Gov. Phil Scott speaks during his weekly press conference on June 11, 2024. He spoke at the Central Vermont Career Center in Barre with a focus on students working on the repair of flood-damaged mobile homes. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
On a late September Sunday — a day so picturesque it was almost a caricature of a Vermont On a late September Sunday — a day so picturesque it was almost a caricature of a Vermont autumn equinox — a hand-painted sign in North Troy beckoned drivers-by down a gravel road to a free pig roast.
At the Randall Family Farm, located in the Northeast Kingdom mere miles from the Canadian border, several dozen attendees gathered around fold-out tables to break bread (and pork) and sip freshly pressed apple cider. Although a pile of crimson lawn signs leaning against a tent post hinted at its purpose, at first glance, the event didn’t appear overtly political.
Even when the candidate of the hour, Rep. Katherine Sims of Craftsbury, delivered her stump speech for why she should be Orleans County’s next state senator, her identity as a Democrat wasn’t immediately obvious.
“You all love this place. You love the Kingdom, the people, the land, the community, our way of life,” Sims told the modest crowd. “And whether you’ve been here for generations or you’re just starting to put down roots here, you care deeply about protecting this special place that we call home.”
Sims kept well clear of the hot-button social issues dominating Democrats’ speeches on the national stage; there was no talk of Roe v. Wade or Donald Trump at this picnic. Even her high-profile guest speaker, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., resisted his usual reflex to delve into his progressive talking points during remarks he delivered by phone to the picnickers who hailed from one of Vermont’s more conservative Senate districts.
Instead, Sims maintained her focus on pocketbook issues. “Too many friends and neighbors are struggling to make ends meet,” she said.
“Property taxes are going through the roof. The cost of housing and health care and child care and retirement are too much,” she continued. “Kind of feels like we’re at a tipping point, where our future depends on policies that make sure that folks can live and work and raise a family and retire here.”
It was the type of speech one could imagine being made by the outgoing Orleans County senator Sims is vying to replace — Bobby Starr, a moderate Democrat, who is retiring this year after nearly 50 years in the Statehouse and has endorsed Sims.
Or perhaps even Gov. Phil Scott, a moderate Republican who has made the issues of affordability, taxation and housing a core tenet of his platform since even before he first ran for the state’s top job in 2016.
But despite the parallels in some of their talking points, Scott is actively campaigning against Sims — as part of a broader push to send a slate of down-ballot Republicans to Montpelier.
Two days after the pig roast, the governor appeared at a weekly burger evening in Barton to campaign alongside Sims’ political opponent, Republican Sam Douglass.
Douglass’s speech, in substance, largely mirrored that of Sims’ two days prior, staying focused on affordability and the rural Northeast Kingdom’s way of life — with a few pointed jabs at his opponent sprinkled in.
He criticized Sims, for instance, for helping to override Scott’s veto of the Affordable Heat Act, also known as the clean heat standard. Douglass said the policy “has been thoroughly rejected by Vermonters for the pain that it will cause on our families” with the potential for rate hikes on heating fuel, should lawmakers give it the ultimate green light next legislative session.
When it was his turn up at the podium on Tuesday night, Scott told the crowd, “I truly believe the time is now, and we have a real opportunity to make a difference and elect more common sense Vermonters to the Legislature.”
“And,” he continued, “I’m ready to do whatever I can to make it happen.”
Scott vs. the Dem supermajority
In a year where he is expected to easily win reelection, Scott rarely, if ever, mentions his Democratic gubernatorial challenger, Middlebury educator Esther Charlestin, on the campaign trail. Instead, the governor appears to be campaigning against a different political foe: the Democratic-controlled Legislature.
With 105 out of 150 seats in the House, and 22 of 30 in the Senate, Democrats have held theoretically veto-proof two-thirds majorities in both chambers.
The Berlin Republican has been telling voters that his political agenda depends on breaking Democrats’ supermajority. And to achieve that goal, political observers say he is campaigning harder than he has in years.
“The governor is spending some of the political capital that he’s been very judicious with up to this point, and I think it’s going to make a difference this year,” said Vermont Republican Party Chair Paul Dame. “And if we see the supermajority broken, it’s going to be, in large part, credit to the governor getting involved in a lot of these races.”
The governor’s involvement in down-ballot races isn’t limited to in-person campaign events. This week, his campaign spent $87,500 on buying television ads set to run this cycle, according to Scott’s campaign manager, Jason Maulucci, and records from the Vermont Secretary of State. In one ad, Scott implores viewers to elect legislators “who will actually work with me to make Vermont more affordable.”
Scott’s newfound joie de electioneering comes after a two-year biennium marked by a record number of gubernatorial vetoes, the Legislature’s usually (but not always) successful votes to override those vetoes and, in 2024, an increasingly tense relationship between the Legislature and the governor.
“He’s angry,” said Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, who also leads Senate Democrats’ campaign efforts. “He could engage with us sooner, and then he wouldn’t have to veto so many things. But, you know, that’s also why we’re there — because he’s vetoing stuff.”
Scott’s campaign has mainly narrowed its focus on flipping seats in the Senate. With fewer members, it would take fewer blue-to-red swaps to chip away at the supermajority in the upper chamber.
Maulucci said the campaign sees potential flip opportunities in five Senate districts: in Caledonia County, where Rep. Scott Beck, R-St. Johnsbury, is vying for the seat being vacated by longtime Democratic Sen. Jane Kitchel; in the Chittenden North district, where Rep. Chris Mattos, R-Milton, is challenging Democratic incumbent Sen. Irene Wrenner; in the Grand Isle district, where the governor is stumping for Rep. Patrick Brennan, R-Colchester, rather than Democratic Sen. Andy Julow, whom Scott appointed to the seat only in May; in Orange County, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark MacDonald beat back his last Republican challenger by a 10-point margin in 2022; and in Orleans County, where Douglass and Sims are facing off. The governor is also slated to stump for Republican Senate candidates in Addison County later this week.
