I’ve done a fairly close reading of the July 1 campaign finance reports for state Senate candidates (So You Don’t Have To), and one thing jumped right out at me: Republican candidates are be doing little or nothing.

Including at least a couple of incumbents. It’s remarkable.

A couple of caveats apply. Few of these people face primary competition, so it’s early. And in 2024, the Barons of Burlington swarmed in after the 4th of July and dumped four-figure checks into the campaign accounts of several Republican Senate candidates plus LG hopeful John Rodgers. They could still do the same this year. We eagerly await the August 1 campaign finance deadline.

But there’s one fact, previously noted in this space, that makes me think it might not happen. In the spring of 2024, Gov. Phil Scott’s campaign blew a bunch of money on polling. A curious expenditure, given that he had clear sailing in his bid for another term. From the course of events it’s easy to infer that the polling focused on other races, specifically LG and the Senate. Because it was after the polling that (a) the Barons activated their checkbooks and (b) Scott himself got off his ass and actively campaigned for those key candidates.

Well, this spring the Scott campaign did virtually nothing. It spent a mere $7,000 between March 15 and July 1, and none of it was for polling. I can’t say for sure that Scott and the Republicans have given up on extending their legislative gains of 2024, but it’s kinda-sorta starting to look that way. They may be content with preventing a return of Democratic supermajorities. Which should be achievable; I think it’ll be a long time before the Dems win 20 seats in the Senate again.

Let’s start in normally deep blue Addison County, where Republican Sen. Steven Heffernan entered the cycle with $7,110 left over from his lavishly funded 2024 campaign. He has since done virtually nothing; he raised $600 and spent $44.29. That’s right, forty-four dollars and twenty-nine cents.

And he actually faces a primary battle, because there are two other Republicans in the race for two nominations. But his competition aren’t exactly heavyweights either. Andrea Treadway ha raised $3,160 so far, which sounds like an okay start — except that all but about $300 came from her own pocket. Her biggest expenditure by far was $2,500 to Cambium Group of CLermont, FL for “website development.” I guess she’s never heard of WordPress, where even a Luddite like me can create a perfectly adequate website for a few bucks. Or if she wanted to go a slightly more professional route, she could have done what Windsor County Democrat (and Wall Street lawyer) Ben Brickner did: He paid Squarespace $263.50 for his website.

There are a couple other Senate Republicans who wasted thousands on Cambium Group, but we’ll get to them in due time. The third Republican on the Addison ballot is Andrew Klein, who raised $1,000 and took in another $2,016 of in-kind donations — with every single penny coming from his own pocket.

Take away the self-funding, and you have three Addison Republicans who’ve combined to raise a not-so-grand total of $908. And again, they’re in a primary battle. Sheesh. The two Democrats, Sen. Ruth Hardy and Hannah Sessions, have a combined fundraising total of $72,000. Think the Dems are feeling good about retaking that second Addison Senate seat?

Hopping and skipping down to Bennington, where two Republicans are in the running for two nominations. One of them, Jack Williams, ain’t done diddly squat. The other, Lawrence “Spike” Whitemire, has raised $1,940. All but $250 came from the Shaftsbury Republican Committee. They’re up against incumbent Dems Seth Bongartz and Rob Plunkett, who seem to be in cruise control. They’ve combined to raise $4,640 so far this cycle.

From one corner of the state to another, our alphabetical tour takes us to Caledonia, where incumbent Republican Scott Beck is just gliding along. He’s raised $3,025 so far this cycle, and he has a bit less than $1,000 left over from 2024. He did make the mistake of paying the Cambium Group for a website, although his outlay was only $500. No idea why they billed Treadway five times as much; I hope she held on to the receipt. Caledonia Democrat David Roth has raised a respectable $5,729 (including $499 from the campaign fund of U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu), but he faces an uphill battle against Beck.

Next it’s over to Chittenden Central, where there are no Republicans in the race. So let’s spend a moment on the Democratic money battle. Incumbent Martine Gulick has raised $11,495 so far, and incumbent Prog/Dem Tanya Vyhovsky has raised $18,000 in addition to $6,000 left over from past campaigns. Elaine Haney, former head of the former Emerge Vermont, has raised a formidable $53,000; her donors include many prominent Democrats like former governor Madeleine Kunin, former treasurer Beth Pearce, former party chairs Jake Perkinson and Anne Lezak, former representatives Jessica Brumsted and Joan Lenes, and Phoenix Books owner Michael DeSanto.

Oh, and real estate tycoon Ernie Pomerleau gave Haney a maximum $1,940 donation.

It’s all very impressive… until you take a look at the finances of the other Democratic hopeful, Nikhil Goyal. He has raised an otherworldly $138,000 so far. That’s almost certainly an all-time record for a legislative candidate in Vermont. He seems to have benefited from the wide network of affluent Asian-Americans; there are a lot of Asian names on his donor list, most of whom gave $1,000 or more. How exactly he’s going to deploy all that money I don’t know. Legislative campaigns normally depend on shoe leather, brochures, and mailings. The voters of Chittenden Central may be getting a lot of postcards from the Goyal campaign.

On to Chittenden North, where Republican Rep. Ashley Bartley will face former Democratic Sen. Irene Wrenner. Bartley has raised $16,000, including a WTF-inducing $250 donation from Attorney General Charity Clark, who is [checks notes] yep, I thought so, a Democrat. Wrenner has raised $8,340. After you deduct expenditures and add their surpluses from previous cycles, Bartley has a modest edge in available cash, $14,000 to $9,400.

