And no, it’s not janitor at the stinky, crowded, dangerous women’s prison. Nor is it rescue designer for the Bennington Battle Monument. Nor is it doing debate prep for Gov. Phil Scott. Nope, the clear front-runner for worst job in Vermont is… chair of the Vermont Republican Party.

The not-so-G.O.P. exited Election Night with troubles all around: a calamitous outcome for every Republican not named “Phil Scott,” legislators facing two years in the superminority wilderness, a chronic money shortage, a dearth of competitive candidates, an extremist-riddled party hierarchy, the only popular guy likely to exit in 2028, and that guy’s most obvious successor freshly blasted into political oblivion.

Otherwise, Mrs. Lincoln, it’s a great gig.

Let’s take ’em one at a time. First, while Scott prevailed by about six percentage points — the smallest margin he’s enjoyed in any of his nine statewide campaigns — the rest of the Republican statewide ticket was decimated and the combined Democratic/Progressive caucuses will hold supermajorities in the House and Senate. It was a worst-case scenario for every Republican except Scott and a complete undoing of the VTGOP’s gains in the 2024 election, which now seems to have been a Trump-fueled aberration instead of a permanent rightward shift.

Next, a return to the dark days of superminority status, where all the Republicans can do is call press conferences to whine about how they’re being excluded from the process. Which, sorry to break it to ya, is how legislative bodies work. (Just ask U.S. Rep. Becca Balint what it’s like to be in the Congressional minority.) A few races remain too close to call, but as things stand right now the Republicans will have eight seats in the 30-member Senate and 37 in the 150-member House. That’s one more Senator than the Republicans had in the last supermajority session in 2023-24, and one less member of the House. The Dems were fairly generous with committee assignments in the 2025-26 biennium; expect Republicans to be largely sidelined in the new committee roster.

Now we get to the VTGOP’s perpetual financial crisis. The Democrats aren’t exactly flush, but the Republicans are forever getting by with bits and scraps. The VTGOP hasn’t had a full-time paid staffer since Jeff Bartley, who left the executive director post eight years ago. That loads more work onto the unsteady back of party chair Paul Dame. The chair’s job should be to recruit candidates, connect with county and town party committees, generally keep things running smoothly, fundraise, and coddle deep-pocketed donors. That’s more than enough for a single volunteer to handle. The ED’s job is considered full-time (and demands far more than 40 hours a week). But most of the Republican donor base has permanently sealed its checkbooks against any appeals from the state party because it’s got such a long history of feckless disorganization and it’s now home to so many extremists, see below.

On to the candidate shortage. It shows up most clearly every two years when H. Brooke Paige runs for four or five statewide offices just to prevent any Democrats from snaring Republican nominations via write-in votes. Paige wins a bunch of statewide nominations and then relinquishes most of them, which allows the party to name substitutes. Who get a very late start, have no resources or name recognition, and go down in flames on Election Night.

There’s also a big problem with candidate recruitment for legislative seats. The Republicans often forego several winnable seats because they can’t find people willing to run. Many of the candidates they do recruit are from the extreme, MAGA wing of the party. And they prove to be out of step with the electorate except in the wave election of 2024, which now seems like an outlier instead of a harbinger.

A big reason the party can’t find mainstream candidates is that most of the town, city, and county committees are packed with extremist types. Regular Republicans don’t want to be caught in the same room with those people, let alone have to build relationships with them through a campaign. The extremist party committees choose like-minded candidates, who get beaten like drums in the general election. This election saw the Republicans completely shut out in Addison, Bennington, Chittenden, Washington, Windham, and Windsor counties, where MAGA-minded candidates cannot possibly appeal to liberal/centrist voters. It’s hard to dig out of minority status when you have to write off most of the state’s biggest counties.

Which brings us back to the one bright spot, Gov. Phil Scott. It’s fairly common knowledge that he initially didn’t want to run for re-election this year. He more or less made that plain whenever he was asked why he was running. Well, 2028 will be his 12th year in the corner office, he just had his toughest campaign maybe ever, he’ll be closing in on 70 years old, and he will have battled Democratic supermajorities for another biennium. I seriously doubt he will have any remaining appetite for the governorship, and I fully expect him to retire.

That leaves the party stripped of its only appealing figure. What’s worse, the only person who was seen as a viable successor just got his ass whipped on Tuesday. The political career of Lt. Gov. John Rodgers is almost certainly over. And who the hell is on the Republican bench? Maybe Senate Minority Leader Scott Beck, but his influence will be significantly reduced in the new Senate and he barely won re-election to his Senate seat. Hardly seems like a springboard to statewide office. Just ask Beck’s predecessor Joe Benning, who ran for lieutenant governor from a more stable political perch and came nowhere close. I might have made a case for Rep. Ashley Bartley in a few years, but she just lost her bid for state Senate.

It must also be noted that 2028 is likely to be another anti-Trump wave. The old manbaby won’t be on the ballot — any chance of him skirting the two-term limit died on Tuesday night — but the voters are likely to once again be in a mood to punish the Republican Party. Trump’s leadership isn’t going to improve, and his policies are almost certain to be a millstone around Republican necks. You hate to see it.

Like I said, Paul Dame isn’t exactly a political Sven Jolly. But even if he was a smart and capable leader, the task before him seems hopeless. The Republicans will make a comeback sooner or later, if only because Democrats tend to drive into the ditch when given near-absolute power. (See: Shumlin, Peter.) But it’s not gonna happen anytime soon, and the next popular Republican candidate is nowhere to be seen.