Dame said Scott “has been more involved with candidates than I’ve ever seen him before.” And according to Maulucci, the governor is attending “dozens” of campaign events this cycle to boost down-ballot Republicans.
“We know that voters value the governor’s opinion. We know that they want to support him in more ways than just voting for him,” Maulucci said in an interview last week. With his campaign appearances, Maulucci said Scott is trying to “help voters connect the dots, that if you want to help the governor, these are the candidates that you also need to support. And it’s not enough just to vote for the governor.”
While in the past Scott has maintained political alliances with moderate Democrats such as Starr and the late Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Grand Isle, Scott has so far this year reserved his political firepower almost exclusively for Republicans. He has thus far endorsed one Democratic incumbent in his general election bid, Rep. Jay Hooper of Randolph.
In his campaign rhetoric, the governor has utilized the Legislature’s voting record from the past two years as ammunition against Democratic candidates — even against those, like Sims, who identify as moderates and occasionally break from their caucus.
“I wasn’t even asking legislators to cross the aisle, which I’ve done my entire political life,” Scott said Tuesday night. “I was just asking them to just meet me in the middle. Even that was too much to ask for the supermajority. But this time — this time — I think they’ve gone a bit too far. Everyday Vermonters have had enough.”
Dems push back
Some Democrats consider the governor’s messaging misleading. Liam O’Sullivan, the House director for the Vermont Democratic Party, pointed to this year’s annual yield bill, which set average property tax rates across the state in order to fund the state’s education system.
Scott vetoed this year’s bill, which set an average property tax increase of 13.8% across the state, then the Legislature overrode his veto in June. On the campaign trail, Scott has continually referred back to this episode, resting blame on — in O’Sullivan’s words — the “big, bad supermajority” for ballooning property tax bills.
But whether to pass a yield bill, O’Sullivan said, was never a question. The state’s education system had to be funded one way or another, and while individual school budgets are determined by local voters, the yield bill is historically a must-pass bill that establishes baseline tax rates for the state.
“It’s funny how they’re using the supermajority,” O’Sullivan said, referring to Scott and down-ballot Republicans. “They voted against something that they knew was going to pass, and had to pass, in order for them to attack us on it.”
Indeed, at Tuesday night’s event, in the foreground of the gazebo from which Scott and Douglass delivered their remarks, six campaign posters proclaimed various local property tax increases in bold, fire-engine-red font — from Barton with a 13.5% increase, to Brownington with 22.6%. The posters implored of readers, in all-capital letters: “ASK ‘WHY?’”
And in his speech, Douglass took after his endorsee, lobbing shots at Sims for the property tax episode — despite the fact that she voted against H.887 upon its final roll call in the House, and was later one of four House Democrats to buck her caucus and vote against overriding Scott’s veto of the bill. Before the bill hit the floor, however, Sims did vote ‘yes’ in May when it was approved by the House Ways and Means Committee, on which she sits, by an 8-4 vote along party lines.
Maulucci said the governor is “very particular” about endorsed candidates committing the cardinal sin of Vermont politics: going negative. But what the campaign does think is “totally fair and, in fact, necessary” is scrutinizing incumbents’ voting records from their time in office.
“If an incumbent feels that their voting record being called out is somehow negative, then maybe they should have reconsidered how they voted,” Maulucci said.
Scott closed his speech in support of Douglass with a similar call to action for those in attendance: “Before voting for any incumbent in the Legislature, check their voting record. … Check their voting record before you check the box automatically.”
Scott — who won reelection by his largest margin yet in 2022 and regularly polls as the most highly approved governor in America — has repeatedly pointed to his statewide popularity as evidence that his own agenda mirrors that of the 71% of Vermonters who voted for him. The Democratic supermajority, he contends, thwarts him from enacting the policy ideals that have won over voters for four two-year terms.
Sen. Clarkson scoffed at that notion, which she described as a “non-issue,” “Republican spin” and “just sour grapes.” Voters didn’t only elect Scott, she contended. They also elected every Democrat in the Statehouse.
“No one’s forcing them to elect us. People have elected Democrats who seem to reflect their values,” Clarkson said. “So it’s really not our problem. It’s a Republican problem. It illustrates for me how a party headed by Donald Trump just doesn’t reflect the values of the majority of Vermonters. It’s kind of that simple.”
While the Scott campaign is focused on the Senate, the House, too, could be in play (although House Democrats do enjoy some cushion thanks to four like-minded Progressives in the chamber). Two current House Democrats — Rep. Joseph Andriano, D-Orwell, and Rep. Dave Templeman, D-Brownington — are bowing out this year, and the party was unable to recruit alternative Democrats to run for the now-empty seats. This fall, two Republicans will presumably walk into those seats unopposed, unless they face a formidable write-in challenger.
Even assuming all other incumbent House Democrats were to win reelection in November, Andriano and Templeman’s departures bring the caucus’s number down to 103, unless they flip other seats. O’Sullivan conceded that “there isn’t much room for error.”
But what House Democrats may lack in statewide starpower and a campaign spending power, O’Sullivan said they plan to make up for in old-school, on-the-ground campaigning.
“What we’re up to is making sure the candidates are hitting the doors and talking to voters, and making sure that that message that’s getting across from the governor is being squashed with direct voter contact,” he said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Phil Scott is campaigning harder than he has in years — but not for himself.