Because I know how to have a wild night out on the town, I go to a lot of campaign kick-offs. And I tend to judge such events by a simple metric: how many people at this function do I know? By this I mean: are there any normal people there, or is the room full of political junkies like me? If the room is full of nerds and hacks, a candidate probably has work to do to get “real Vermonters” on board. There were lots of people (nearly 200, according to a press release from the McLaren camp) I had never seen or heard of before at Ryan McLaren’s campaign kick-off last week, and by this very vibes-based metric, that’s good news for him.
I’ll caveat this by saying that a well-attended launch party does not a winning campaign make. There are many factors – fundraising, field programs, paid and earned media, not to mention the voters – that go into determining winners and losers on election day. However, if we rank the Democratic LG field by the vibes of their launch, McLaren is off to an early lead in this race and by a long-shot. Especially since neither of his primary opponents even *had* a publicly advertised launch.
The presumptive frontrunner, former LG Molly Gray, officially launched her bid in January at Nomad Coffee in the South End of Burlington. I would have gone to scope this function out for you, my loyal readers, but again, there was no public advertisement of the date, time, or venue. Just about everyone in the photos of the event that I’ve seen is one of the usual suspects – current and former legislators, party functionaries, and longtime activists.
Now, to Gray’s credit, her initial rollout of endorsements showed that she’s done some real fence-mending since her 2022 loss to Becca Balint, especially on the party’s left flank. But, as Tim Ashe could tell you, a lengthy roster of legislators on your team doesn’t necessarily translate to votes. And, for a former lieutenant governor with two statewide runs under her belt, I confess myself surprised that this event wasn’t thrown open to the public or promoted more. Surely Gray has some dedicated base of volunteers or supporters left over from her past campaigns who could have filled out the room a little?
Now, let’s turn to the launch of McLaren and Gray’s other opponent: Esther Charlestin. Much ink has been spilled about Charlestin and her frankly lackadaisical campaign for governor in the pages of this blog. As I’ve said before, I respect and appreciate her standing up and running against Phil Scott when nobody else would. However, she did not run a serious campaign. That gave the Governor free rein to whale away on down-ballot Democrats and bring Republicans the closest they’ve come to control of the legislature in two decades.
Her entrance into the LG race last week baffled me – if I had lost a race for statewide office by 52 points my next move would not have been to move a rung down the ladder and try for another statewide office against another Republican incumbent. A great way to overcome skepticism around her candidacy would have been with a big kickoff that was open to the public. Instead, all that I saw from her was an earned media push and a video on social media that repeated many of the talking points of her 2024 campaign while noting that her loss strengthened her “resolve to do it again.”
I still have more questions than answers about why Charlestin is in this race – hopefully these answers will be forthcoming, but a very good time to answer them would have been when she announced her campaign, and now, the opportunity to capitalize on the free media that comes with a launch is gone.
(Update, since I wrote the draft of this article, Charlestin has announced a 26-stop listening tour between March and May. It seems that in those two months she plans to hold more public events than (as far as I know) she held during her entire 2024 campaign, so perhaps this is a sign that Charlestin for LG will be a more serious enterprise than Charlestin for Governor?)
So, let us return to the core contest of Gray vs. McLaren. If the election were held today, I expect that Gray would win – her two statewide campaigns should give her a significant lead in name ID, and I’m sure she still has a core of supporters in the primary electorate.
However, the room at McLaren’s kickoff tells me that Gray has good reason to be worried. Not only were there many “regular people” there, there were many prominent former Gray supporters in the room waving McLaren placards. Jane Stetson, one of Vermont’s primo Democratic megadonors, was an early Gray supporter in 2020. Her name appeared on McLaren’s supporter list. Former Treasurer Beth Pearce was an early Gray supporter in 2020, she was at McLaren’s launch and listed as a McLaren endorser. Also making appearances (and subsequently listed as endorsers) were former SOS Jim Condos, former LG David Zuckerman, and former Speakers Shap Smith and Mitzi Johnson. A lot of “formers” compared to Gray’s list of “currents,” but these are people who are still well connected and wield a fair bit of clout.
If I were the Gray campaign, this launch would make me very nervous. Again, the ability to throw a good party doesn’t determine a winning campaign, but it’s clear now (if it wasn’t before) that McLaren is well equipped to make this a real race. I haven’t felt that much energy and enthusiasm in a room for a candidate since Becca Balint ran for Congress in 2022…and we all know how that turned out for Molly Gray.
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