So it’s primary night in Vermont, and as the results come in, I’m here to read and react. Stay tuned!

Maybe Planet Hank Isn’t a Genius After All. The first contested race to be called by the Associated Press was the Republican primary for the chance to lose to U.S. Rep. Becca Balint in November. And the big winner was Gerald Malloy, who beat Mark Coester by a better than two-to-one margin. Coester’s low-rent campaign leaned heavily on AI-generated Balint attack videos produced by “Planet Hank” Poitras. I had worried that Hank could prove to be a rising star in Vermont conservative circles, because those folks are often drawn to extreme, flashy rhetoric. My concerns are significantly assuaged tonight. Not that we can close the books on Hank, but Coester’s lopsided loss blows a big hole in Hank’s reputation for strategery.

Malloy, meanwhile, kinda-sorta positioned himself as the “moderate,” if only by the current standards of Republican politics. The few Malloy campaign signs I spotted did not feature his notorious scary eagle logo, which I guess was part of the rebranding? No matter; Malloy is destined to go down to his third consecutive defeat in November. In 2022 he got 28% of the vote to Peter Welch’s 68.5% in the race for U.S. Senate. In 2024 he upped his total to 32% while Bernie Sanders took 63%. At this rate, Malloy will win an election in the year 2036. I think that’s a highly optimistic view of his political future.

Molly Gray’s Big Night. The second major race to be called was the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. Turned out the UNH opinion polls got this one right; former LG Molly Gray had no trouble defeating Ryan McLaren and Esther Charlestin. McLaren’s furious fundraising and spending elevated him from a third-place tie with Charlestin to a solid but very distant second. As of this writing, Gray has more than twice as many votes as McLaren.

(The UNH polls were equally prophetic about the Malloy/Coester race. Maybe we should take the other results seriously?)

Instant reax: Gray had a huge advantage in name recognition entering the contest. Mclaren is well known in Democratic circles but had no public profile to speak of before he launched his campaign. He didn’t have much time to close that gap. And I have to say, he didn’t present a convincing rationale for his candidacy — not convincing enough for voters to abandon the candidate they knew. McLaren complained about internal Vermont Democratic Party doings, a tactic that didn’t resonate with the public and may have hurt him with party insiders. He apparently tossed another grenade last month that exploded in the forest and nobody heard? This intriguing nugget from VTDigger’s election night coverage:

In strongly worded interviews, McLaren told VTDigger last month that both of his opponents were falling back on the lieutenant governor role after failing to achieve a higher office (referring, in Gray’s case, to an unsuccessful U.S. House run in 2022).

The Digger story does not include a link to any previous coverage of McLaren’s “strongly worded” remarks, and I don’t remember reading anything about them. Did I miss it? Did Digger not think his statements were newsworthy? If so, that’s an egregious error.

Janoo holds a consistent but small edge. Amanda Janoo has spent all evening on top of the Democratic gubernatorial primary, but Aly Richards is right on her tail. As of this writing, she has a 3-percentage-point lead with about 60% of the votes counted. If she hangs on, she will have defeated a candidate with a bigger war chest and the backing of an independent PAC. It would be another example of Democratic primary voters opting for the more progressive candidate over the mainstream choice. We’ll see.

Oh yeah, Tim Ashe won. The former Senate president pro tem turned deputy auditor had no trouble nailing down the Democratic nomination to succeed his boss, Doug Hoffer. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that Hoffer has basically turned over the public-facing reins to Ashe; for months, all the auditor’s press releases have come from Ashe, not Hoffer. The primary featured Ashe against two virtual unknowns who maybe got their campaign merch (if they had any) from the Acme Corporation.

Some uncomfortably close primaries for state Senate. A real barnburner in the Windsor district, as three candidates are within a single percentage point of each other in a fight for the third and final Democratic nomination. So far it looks like incumbent Dem Becca White has it in the bag, but it gets tighter after that. As of this writing, with 86% of the vote counted, White has 26.9%, fellow incumbent Joe Major has 19.8%, and the three others are at 15.9% (Ben Brickner), 15.8% (Heather Chase), and 15.1% (Elizabeth Burrows). Could be a very late night. Or could set the stage for a recount.

Windsor update. 90% of the votes are in, and incumbents White and Major have been declared winners. The third nomination is very much up for grabs; right now, Burrows is at 16.2%, Chase has 15.7, and Brickner has slipped into fifth place at 15.2%. Still extremely close.

In Chittenden Central, Nikhil Goyal’s unprecedented war chest seems to be translating into a victory. It’s a race for three Democratic nominations with incumbent Phil Baruth not seeking re-election. Right now, with 84% of the vote in, Goyal is actually in first place with 27.2%, while incumbent Martine Larocque Gulick is in second with 26 % and incumbent Tanya Vyhovsky is third with 24.2%. Elaine Haney is in fourth with 21.8%. She needs a quick turnaround and time keeps on slippin’, slippin, slippin’ into the future.

