Sugaring Off: Vermont Politics and History, Plain and Simple

Well, we’re about less than a week out from the 2024 election. The ads have been bought, the mailers have been sent, now it all comes down to one last mad dash to knock as many doors as possible and wave vigorously at passing traffic in the hopes of eliciting highly sought-after honks until polls close on November 5th.

With so little time remaining in the campaign, it’s time for one final update of the Vibes-Based Forecast and making some predictions about what Vermont politics will look like on November 6th. I’ll be trying to eliminate all the races currently marked as toss-ups with the full realization that I may well eat crow for doing so on November 6th. If you want to skip my ramblings, I have maps at the end showing my predictions for both chambers and the overall number of seats each party will win.

Statewide Races

By and large, the statewide races this year are a snoozefest. Bold prediction: Kamala Harris will carry the Green Mountain State’s three electoral votes, and Bernie Sanders and Becca Balint will handily win against their respective Republican challengers, the valiant efforts of DEPLOY MALLOY not withstanding. As for the down-ballot statewide races, Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, Treasurer Mike Pieciak, AG Charity Clark, and Auditor Doug Hoffer are all on a glide path to solid victories over H. Brooke Paige, Joshua Bechhoefer, Ture Nelson, and H. Brooke Paige on behalf of Linda Joy Sullivan, respectively.

The two races that bear discussion are the contests for Governor and Lieutenant Governor. In the gubernatorial race, incumbent Phil Scott is virtually certain to clinch a fifth term against challenger Esther Charlestin of Middlebury. As of October 15th, Charlestin has raised just $41,000 and spent $33,000. To put that figure in perspective, that’s less than the figures raised by State Senate candidates Scott Beck, Katherine Sims, and Andy Julow, and is roughly on par with the hauls of Amanda Cochrane, Chrises Mattos and Bray, and Sam Douglass.

That’s even more remarkable when you consider that Charlestin announced her campaign in January, some months before the legislative contests started heating up. It seems that the Vermont Democratic Party’s usual donor class came to the same conclusion as former Governor Howard Dean; that it would take a $2 million campaign to even come close to dislodging Scott and left Charlestin’s campaign to fend for itself. Also, based on my interpretation of Charlestin’s campaign finance filings, there’s been a fair bit of staff turnover on her campaign, which could account for the dearth of fundraising and the total absence of media buys.

The lack of a substantial challenge has freed up Governor Scott to take to the stump to try to break the Democratic supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature. In addition to his in-person appearances, Scott’s campaign has been blanketing the state with digital ads and went up on TV much earlier than usual, all to encourage Vermonters to vote for Republican candidates for the legislature. The Scott campaign also apparently commissioned a number of polls or surveys in the Lt. Gov. and Senate races. I would love to see those results and their methods given the total lack of polling in Vermont this year, but alas it seems those figures may never be made public.

The only statewide race that stands any chance of being close this year is the Lieutenant Governor contest, where incumbent David Zuckerman faces a strong challenge from former Democratic state senator turned Republican nominee John Rodgers of West Glover. Rodgers has raised over $100,000 thanks in part to the munificence of some of Vermont’s leading business owners and landlords and has been spending heavy on media. He’s enlisted the services of St. Albans Rep. Casey Toof and 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate James Ehlers as consultants, which is probably the most interesting pairing of political operatives I’ve seen in my short time writing about #vtpoli. The last time I heard or saw anything from Mr. Ehlers was when he appeared at the State House dressed as a phallus in the closing days of the 2022 legislative session. I’m not going to put the picture in the article because Sugaring Off is a family friendly blog, but you’re welcome to click on the link to the relevant Digger article.

