Another precinct has been heard from. The national NKOTB doing business as State Navigate has come out with its final pre-election poll on Vermont’s top two races, and the results track closely with previous polling. In the race for governor, incumbent Phil Scott has a narrow lead on challenger Amanda Janoo, but it’s within the dreaded Margin of Error and beneath the 50% threshold. That’s right: Mr. Popularity still hasn’t mustered a majority against a first-time candidate who was a virtual unknown in Vermont politics until the spring of this year. In the race for lieutenant governor, Democrat Molly Gray holds a seemingly insurmountable lead over incumbent Republican John Rodgers.

State Navigate, for those unfamiliar, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan outfit that does state-level polling through digital means. I haven’t done a deep dive, but they seem legitimate. Their results track closely with polls by the UNH Survey Center and Vermont Public.

Bottom line: This new poll gives Scott 49% to Janoo’s 46%. The undecideds are at 3%, and other candidates (mainly independent Brian Judd and June Goodband of the Peace and Justice Party) get 2%. State Navigate’s earlier poll showed the same margin between Scott and Janoo, but more voters undecided or opting for minor candidates. No surprise, more and more people are making up their minds and migrating to the top two choices. And no surprise, they’re more or less splitting down the middle. If that trend continues, Scott would win by the smallest margin of any of his six campaigns for governor. Hell, I think it might be the smallest margin of victory he’s ever enjoyed, going all the way back to his first state Senate race in 2000.

There’s also this bit of analysis from State Navigate, which tosses some cold water on Democratic hopes:

Scott’s personal standing remains his strongest asset. Voters approve of the job he is doing 58% to 40%. Scott wins a quarter of Democrats, and that crossover is the reason a Republican is competitive at all in Vermont. The few voters who remain undecided and haven’t yet voted lean Republican, and most backed Scott in 2024. There are too few of them to decide the race on their own, but they give Scott a slight cushion if they come home.

A note on that 58% figure, which seems at odds with earlier approval polling. It breaks down to 31% strongly approve and another 27% “somewhat approve.” If the Scott/Janoo margin is accurate — and it is within the margin of error, so grain of salt — then Janoo has to win over a bunch of those “somewhat” voters, even as the Republican Governors Association is outspending the two candidates combined on anti-Janoo attack ads tailored specifically to sow doubt among undecideds and convince them to go with Scott, the “safer” choice.

The decline in support for Judd and Goodband would seem to be a footnote except for one very real eventuality. If neither Scott nor Janoo earned an absolute majority, the election would be decided by the Legislature. Traditionally, lawmakers opt for the #1 vote-getter. But that’s not the law, it’s just a tradition. So try this on for size. What if Scott held a razor-thin edge over Janoo, and Goodband finished third with enough votes to create a “left-wing majority”? Could Democratic lawmakers do the unexpected and elect Janoo?

Probably not, but it’s within the realm of possibility. It’s farther toward the edge of said realm with Judd and Goodband apparently losing support. Still, keep that thought in your back pocket.

In State Navigate poll in the race for lieutenant governor, it was once again same song, different verse. Molly Gray has a 21-point edge over incumbent Republican John Rodgers, and she’s well clear of the magic 50% threshold: Gray 58%, Rodgers 37%, only 5% undecided. That’s slightly closer than State Navigate’s previous poll, which gave Gray a 59-32 edge. But the undecideds aren’t nearly enough to turn Rodgers’ fortunes around; he’d need a hell of a lot of Gray voters to change their minds in the remaining few days of campaigning.

A deeper dive on the results show that virtually every Janoo voter backs Gray, while a robust 26% of Scott voters support Gray over Rodgers. Which either means that a lot of Republicans can’t stand Rodgers, or a lot of Democrats still back Scott. I tend to believe the latter.

It explains why Scott and his campaign have spent much more time touting his alleged centrism and bipartisanship, while his criticism of the Democratic Legislature has been decidedly muted. He hasn’t entirely abandoned that line, but it’s not the steady drumbeat of “adult in the room” rhetoric that Scott has deployed against lawmakers in recent biennia. It’s a tacit acknowledgment that Scott has lost popularity and needs to shore up his support among independents and centrist Democrats.

Which makes me wonder, if he does prevail in a close election, can he honestly claim a sweeping mandate for priorities like tax cuts, land-use deregulation, and radical reform of the public education system? If he does, will Democrats develop a spine?

Things to think about after the votes are actually counted, and we find out how accurate the polls really are.