In Chittenden Southeast, a race that had been close for most of the evening seems to be sorting itself out, but it’s too soon to call and only 36% of the vote has been counted as of 9:37 p.m. That’s, um, not a lot of counting, folks. Incumbents Thomas Chittenden (23.5%) and Ginny Lyons (23.4%) appear comfortable, but fellow incumbent and Senate Minority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale (20.6%) holds a disconcertingly slim margin over Elizabeth Ann Hunt (18.0%). The fifth candidate, Joanna Grossman, is at 13.9%.

If Hinsdale doesn’t survive, it’d be a monumental upset. If she does, but only by the skin of her teeth, will it affect her widely-expected bid to succeed Baruth as Senate President Pro Tem? Put it this way: It can’t help.

A couple of veteran House members are going down. In the Windsor-1 Democratic primary, longtime incumbent John Bartholomew is third in a contest for two nominations and the Associated Press has called the race. Looks like he’s out after 16 years in the House. In Windsor-Orange-2, the AP has blown the whistle on veteran lawmaker Jim Masland’s career; he’s been in the House since 1991, but tonight he finished third in a contest for two nominations.

Janoo still out in front. Same as it ever was in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Amanda Janoo continues to hold a lead over Aly Richards, and it’s been growing very slowly. With 75% of the vote counted, Janoo is at 49.7% to Richards’ 45.8%. “Total write-ins” are at 4.5%.

Sarah Fair George is holding on… so far. Well, Bram Kranichfeld is doing a lot better than Ted Kenney did in 2022, but it may not be quite enough to knock off incumbent Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah Fair George. With about three-quarters of the vote in, George has a lead of slightly less than two percentage points over Kranichfeld. It may come down to the unknown (at least to me): Which districts have yet to be counted? Staunchly progressive outposts in the Queen City, or potentially skittish suburban precincts in, say, Essex or Hinesburg?

Down to the wire in Windsor. With 99% of the vote counted, the AP has declared incumbents Becca White and Joe Major winners in Windsor but the third Dem nomination remains up for grabs. Looks like Elizabeth Burrows has the inside track with 16.4% of the vote to Heather Chase’s 15.8% and Ben Brickner’s 15.1%.

Two down, one to go in Chittenden Central. The AP has declared Nikhil Goyal and Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick winners but the third nomination is still up for grabs, at least by newswire standards. Incumbent Tanya Vyhovsky has a nearly three percentage point lead over Elaine Haney with 95% of the votes counted.

One-sided win in Orange. Rep. Monique Priestley had no trouble winning the Democratic nomination for Mark MacDonald’s old seat. She beat Rose Lucenti by better than two-to-one.

That’s gotta sting a little. The Secretary of State’s website includes “Blank Votes,” which the AP seemingly does not. In the Democratic gubernatorial race, 8.63% of the ballots were blank. That’s more than 6,000 primary voters who turned in ballots but didn’t make up their minds in the most important contest of the night.

It’s over in Chittenden Central. AP has declared three winners for three nominations: Nikhil Goyal and incumbents Martine Larocque Glick and Tanya Vyhovsky. Elaine Haney on the outside looking in.

Come on, Burlington! According to the Secretary of State’s website, only one of six precincts in Burlington have tallied their votes as of 10:50 p.m. That seems like good news for Amanda Janoo and Sarah Fair George. Janoo has a 3.3 percentage point lead over Aly Richards with 93% of the vote counted, which means a LOT of the uncounted votes are from Burlington. You’d think Janoo would do well there. George’s lead over Kranichfeld has widened to 2.9 percentage points, and if most of the uncounted votes are from Burlington, then she’s got to be in the driver’s seat.

Janoo wins. The AP has called the Democratic gubernatorial race for Amanda Janoo, who overcame significant financial and advertising disadvantages to pull off a victory over Aly Richards. And now all she has to do is beat Phil Scott. Yay?

Last call. Just about everything is settled, and I’m going to get some shuteye. Expect a deeper dive tomorrow/Wednesday into the gubernatorial result and other top stories. Final notes for tonight: Nikhil Goyal and the two incumbents win in the Chittenden Central district, the three incumbents win in Chittenden Southeast, one Senate nom remains officially up for grabs in Windsor while the two incumbents sail on to November, and Sarah Fair George is widening her lead over Bram Kranichfeld in the Democratic primary for Chittenden County State’s Attorney.

Oh, and in Addison County, nearly 11,000 people voted in the Democratic primary versus about 3,400 in the Republican. Bad news for Steven Heffernan, methinks.