Anyway, I think Rodgers has a chance of upsetting Zuckerman but the incumbent still has the edge. Zuckerman beat former State Senator Joe Benning by about 11 percentage points in 2022. In 2020, the last time we had both a Lt. Gov. election and a presidential contest on the ballot (and the high turnout that comes with it), Democrat Molly Gray beat Republican Scott Milne by about 7 points, and that was with Milne spending over half a million dollars. Rodgers hasn’t come anywhere near to that figure and thus will have to rely on his personal appeal and Governor Scott’s historically elusive coattails. I could see this race getting within ten points, but I don’t see it getting close enough to move it out of the Likely Democratic category on the Vibes-Based Forecast, so there it shall stay.

State Senate

The Vermont GOP and their coterie of donors appear to be focusing their efforts on breaking the Democratic supermajority in the State Senate. This is a logical strategy: they only need to flip four seats here to get the Democrats under the 2/3 threshold versus the House, where they’d need to flip twelve seats.

There are two seats that I currently see as having an outside chance of flipping in Orange and Rutland Counties. In Orange County, Republican Larry Hart, Sr. has put up a very well funded challenge to Sen. Mark MacDonald, a longtime member of the congregation of Our Lady of Perpetual Incumbency. MacDonald usually runs low-budget, low-tech campaigns focused on knocking as many doors in the district as he can, and he was able to easily dispatch controversial challenger John Klar in 2022 despite suffering a stroke just weeks before the election. The GOP have had their eyes on MacDonald’s seat for a while, and it could happen, but I don’t think this year is their year so this race stays at Likely Democratic.

On the other side of the Greens in Rutland County, Democrats have an outside chance to reclaim the seat they lost in 2022 with Sen. Cheryl Hooker’s retirement. Challenger Marsha Cassel has run a respectable campaign thus far and could knock off Sen. David Weeks, the third baseman of the Rutland Republican Trio, if things go just right for the Democrats. However, the Dems fell short in 2022 despite having a full slate of active candidates and I think that Rutland will be a tough nut to crack in the current political environment, so this one stays at Likely Republican for the moment.

Caledonia

The GOP is most bullish on picking up a seat in Caledonia County left vacant by the retirement of longtime incumbent Sen. Jane Kitchel of Danville. Their candidate, Rep. Scott Beck of St. J., has raised the most money of any Republican candidate and seems generally well-liked in the district. His Democratic opponent, Amanda Cochrane, also of St. J., has run a strong campaign but was a somewhat late entrant. This race will be close, but if I had to pick a winner today I’d have to give Beck the edge. I still wouldn’t count out a Cochrane win, though, and thus this race moves from Tossup to Lean Republican.

Chittenden-North

I expect this to be the closest Senate race this year. Independently minded incumbent Irene Wrenner, an Essex Democrat, faces a strong challenge from Milton State Rep. Chris Mattos, who’s been a major beneficiary of Phil Scott’s support. In 2022, Mattos ran roughly even with Senate nominee Lee Morgan in his Milton house district, so I don’t expect him to do too much better there. Likewise, I expect that Wrenner will continue to dominate in Essex and Westford. This race will probably come down to whether Mattos can flip Fairfax and get enough of a margin there to overcome Wrenner’s home turf advantage in the southern part of the district. If I had to call this race today, I’d give it to the Democrats, but expect this to be a squeaker.

Grand Isle

This might be my hottest take of them all. I expect that Andy Julow, who was appointed to this seat following the late Sen. Dick Mazza’s resignation, will fend off a strong challenge from Rep. Pat Brennan of Colchester to win a full term. While Brennan has held on for several cycles as the only elected Chittenden County Republican outside of Milton, to win this Senate seat he’d have to squeeze a couple hundred extra votes out of his home district in Malletts Bay and the western part of Colchester while carrying all of Colchester outright. That’ll be a heavy lift, especially since he’s never represented the eastern half of Colchester which leans more Democratic. Based on his primary showing, I expect that Julow will do fairly well in the Islands, winning North and South Hero handily, running even in Grand Isle, and losing Isle la Motte. That plus a margin of even just a couple hundred votes from the eastern Colchester district should be enough to put him over the top. I’m moving this race from tossup to Leans Democratic, but it could be another close one.

