Vermont

Phil Scott won a sixth two-year term, 52.4% to 45.8%, in a state Kamala Harris carried by 31.8 points.¹ He was the only Republican to win a statewide race, Seven Days reported.² Democrats took all five other statewide offices on the ballot and kept the state’s single U.S. House seat, which Becca Balint won by 34.4 points. One office changed party. Democrat Molly Gray, who was lieutenant governor from 2021 to 2023, defeated the Republican incumbent, John Rodgers, by 25.7 points; Rodgers conceded at 9:29 p.m. on election night. Scott had endorsed him and appeared in a television ad for him, Vermont Public reported.^{3, 4}

Vermont’s swing toward the Republicans is mostly a matter of which race is compared. With no Senate race this year, Vermont’s top race is the governor’s, and Scott’s 6.6-point win is set against a presidential result 38.4 points to its left. Scott drew 136 votes for every 100 Donald Trump won here; his Democratic opponent, Amanda Janoo, drew 60 for every 100 of Harris’s. The U.S. House vote is the steadier guide: D+34.4 this year, D+34.8 in 2022. Turnout in the governor’s race was 110% of 2022’s and 84% of the 2024 presidential vote.

Scott ran furthest ahead of Trump where Democrats are strongest. The Burlington metro area, which casts 35% of the vote, voted for Harris by 41.9 points and for Scott by 3.1, a difference of 44.9. There he drew 158 votes for every 100 of Trump’s. The rest of the state went from D+26.4 for president to R+8.6 for governor, a difference of 34.9.

Windsor County voted for Harris by 35.6 points and for Scott by 2.1, the largest of the nine counties, out of 14, that split that way. Chittenden County, in the Burlington area, casts more votes than any other county. It moved 47.0 points toward Scott and still went Democratic, by 6.6. So did Washington County, by 1.1. The widest gap between the two races was in Grand Isle County: D+21.1 for president, R+28.6 for governor.

Scott now faces a Legislature that can make law without him. Vermont’s constitution requires two-thirds of the members present in each house to override a veto, and on preliminary results Democrats reached that mark in both: 102 of 150 seats in the House and 20 of 30 in the Senate, where the margin is exact and holds only if every Democrat votes together or a senator from outside the caucus joins them.^{2, 5, 6} Our count could not read most Vermont legislative districts, so these totals are Seven Days’ and Vermont Public’s, and they are not final. The Senate will also have a Progressive and an independent, and a Democratic lieutenant governor will preside over it, Seven Days reported.²

The Democrats who would use the margin have spoken carefully about it. Sen. Andrew Perchlik, a candidate for Senate president pro tempore, said: “It opens the window a little wider than it has been in the last session.” House Majority Leader Lori Houghton, a candidate for speaker, said she prefers bipartisan work with the Scott administration and objected to the governor’s description of the Legislature.⁵ In her victory speech Gray said she would keep pressing for universal primary care and affordable housing.³

The General Assembly draws the legislative districts and must revise them at the session after each census. It may set up a legislative apportionment board to advise it, and the Supreme Court may order a reapportionment if it fails to act. With one U.S. House seat, the state has no congressional map.⁶ The secretary of state is chosen by the voters every two years, at the same election as the governor. Sarah Copeland Hanzas, a Democrat, was re-elected by 26.6 points over Republican H. Brooke Paige.^{6, 7}

Voters approved two constitutional amendments. An amendment is adopted when a majority of the voters voting on it approve.⁶ Proposal 3 adds a right to collective bargaining for employees and passed with 74 percent of the vote. Proposal 4 adds a guarantee of equal protection under the law and passed with 79 percent, WAMC reported.^{1, 8}

Vermont’s justices do not face the voters. At the end of each six-year term a justice’s continuance is put to the General Assembly, and the justice stays unless a majority of the members voting are against.⁶ In Chittenden County, State’s Attorney Sarah George, a Democrat, was re-elected with 65 percent to 35 percent for Republican Jace Laquerre on unofficial results. It was one of only three contested state’s attorney races in the state, Vermont Public reported, and her new four-year term begins in February.⁹

What held for the Republicans was Scott. He carried 11 of the 14 counties, and in every one of the 14 he ran ahead of Trump’s 2024 margin. After expressing disappointment that Republicans lost seats in the Legislature, he said in his victory speech: “Tonight, I extend an invitation to legislative leaders: let’s find ways to make meaningful progress on the challenges we face.”¹ The Senate Republican leader said his party was disappointed with the legislative result.² What held for the Democrats was everything below the governor. They won again in the five seats in our count that they already had; of those with a Republican runner-up, the closest was the secretary of state’s race, at 26.6 points.

Vermont’s governor, lieutenant governor and treasurer serve two-year terms, so those offices will be on the ballot again in 2028.⁶ So will the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Peter Welch, in a state that voted D+31.8 for president in 2024 and R+6.6 for governor this year. The legislative districts are next revised at the session after the next census.⁶

The legislative totals are preliminary. Seven Days reported that a House race in Hardwick, led by the Republican incumbent by eight votes, was likely headed to a recount, and that a Democrat led a race in southern Franklin County by two votes.²