A Rising Tide Floats Phil’s Boat

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Gov. Phil Scott’s whingeing about VPIRG attack ads seems even more petty now that the Republican Governors Association has dumped another $550,000 into its local outlet, A Stronger Vermont. For those keeping score, the RGA has now dedicated $950,000 to defending the man formerly known as the most popular governor in America. (ASV began the year with $70,000 in the bank, so its total resources now top the $1 million mark.) If you want a measure of his decline, there it is: In a year when the RGA faces an anti-Trump wave across the country, they’re investing big money into the guy who seemed unbeatable as recently as last spring.

Or to put it more precisely, they’re investing big money on attack ads aimed at undercutting Democratic challenger Amanda Janoo. A few months ago she didn’t even seem like a threat to win her party’s nomination, let alone have a chance to defeat the man who’s won more elections than any other Vermont politician in the 21st Century. (Scott’s record is 13-0 since he entered politics in 2000. His next defeat will be his first.)

A Stronger Vermont disclosed the $550,000 from RGA in a brand-new mass media filing that reports expenditures totaling $252,046.70 on TV ads ($140K), online ads ($72K) and the dreaded consultancy fees for out-of-state political shop Flexpoint Media ($38K).

It’ll be interesting to see if we get more of the original anti-Janoo spot focusing on her alleged inexperience, or if the independent PAC goes scorched earth by depicting Janoo as an unhinged radical who looks suspiciously immigrant-y (although she is, in fact, a Vermont native). You know, the old skin-darkening trick deployed so widely against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

A Stronger Vermont’s total 2026 spending adds up to more than $715,000, and it has enough cash on hand to exceed $1,000,000. We haven’t seen this much independent spending in a Vermont gubernatorial campaign since 2016, when ASV spent more than $3,000,000 on Scott’s behalf and the Planned Parenthood Vermont Action Fund spent close to $460,000 (most of that originating from the Democratic Governors Association) on a misguided campaign trying to depict Scott as secretly anti-abortion.

So we haven’t seen this level of outside meddling in a gubernatorial campaign in a decade, and as of now it’s all happening on one side: pro-Scott, anti-Janoo. (Janoo has expressed her opposition to any DGA entry into the race, while Scott has refused to condemn the RGA’s efforts.) Despite its name, A Stronger Vermont is headquartered in the same Washington, D.C. building as the RGA itself. If the latter has committed almost a million dollars to ASV, you can bet it plans to spend that much. And more, if it seems necessary.

I guess we really do have a close race on our hands.

6 thoughts on “A Rising Tide Floats Phil’s Boat”

  1. k2s2together's avatark2s2together

    Spending money like that makes you wonder what do they want from Phil Scott that they know they’re not going to get from Amanda Janoo?

    Are Vermonters going to be sold to the highest bidder?

    Don’t worry about those data centers, Scott says.

    Let’s do some Age Banding and charge older people more for their healthcare, Scott says.

    Etc.

    Etc.

    Etc.

    He says he’s running for office again because he’s got unfinished business.

    Well looks like it, huh?

    Thanks ASV for letting us know Scott may be up to some not so nice guy stuff.

    It’s past time for Phil Scott to go.

    Vote for Amanda Janoo. She won’t be bought.

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  3. zim's avatarzim

    Scott’s performance in the debates was pathetic – absolutely pathetic. Talk about an old boomer limp **** and brilliant testament to what’s wrong with your clueless f**ling generation who think they are the measure of all things. He couldn’t even trouble himself with preparing to seriously debate any of her policy position much less her superior intellect. But she is a woman of color and that would beneath him and his gop clown car to act as if her existence and campaign had any merit worth consideration. Nooo, he’d rather appear on a post card with the neo-fascist, semi-literate and arch-ignoramus Aida Nielsen from Brandon. This should tell you all you need to know about Scott and the VTGOP. Nielsen’s Long March Backward campaign to bring back slavery and enshrine paterfamilias as the defacto law of the land reveals just what kind raw sewage swirls around the empty noggins of Vermont’s ‘salt of the earth’ rural gene pool. And we pay the highest per student cost to reproduce this outcome? No wonder any youth that survives schooling with a braincell intact wants to book Vermont as soon as they graduate. To Scott’s credit, in the endorsement photo Scott kept his distance from Nielsen and looked mildly ashamed and uncomfortable as if he was concerned that he might be about to catch something fatal. His (and the VTGOP) failure to condemn Ramaswamy’s scummiest of scummiest low-life attacks on Anton is all you need to know about who and what these people really are about.

    Out with the Phil and in with the Janoo. She did great job in the debates and is running a great campaign – she is invigorating the younger gens and that will kill Scott. She has more than a shot at the governorship.

    GO JANOO.

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  4. John DL Black's avatarJohn DL Black

    Oddly, all of the political ads I see on my streaming services here in VT have all been about campaigns in Maine so… well done PAC’s.

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