The September 1 campaign finance deadline has come and gone. There will be plenty to report on, but we must begin with the final numbers for ex-TV anchor Stewart Ledbetter’s failed bid for state Senate. It’s one for the history books. Ledbetter managed to turn his broadcasting fame and an immense pile of cash into a fourth-place finish in a race for three Democratic nominations.
The carnage: Ledbetter’s campaign raised a total of $68,557, including $10,518 between August 1 and primary day. That has got to be an all-time record for a Vermont legislative campaign. If anyone can think of a more costly effort, I’ll amend this post*. And Ledbetter raised all that money for a primary. He didn’t even make it to the general.
*VPO reader and Middlebury College professor Jason Mittell points out that although Ledbetter had the biggest campaign fund, he was actually “bested” in spending per vote. By Mittell’s reckoning, Elizabeth Brown, business-backed Democratic candidate in the two-seat Waterbury district, spent an incredible $35 per vote received**.
**And we have a winner! Reader David Ellenbogen points out gas station magnate and G.W. Bush megadonor turned ambassador Skip Vallee. He ran for state Senate in 2000 and finished eighth in a race for six seats despite spending (according to Seven Days) an incredible $123,000, including $60,000 of his own money. Vallee remains unchallenged as running the most expensive campaign for a legislative seat in Vermont history. Unlike Ledbetter, however, Vallee at least advanced to the general and spent his wad over the full campaign season, not just the primary.
He spent a total of $58,495 on his campaign, including an amazing $28,962 after the end of July. He was spending money at a frantic pace when many voters had already cast their ballots. It’s understandable, since there must have been a desperate scramble to shovel cash into any available furnace. Even so, he managed to leave more than $10,000 unspent.
Ledbetter got 3,159 votes in the primary. Which meant he spent $18.51 per vote.
Apologies for all the italics, but the numbers are simply astounding. And not in a good way.
In the days before the primary, funds continued to flow into Ledbetter’s overstuffed kitty from the Burlington-area business class. Entrepreneur Russ Scully donated $1,680. Scully’s CEO in the HULA co-working space Robert Lair gave $1,000. Other last-minute thousand-dollar donors included Republican operative turned all-purpose fixer Neale Lunderville, realtor Doug Nedde, mechanical contractor Bob Avonda, and Pietro Lynn of the LLBT law firm. Developer Ernie Pomerleau chipped in a lousy $500.
Oh, almost forgot. Ledbetter got another $1,000 from Tom Evslin, founder of NG Advantage, the natural gas company whose “virtual pipeline” of tanker trucks has been known to catch fire at inopportune moments. And his wife Mary gave $250.
I wonder what all those financially savvy people thought on primary night as they watched their donations vanish into thin air.
Ledbetter’s desperate closing-days spending spree included $24,648 on mass media, featuring what must have been an ungodly quantity of postcards as well as TV and radio ad buys that mostly reached voters outside the district, a splash of online advertising, and a soupçon of print ads.
Yes, that’s just shy of $25,000 spent between August 1 and August 13. Christ on a cracker.
The only winners in this: Whatever print shop cranked out all those postcards, the media outlets that happily accepted his checks, and the two Democratic operatives who helmed his campaign, Nick Charyk and Lachlan Francis (d/b/a Chary & Francis LLC). The bulk of Ledbetter’s mass media spending went through their firm. They billed the campaign a total of $23,321 during the month of August alone. Nice work if you can get it.
One other winner: Quinn Pidgeon, an intern described in a 2022 Seven Days article as “a rising junior at Middlebury College” who worked on U.S. Rep. Becca Balint’s campaign for Congress and later did a summer internship in Balint’s office. He was paid a total of $3,500 in “Consulting Fees” by the Ledbetter campaign.
Otherwise, losers all around. I doubt that anyone will ever write a book about Ledbetter’s campaign because why would they, but it’d be a fascinating read. If everyone involved told the truth, that is. And why would they?
The Vermont Political Observer. 
Adjusted for inflation, I believe Skip Vallee’s attempt to win a senate seat (although I do think he at least made it to the general election in Chittenden County) was more expensive. As I recall, he spent over 30K about 20 years ago.
Hmm. I looked up the Chittenden Senate election results from 2000 to 2014 and I don’t see Vallee’s name anywhere. I’m approving your comment but until I can verify when/if Vallee ran for state Senate, I won’t amend my post.
How hard did you look John? Here’s what I found at SevenDays when I googled Skip Vallee (within the the article that can be found at https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/the-last-minute-to-play-12693413 :
“But by the late 1990s, when he emerged on the Vermont political scene as national committeeman for the state GOP, Vallee had clearly aligned with the conservative wing of his party. In 2000, he served as finance chair of Ruth Dwyer’s fire-and-brimstone gubernatorial campaign, which embraced the state’s “Take Back Vermont” movement and vigorously opposed its legalization of same-sex civil unions.
That year, for the first and last time, Vallee sought elected office himself: a seat representing Chittenden County in the state Senate. Though he opposed abortion rights and civil unions, he took a more pragmatic position than Dwyer and downplayed those positions in his own campaign.
Democrats nevertheless attacked Vallee in a mailing as “too extreme for Chittenden County” and eviscerated him for spending a record $123,000 on the race, including $60,000 of his own money. He lost that November by 1,333 votes. (Vallee said he has since become “more libertarian” and now supports same-sex marriage.)”
David: I searched the Secretary of State’s elections archive. And somehow managed to overlook Vallee, who finished eighth in a race for six seats. I rechecked and spotted him. Don’t know how I missed him the first time. I’ll take 7D’s word for his spending; the SoS’ campaign finance archive only goes back to 2014.
Thanks for the breakdown on Brown and Ledbetter’s campaign. This shows at least that the Vt voters were not bullied by these “centrist democrats,” and theef big money feeding their campaigns and the “centrist democrats.” I’m sure it is an amazingly time-consuming to investigate this stuff, but thanks for doing all the work for it and putting it out into the open.