think it’s an interesting candidacy.”


Nolan, a moderate who describes herself as an “independent Republican,” is a former U.S. attorney from Burlington. Former Gov. Jim Douglas is her campaign chairman.


She is running in the Republican primary against Myers Mermel, a commercial banker from Manchester, who identifies himself as “a new kind of conservative,” and Gerald Malloy, a retired Army major who uses the campaign slogan “Deploy Malloy.” Mermel has attracted support from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, for whom he served as national finance chairman for Huckabee’s 2008 presidential bid.


In a Vermont Public Radio debate on June 2, Nolan said that, if elected, she would be at the forefront of negotiations for bipartisan gun control legislation that she said should include a national “red flag” law, which would allow police and perhaps family members to seek court orders to temporarily seize guns from people thought to be a danger to themselves or others. Mermel and Malloy both said they oppose any new federal gun control laws.


Nolan also said that if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade, that she would “take action” to pass national legislation to protect abortion rights within the first trimester of pregnancy, and some rights, with restrictions, in the second trimester. Mermel and Malloy both said abortion law should be left up to individual states.


In the VPR debate, Nolan also repeatedly contrasted her policies with those of Welch, rather than her two primary opponents.


In the Democratic primary, Welch has two opponents: Isaac Evans-Frantz, a political activist from Brattleboro, and Niki Thran, an emergency room physician from Warren.


In a VPR primary debate on June 8, Evans-Frantz criticized Welch for only recently agreeing not to accept campaign contributions from corporate political action committees, after accepting them throughout his career.


Welch said all of his campaign contributions have been reported, and that corporate PAC contributions have not influenced his votes.


Thran said it is difficult for her and Evans-Frantz to run when Welch has such a significant campaign cash advantage.


Welch responded that Thran and Evans-Frantz have done a good job at getting around the state and meeting voters, and that it is important to have enough campaign funds on hand to counter advertising funded by Republican “super PACs” in the general election campaign. Also at the Democratic debate, the candidates differed on energy policy.


Evans-Frantz said that domestic oil production should not be expanded, while Thran said it should be temporarily expanded. Welch didn’t specifically answer whether domestic oil production should be expanded but said there should be a windfall profits tax on oil companies to deter price gouging.


Evans-Frantz said nuclear energy production should not be expanded, while Thran said she believes the benefits of expanded nuclear power outweigh the risks. Welch called for further research about nuclear waste at modern plants and said he is undecided but skeptical about expanded use of nuclear power.

 

Welch leads in polling, donations
As of March 31, according to the most recent campaign finance reports on file with the Federal Election Commission, Welch had $2.9 million on hand in his campaign fund, while Thran had $5,900. Evans-Franz had either not yet begun fund raising or had not yet raised enough to require filing a report.


On the Republican side, Nolan had $101,000 in her campaign fund as of March 31, compared with Malloy’s $6,000. Mermel had either not yet begun fund raising or had had not yet raised enough to require filing a report.


A University of New Hampshire poll in April found that likely Vermont voters favored Welch over Nolan by a margin of 62 percent to 27 percent in a hypothetical general election match-up, with 10 percent undecided.


Welch was favored by 93 percent of self-identified Democrats and 47 percent of self-identified independents.


Although Vermont was solidly Republican in late 19th and early 20th centuries — it was one of only two states that spurned Franklin D. Roosevelt in all four of his presidential campaigns — it is considered reliably blue in national politics today.


Democratic presidential candidates have consistently carried the state by wide margins over the past two decades, and no Republican other than Scott has won a statewide race since 2010.
Voters in Vermont do not designate a political party when they register to vote, so an exact partisan breakdown of the state’s electorate isn’t available. But a recent Pew Research Center survey found that 57 percent of Vermont voters identify as Democratic or leaning Democratic, compared with 29 percent who identify as Republican or leaning Republican.


Republicans currently hold just seven seats in the 30-member state Senate and 43 seats in the 150-member House.


The Vermont Republican Party did not respond to a phone message seeking comment for this report.