Well, those Burlington-area business types have slightly expanded their playing field as they try to weaken the Legislature’s ability to override gubernatorial vetoes. They’d backed a handful of centrist Democratic challengers to Dem/Prog incumbents (most notably Stewart Ledbetter and Elizabeth Brown*, only to see them all go down to defeat. (A similar effort was made by Brattleboro businessfolk in support of an unsuccessful challenge to Rep. Emilie Kornheiser.) They also backed some Republican hopefuls with a chance to knock off Democratic incumbents in November including LG candidate John Rodgers, two state reps running for Senate, Pat Brennan and Scott Beck, and the uncle-and-nephew tag team of Leland and Rep. Michael Morgan, running in a two-seat House district currently split between the two parties.

*We’d previously noted that Brown spent an appalling $35 per vote. It was actually $35.42, for those keeping score at home.

And now that same bunch of Vermont-scale plutocrats is throwing their weight, in the form of four-figure donations, behind Rep. Chris Mattos, running for Senate in the Chittenden North district currently repped by Sen. Irene Wrenner, and Steven Heffernan, Republican Senate candidate in Addison County. (A district that, according to Matthew Vigneau, solid Twitter follow and bigger election nerd than I, hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since the year 2000. Which was the year of the great civil-unions backlash that saw Republicans win in multiple unexpected locations, so grain of salt required.)

I haven’t come across any similarly blessed Republican candidates for House, but I didn’t do an exhaustive search. Then again, perhaps these low-grade plutocrats have decided (as have I) that the House is a lost cause for the Republicans.

So who’s giving how much to whom?

Mattos, who’d raised only about $3,500 as of August 1, saw his campaign kitty stuffed full. By September 1, he’d raised a total of $23,880 and had more than $21,000 left for the fall campaign. Wrenner lagged behind, having raised $10,839 and spent more than 3/4 of it, leaving her with only $3,268 in cash on hand.

Mattos’ donors include many of your favorites. Giving a thousand bucks apiece: Bruce Lisman, Jon Pizzagalli, Remo Pizzagalli, James Pizzagalli, Scott Boardman, Ray Pecor, Larkin Realty, C.B. Properties, Bissonette Properties, Masaii Properties, David Baker Jr., Steele Dubrul, and David Hauke. The Vermont Realtors PAC gave the maximum allowable amount of $1,680. Add all those up, and you’ve got the lion’s share of Mattos’ total haul.

Same thing with Heffernan. He’d raised less than $3,000 as of August 1, but he entered September with total fundraising of $14,925. He spent about half of that, which seems unwise considering that he now has to run in solid blue Addison against two strong Dem incumbents, Chris Bray and Ruth Hardy. Heffernan’s big donors include Bruce Lisman, Bissonette Properties, Brian Boardman, Mary Larkin (of Larkin Realty), Steele Dubrul, George Martin, and David and Mary Hauke.

The business guys (pretty much all men) seem to be betting on winning at least three, and maybe four, Democratic Senate seats. Reminder: A net gain of three Senate seats for Republicans would preserve the thinnest possible supermajority in that chamber, making overrides extremely difficult, and a net gain of four would end the supermajority.

Their focus is narrow by necessity; the VTGOP just doesn’t have many opportunities to chip away in the Senate. Other Republican Senate hopefuls are going begging. For example, Heffernan’s fellow Addison Republican Landel Cochran has raised only $6,040, with two-thirds of that coming from a pair of out-of-state donors; and Samuel Douglass, whose Dem opponent for Senate is the extremely well-funded Rep. Katherine Sims. Douglass entered September with $2,680 in cash on hand — compared to Sims’ more than $30,000.

Perhaps the deep-pocketed individual and special-interest Democratic donors will respond with big checks of their own in support of Wrenner et al. That’s what happened with the Democratic incumbents who faced centrist primary challengers, Sens. Phil Baruth, Martine Gulick and Tanya Vyhovsky, along with Reps. Kornheiser, Tom Stevens, and Theresa Wood. Some common names appear on all or most of their pre-primary campaign finance filings.

They include the VT-NEA’s Fund for Children and Public Education, the VSEA’s Vermont Political Awareness Committee, Vermont Building Trades, the Drug Policy Alliance, Renewable Energy Vermont, the lobbying firm Necrason Group and/or its lobbyists Adam Necrason and Rebecca Ramos, and Let’s Grow Kids head Alyson Richards.

Five of the six were still on the short end of the financial stick; Kornheiser substantially outraised challenger Amanda Ellis-Thurber thanks to the above donors plus several of her fellow Democratic electeds. Kornheiser took in more than $32,000, a figure that may be unprecedented for a House seat outside Chittenden County. Or perhaps even including Chittenden. (She spent less than $15,000, so she has a lot of money for her November campaign against Republican Susan Murray who, ahem, has filed nothing but “Under Threshold” reports so far.

Got a few more notes to run through, as briefly as possible

The Morgans have identical fundraising totals of $15,020, featuring almost identical donor lists. Michael is seeking re-election while Leland wants a House return after his failed 2022 bid for Senate in a Grand Isle Chittenden district whose other representative is Democrat Josie Leavitt. It must be noted that Leavitt tallied substantially more primary votes than either Morgan (Leavitt 663, Leland 526, Michael 522; the second Dem, Luke Richter, got 459). She’s raised more than $10,000 and spent only $280 in the primary, so she’s financially competitive in her bid to hold on to her seat.

St. Albans Republican Joe Luneau isn’t getting Burlington Bucks for his challenge to entrenched Dem incumbent Rep. Mike McCarthy, but some of his hometown businessfolk are filling the gap. Luneau has raised $10,697, all of it in August. Donors giving $1,000 or more include Handy Toyota, Michael Gosselin Rental , Gosselin Construction (the two Gosselin firms share a PO Box), 38 So. Main LLC, Giroux Rental, and D&H Housing of Swanton. Franklin County Rep. Eileen Dickinson gave Luneau $1,120. McCarthy appears to feel safe, since he’s raised less than $3,000.

Jason Herron, the faux Democrat who ran against real Dem Zon Eastes in Windham-1, has yet to file a 9/1 report. Which is interesting, since his previous filing was curiously incomplete. He has reported more than $6,000 in spending but zero fundraising. Where is his money coming from? And how much more did he squander between August 1 and the primary? We await the answers with bated breath.

Finally, an oddity. A bunch of low-dollar and no-hope Republican candidates bought yard signs and other paraphernalia from the same firm: Spectrum Marketing, based in Manchester, NH. What do they have against supporting local business, hm?