There are two Republicans who’ve volunteered for a deathmarch in the solidly Democratic Chittenden Southeast district, and they’ve done surprisingly well in fundraising. Like, they’re among the top fundraisers for all the Republican Senate candidates. Bruce Roy, making his second bid for Senate, has raised $8,094. Fellow Republican Javen Sears has raised $9,290. Just as a reminder: when Roy ran in 2024, the best possible year for Republican Senate candidates, he finished a distant fourth with 15% of the vote. I doubt the district is going to turn red anytime soon.

Done with Chittenden, are we? On to remote Essex, where no Democrat is running against incumbent Republican (and founder of the not-a-party Vermont Party) Russ Ingalls, and he is fundraising accordingly. He has $1,800 left over from 2024, and he has raised precisely zero dollars so far this year.

In the blue-turned-red Franklin district, incumbent Republican Randy Brock has yet to file any campaign finance reports this year. Fellow incumbent Republican Robert Norris has raised about $3,500 including $1,733 in in-kind donations from himself. He received exactly ONE donation from the rest of humankind: $1,800 from a Michael Norris of Colchester. A relative, perhaps?

In the Grand Isle district, incumbent Republican Pat Brennan received one $500 donation and has otherwise done nothing. His Democratic challenger Kim Gleason has raised $7,761 including $1,000 from herself.

I hadn’t bothered to check Lamoille County until just now, because incumbent Republican Richard Westman is a shoo-in. No Democrat has entered the race. His last three campaign finance reports (7/1/2025, 3/15/206, 7/1/2026) each show minimal activity: $292 between the end of 2024 and July 1, 2025, $1,347 between July 2025 and March 2026, and $0.00 between this March and this July 1. But his latest campaign finance filing reports a total for this cycle of more than $15,000. That doesn’t add up.

I think it’s a reporting error by Team Westman. His final disclosure from the 2024 cycle reported total fundraising of nearly $14,000. Whoever filled out his last three filings should have entered any leftover cash as a surplus carried forward. Perhaps he will get around to amending his reports one of these days. Let’s say that as far as I can tell, he’s raised about $1,600 so far this cycle, which is probably more than he needs.

Here’s another case of a Republican who ought to be doing better but he’s not. In the Orange district, Sen. John Benson is running for his first full term. He was appointed to the Senate in January to replace Larry Hart, Sr. Benson reports having raised a not inconsiderable $7,765. But there’s one hell of an asterisk: He has loaned his own campaign $5,000. His total fundraising from the rest of the planet is a mere $1,650.

Also, he wins the Booby Prize for the Cambium Group’s Biggest Chump. He paid them $3,000 for “website development.” I have seen his website, and I can tell you he got fleeced. The two Democrats in this race were covered previously in a post about Rose Lucenti’s gaggle of lobbyist/donors.

In the Orleans district, half-term incumbent John Morley (appointed to replace Sam Douglass) has neither raised nor spent more than $500, so he doesn’t have to itemize. Which is no biggie because he has no opposition in the primary or general election. This used to be a safe Democratic seat, for those just tuning in.

Down to Rutland, where no Democrats entered the race and the three incumbent Republicans are sleepwalking to re-election. Brian Collamore, David Weeks, and Terry Williams have combined to raise $95. Williams hasn’t even filed any campaign finance reports, so he must be real big on law ‘n order.

Same story only worse in Washington County, where the three Republicans have combined to raise $0.00. That includes former state representative Rob LaClair.

Home stretch! The deep blue Windham district features two sadly underfunded Republicans: the previously unsuccessful Dale Gassett (no activity reported) and Rusty Sage, who has raised precisely $834. And $318 of that came from Dale Gassett.

Finally (FINALLY!), we come to Windsor County, where the three Republicans have no fundraising activity on file. Jack Williams and Jonathan Gleason have reported zero fundraising; Andrea Murray, whose 2024 candidacy revealed a complete lack of respect for filing deadlines, has yet to file any reports for this election cycle. (She must have spent at least a little money because I see her ads on Vermont Daily Chronicle, whose readership mostly lives outside Windsor and can’t vote for her. Since her 2024 campaign leaned heavily on the Murray household for support, I assume she’s paid for those ads herself.)

Now let’s add up all the fundraising for all the Republican Senate candidates, not including donations or loans from the candidates themselves. We have a total of 27 Republicans running for Senate. They have combined to raise a depressing $45,641. And more than one-third of that was raised by Ashley Bartley. And another one-third is going to waste in Chittenden Southeast.

Divide $45,641 by 27 and you get an equally depressing $1,690 per candidate. Take away Ashley, Roy, and Sears, it’s even worse: $12,257 raised by 24 candidates — a bit more than $500 apiece!

The generous interpretation is that the Republicans are keeping their powder dry for the post-primary season. The ungenerous interpretation is that they aren’t going to seriously try to improve on their 2024 showing. Perhaps they’ve concluded that the anti-Trump headwinds are just too strong.

They’re not seriously competing — so far — outside their current roster of 13 seats, and even a couple of their incumbents are falling flat in the money race. It’s the most striking thing I saw in my deep dive into Senatorial campaign finance filings.