Irene Wrenner, left, Chris Mattos. Photos by Natalie Williams/VTDigger and Glenn Russell/VTDigger
In the race for the lone Chittenden North Senate seat, Sen. Irene Wrenner, a Democrat vying for a second two-year term, is facing a challenge from Republican Rep. Chris Mattos, who has served seven years in the House.
It’s the Vermont Republican Party’s second go at Chittenden County’s northernmost Senate district, which has been a target for the party since reapportionment in 2022 broke up the former six-member Chittenden County district into three parts.
The district includes part of Essex Town, all of Milton and Westford as well as Fairfax in Franklin County — representing just over 20,000 people. Wrenner, a longtime public servant from Essex Town, defeated Republican Leland Morgan by just three points in the 2022 election.
This cycle, the Vermont GOP has again trained its sights on the district as part of a focused effort to unseat Democrats and break up the party’s 22-seat supermajority in the 30-member Senate.
Gov. Phil Scott has made it clear his political agenda depends on bringing more Republicans into the mix and electing “more common sense Vermonters to the Legislature,” as he said at a recent campaign event for another Republican senate candidate. Other districts Republicans see as winnable are Caledonia, Grand Isle, Orange and Orleans.
Mattos, who lives in Milton, said he decided to make a run for the Senate “to try and bring some balance, at least in the Senate, and get us into a spot to be able to sustain the governor’s veto.”
“With property taxes what they are this year — the statewide average creeping up to a 14% increase,” finding a path to “be able to support the governor” is critical for the party and the state, he said.
The Republican representative has drawn in $38,980 in campaign contributions — the vast majority of donations greater than $100 — and has spent more than $16,000 on media buys over the last month, according to Oct. 1 campaign filing disclosures. Donors include Scott, the Chittenden County Republican Committee, the Milton Republican Party, and several prominent landlords and development companies, including the Vermont Realtors PAC.
Wrenner, meanwhile, has garnered $13,720, including a $2,050 loan from herself. Her haul largely comes from smaller donations, including from a New York-based PAC, the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for building “a non-punitive, equitable, and regulated drug market,” according to the organization’s website.
But even with a financial edge, unseating Wrenner may not be an easy feat.
“As much as this is a good opportunity for us, it’s not a guarantee by any means,” said Vermont Republican Party Chair Paul Dame.
Wrenner, who said she “identifies as a Democrat and votes as an Independent,” has in fact voted against her party on some high profile legislation.
The first-term senator voted against S.100, which became law in 2023 and sought to spur housing construction by reducing regulatory barriers, and the Affordable Heat Act, which took steps toward setting up a clean heat standard.
Describing Wrenner as “very independent,” Jim Dandeneau, the executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, said she sometimes votes against the party’s platform but “she reflects the will of her constituents very effectively.”
Wrenner, in an interview, said she thinks voters value her independence, and said all of her votes have come after listening to her constituents. Republicans targeting her district “are not paying attention.”
“I’ve kept my promises,” she said. “I have heard the voice of a vast swath of people and voted accordingly.”
‘Our expenses keep going up’
While Mattos commended Wrenner for “not just toeing the party line,” he has criticized her on a number of issues. Alluding to public safety concerns, he has taken aim at Wrenner’s vote for a bill allowing for the creation of an overdose prevention center in Burlington and her co-sponsorship of legislation seeking to decriminalize certain drugs.
But he has focused most on her ‘yes’ vote on this year’s annual yield bill, which set average property tax rates across the state in order to fund the education budgets approved by local school boards statewide.
“I would just say, open your property tax bill and let me know what you think of that increase that you received this past August,” Mattos said, “because that was quite a hit to folks in our area and all across the state.”
Mattos was first appointed to the Legislature by Scott in 2017, and spent his first three years on the House Education Committee before moving to the Ways and Means Committee.
He said his priority if elected to the Senate would be taking a hard look at how the state finances its education system, and to “more closely align the budgets of each district back to their local tax rates.”
Vermont’s student population is in decline, “yet our expenses keep going up,” he said. His biggest focus if elected would be education finance, he said, and “how we can right size our schools.”
Noting that 80% of school budgets are staff salaries, Mattos said looking at reducing those costs is needed. “I’m not saying, ‘Let’s go cut people’s jobs…’ It’s things that you can do through attrition, whether it’s through retirement, somebody changing fields,” he said. “There’s ways to save money in our school system”.
More broadly, Mattos has said lawmakers “need to be able to make this state more affordable for young families to be able to thrive here” and to ensure older residents can afford to retire in Vermont.
‘Core blue values’
Wrenner has defended her support of the yield bill, contending that had the legislation been voted down, it would have created chaos for state finances and forced the use of reserves to pay for the state’s education system.
“It’s easy to say, ‘Well, I didn’t vote to raise your taxes,’ without helping the public understand that if we did not vote yes to fund the yield bill with current dollars, we would be borrowing at least $50 million in today’s interest rates,” she said. “‘Good luck next year to the people having to pay that bill.’”
Wrenner pointed to her own legislation she passed as a new lawmaker — a rarity, she said — that shored up car seat regulations for young children. Kids in car seats were facing forward too early, she said, and were at risk of serious injuries because of it.
And she has, in turn, pointed to Mattos’ own record and his alignment with Scott’s vetoes as evidence why voters should keep her in the Senate.
“It’s all about representing the people who send you to the Statehouse, and to see that my opponent votes party line, and yet I’m accused of doing that, is a little bit unfortunate,” Wrenner said.
While Wrenner said she doesn’t let party affiliation drive her votes, she describes herself as having “core blue values,” including ensuring women have reproductive choices.
“People need to have the government stay out of their bedrooms and out of their doctor’s offices, and that’s my belief,” she said. More than 70% of Vermont voters who approved Prop 5, which wrote reproductive rights into the state constitution, and even those “in some very conservative towns like Milton, agree with that,” she added.
Wrenner has criticized Mattos for voting against the reproductive rights constitutional amendment in 2022.
The Vermont Democratic Party’s executive director also pointed to Mattos’ record on this and other hot button issues as an argument for reelecting Wrenner. In addition to voting against the reproductive rights amendment, Mattos voted against a bill to add wait times to Vermont firearm applications, and against legislation to prevent alleged domestic abusers from possessing guns.
“We need Democrats in our Legislature to make sure that we’re protecting against that,” Dandeneau said.
On both gun bills, Mattos said he considered the background check in place to be adequate and was “not amenable” to extending the waiting period.
His biggest issue on the latter bill was what he described as issues around “due process,” and “how you can have somebody make a phone call and a judge can order your guns to be taken or your rights to be taken from you for that without having due process.”
Responding to criticism from Wrenner on his Prop 5 vote, Mattos said he had “two, three hundred emails, text messages, conversations with folks in town wanting me to vote no on it” and added he had “a handful — less than five people — reach out to me and say, vote yes.”
“I don’t just vote based on how I feel on a bill, it’s based on feedback from constituents, so that’s the way I went into the vote,” Mattos said.
But when the amendment came up for a statewide vote in November 2022, a majority in his district — 67 percent — supported it. Wrenner questioned how in touch Mattos was with his constituents.
“Apparently he doesn’t get out much, because anybody who was knocking on doors two years ago heard it: women need to control their own reproductive health,” she said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: In Senate race, Vermont GOP hopes to gain foothold in Chittenden County.