Orleans

I predict that Democratic State Rep. Katherine Sims of Craftsbury will prevail in her quest to replace retiring Sen. Bobby Starr. Her opponent, Sam Douglass of North Troy, put up a desultory showing against Starr in 2022 and had a strong, moderate primary opponent this year in Aime Conrad Bellavance. My best guess is that many Bellavance voters in places like Newport and Westfield are moderate, longtime Starr voters who will move en masse if not en bloc into Sims’s camp. Sims has, in my view, successfully positioned herself as an independent voice for the Kingdom and has secured Starr’s endorsement. She also has a home turf advantage in Craftsbury and Greensboro, both of which are in her House district and remain huge Democratic vote sinks even as surrounding towns get redder. I’m confident enough in Sims’s chances to move this race from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic, meaning I’m at least 60% sure that she’ll win.

State House

If I went one by one through every potentially competitive State House race we’d both be here all night and neither of us wants that, so I’ll more quickly through the toss-up races and talk about a couple of potential sleeper flips.

In Chittenden-25, which covers Westford and Eastern Milton, I think incumbent Rep. Julia Andrews will defeat Milton Selectboard member Brenda Steady. Ultimately, I think Andrews’s strength in Westford will simply be too much for Steady to overcome. This might be closer than in 2022, but I’m confident enough to move it to Lean Democratic.

In Rutland-2, I think the GOP holds on to Rep. Art Peterson’s seat in this two-member district. Former Rep. Dave Potter is the best candidate the Democrats could have hoped for, but at the moment I just don’t see Potter being able to overcome the changing political tides in this district, especially with Donald Trump on the ballot. I’m moving this one to Lean Republican despite the fact that Potter only lost by 7 votes in 2022.

In Caledonia-1, I think incumbent Democrat Bobby Farlice-Rubio will narrowly hold off Debra Lynn-Powers. Earlier in the fall, Farlice-Rubio’s campaign seemed to be somewhat non-existent, but I hear from my sources on the ground in the Kingdom that he’s really kicked into high gear in the last month or so which I think will be enough for him to save his seat. This one moves to Leans Democratic.

In Bennington-1, which covers most of Pownal and several of the smaller towns in the Bennington area, incumbent Rep. Nelson Brownell is retiring. Vying to replace him are Republican Bruce Busa, who narrowly lost to Brownell in 2022, and Democrat Jonathan Cooper. I’m going to be so honest, I have no idea what’s going to happen here. It was very close in 2022 and of all 14 counties I probably know the least about Bennington’s dynamics. I simply don’t have enough information to make a sound prediction, and so this one stays at toss-up.

The last race left at toss-up is Chittenden-Franklin, where Democrats Lonnie Poland and Henry Bonges are running against incumbent Chris Taylor and fellow Republican Tony Micklus. I’m not rating this one because I’ve been heavily involved with Poland’s campaign and the Milton Dems this cycle and to make a prediction here feels a little conflict-of-interest-y.

Sleeper Flips

There are a few districts where I’m confident in my predictions but think that I could end up having to eat my hat if things go a certain way. For posterity, those are:

• Washington-3 (Barre City)
• Rutland-Windsor (Shrewsbury, Ludlow, Mt. Holly)
• Caledonia-2 (Hardwick, Walden, Stannard)

Overall Predictions

I think that the Democrats will lose one seat in the Senate and four-five seats in the House. Under this scenario, the Democrats and Progressives will keep their supermajority in both chambers, but they’ll be much narrower, meaning they can afford fewer defections in any forthcoming veto overrides.

Conclusion

And that’s a wrap on my 2024 election predictions and prognostications! Please take careful note of everything that I get wrong so that you can roast me thoroughly for it afterwards. If you’re in the final stretch of a campaign, please remember to breathe, hydrate, and eat, and best of luck! I’ll see all of you after the election for a very thorough post-mortem!

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