I’ve spent too much time in recent days going over campaign finance reports for all the races for state Senate. Well, all but Richard Westman’s unopposed bid for a [checks notes] twenty-fourth consecutive term in the Legislature. I think I’m safe in skipping that one.

There’s a lot to report, and it’ll be coming your way very soon. But here’s a little something I discovered that’s worth a moment of your time. It’s fairly small potatoes, but it might develop into something more.

The Senate race in the Orange district features incumbent Republican John Benson making his first bid for a full term (he was appointed in January to replace Larry Hart, Sr., who found out that lawmaking is hard work) and two Democratic hopefuls: State Rep. Monique Priestley and retired Department of Labor staffer Rose Lucenti. The seat is historically Democratic; it flipped Republican in the 2024 wave election, so the Democratic nominee will have a decent shot at unflipping it.

Priestley is doing just fine, thanks. She entered the cycle with $6,400 in the bank and proceeded to raise a healthy $23,000. She’s spent a bit more than $6,000, so she entered July with roughly $23,000 in cash on hand. That’s already enough money to compete in a mostly rural district.

Where things get a little intriguing is in Lucenti’s latest report.

Her total fundraising is nowhere near Priestley’s. Lucenti has raised $2,298 and spent none of it. She’s also received $2,942 in “in-kind contributions,” where someone has provided or bought goods or services for the campaign instead of donating cash money. She herself put up $2,600 of that total by paying for ActBlue’s Votebuilder service.

And here’s the thing. The rest of her intake, both direct and in-kind, came from outside her district. It came, in fact, from Statehouse lobbyists and an out-of-state advocacy group for the tech industry.

Which would be highly curious until you realize that in the House, Priestley has been a fierce advocate for privacy protections in the online space. She was the lead sponsor (along with Republican Rep. Michael Marcotte, chair of the House Committee on Commerce & Economic Development) of H.208, a bill that would have provided robust “data privacy and online surveillance protections to all Vermonters.”

The bill was highly popular, at least initially; when it was introduced in January 2025 it had 51 co-sponsors. It was assigned to Marcotte’s committee where, considering he was a lead sponsor, you might have expected it to get a full and friendly hearing. Instead, it sat there on the wall throughout the biennium and died when this year’s session was adjourned.

Returning to the present day, there appear to be some tech-related people who’d rather not see Priestley elevated to the Senate. Here’s the complete list of Lucenti donors from her July 1 report, with relevant information about their tech ties.

• Maggie Lenz ($842.07 in-kind), Montpelier-based lobbyist whose client list includes the State Privacy & Security Coalition, a national organization that fights against bills like H.208 in states across the country. The Coalition’s leader, Andrew Kingman, has been a powerful force against online consumer protections. (If you’d like to know more about Kingman, get a gander of this piece from Politico that opens with the defeat of a 2024 bill similar to H.208, a defeat credited to the efforts of Kingman and SPSC.)
• NECTA, the Boston-based New England Connectivity and Telecommunications Association ($250), a trade organization representing technology and communications interests.
• Timothy Wilkerson ($250), president of NECTA.
• Dylan Zwicky ($250), registered as a lobbyist for NECTA and the Vermont Technology Alliance.
• Megan Sullivan ($200), registered as a lobbyist for the Vermont Chamber of Commerce.
• Joshua Diamond ($200), partner in the Burlington-based Dinse law firm and a lobbyist for the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and the Electronic Payments Coalition.
• Gwynn Zakov ($300), founder and head of Garnet Government Relations. Her many clients don’t seem to include any related to the tech industry.

That’s it. That’s the full list of Lucenti’s benefactors.

Now, we’re talking relatively small dollars — a mere $2,292.07 including Lenz’ in-kind support. But when they’re all from outside her district? And most have represented organizations that likely opposed H.208? Well, something smells faintly of fish.

It’s not nearly enough to seriously threaten Priestley. She has more than enough money to run circles around Lucenti and her backers. But what if they held their fire until after the July 1 report to avoid exposure? The next campaign finance deadline is less than two weeks before the August primary, so if they came in big in July there’d be little time for word to get out.

There’d also be precious little time for Lucenti to spend the money effectively, but still. This may well be nothing more than a blip on the radar; if the tech industry was seriously invested in defeating Priestley, they could obviously be spending a hell of a lot more. But there’s still time.

It’s also an object lesson in the price of political bravery. When you’re a strong advocate for the interests of consumers at the potential expense of a powerful industry, you might find yourself gathering unexpected political enemies.