Category Archives: 2026 election

Oops, Never Mind.

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This announcement, dated December 1, is still posted on Emerge Vermont’s website. But those “training opportunities” will not happen, at least not in their present format or timetable. Because, per Seven Days, Emerge America just decided to shut down Emerge Vermont in a nationwide move to eliminate state chapters in favor of a regionalized structure.

A few years ago, I wrote a post entitled “It’s Hard to Overestimate the Impact of Emerge Vermont.” Right now, I feel like it’s equally hard to overestimate the impact of Emerge Vermont’s imminent dissolution.

Emerge Vermont has been a highly effective pipeline for Democratic women who want to enter politics. It has trained hundreds of Vermonters, many of whom are now top elected officials — like U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, Attorney General Charity Clark, Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, and I don’t know how many state reps, senators, and local officeholders.

Emerge Vermont can be credited for nearly erasing the gender gap in the Legislature. (It would have completely erased it by now except that Republican caucuses are almost entirely male.) Emerge Vermont has also been an invaluable asset for the Vermont Democratic Party, which has benefited from a steady supply of Emerge-trained women ready to run for office. (Vermont Republicans don’t have a counterpart and, as I’ve said before, they would be well advised to get their donors together and create one.)

In short, this is a sad day for gender equality in Vermont, and for Vermont Democrats.

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‘Tis the Season for Strained Racing Analogies

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Looks like a real contest is developing in the Chittenden Central state Senate district, where three seats will be up for grabs in 2026. The three sitting solons, who seem likely to run for re-election, may find as many as four other names on the Democratic primary ballot next August.

In other words, Donkey Race!

Chittenden-Central is, geographically speaking, the smallest Senate district by a longshot. On a map it resembles Nepal after encontering an old-fashioned laundry mangle. It includes much of northern and central Burlington, the city of Winooski, a bit of Colchester, the city of Essex Junction, and part of the town of Essex. Politically speaking, it may be the most liberal Senate district in the state. The incumbents are Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth, listed on the ballot as a D/P, Democratic Sen. Martine Laroque Gulick, and P/D Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky.

So who’s running? Glad you asked.

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It’d Be More Fun If the Party Conventions Looked Like This

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Hey, time for an update on the races for state party chairs! Feel the excitement!

The Vermont Democratic and Republican parties are electing chairs this month. Both races are contested, but that’s where the similarities end. The Democrats are conducting a polite, restrained kind of election, while the Republicans seem to be borrowing heavily from Lord of the Flies.

We’ll do the Republicans first because (a) it’s a lot more entertaining and (b) their election comes first. The VTGOP’s convention is this Saturday the 8th, while the Democrats convene the following Saturday.

Since last I wrote about these contests, incumbent VTGOP Chair Paul Dame has been on one. He’s been campaigning at a furious pace and, ignoring Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, chastising those who dare support the other candidate, state Sen. Russ Ingalls, who hasn’t been shy about firing back.

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From This Day Forward, Let No One Say It’s Too Early to Talk 2026

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Well, the Vermont Democrats fired the first shot of the election season today.

Sadly, it wasn’t the unveiling of a top-tier challenger for Gov. Phil Scott. No, it was a candidacy for the seat being vacated by disgraced Republican Sam Douglass. A candidate whose presentation is straight out of a Third Way fever dream. So I guess this is how the Dems are going to try to recapture seats they lost in 2024: By pretending to be moderate Republicans.

Meet Gaston Bathalon, checker of all the boxes. He’s a native of the Northeast Kingdom, a veteran of 30 years in the military, “a fighter for the… Kingdom” who’s dedicated to restoring “dignity and integrity” to a seat besmirched by Douglass’ online hangouts with toxic Young Republicans.

As I read through his announcement email, I honestly couldn’t tell whether he was a Democrat or Republican until I got down to the very bottom, where it says “Paid for by the Vermont Democratic Party – http://www.vtdemocrats.org. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.”

So he’s a Democrat, I guess. Not that you can tell from his announcement or his minimalistic campaign website, either. It’s more than a bit sad when Democrats see their identity and message as something that has to be slipped past the voters, like putting a dog’s medication inside a ball of hamburger meat.

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Well, of Course It Was “a Change of Posture”

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Gov. Phil Scott made a move this week that promises to pay off big time in purely political terms. If it actually accomplishes anything in the real world, that’ll be a bonus.

After insisting for weeks that his administration wasn’t making any plans to help the city of Burlington with its intertwined problems of homelessness, substance use, public safety, and perceptions of the city’s health, Scott announced at his Wednesday press conference that his administration is holding meetings with various Queen City stakeholders with an eye toward unveiling just such a plan “over the next couple of weeks.”

Vermont Public’s Peter Hirschfeld asked if this wasn’t “a change in posture” for Scott and his team. The governor replied that “maybe the perception” of his posture had changed, but the posture itself remained the same.

Which is obvious bullshit, but did you really expect him to openly acknowledge “a change in posture”? Of course not.

I mean, look. A few weeks ago he was brushing aside a reporter’s description of Burlington as “the economic engine of the state” and couldn’t recall the last time he walked down Church Street. Last fall, when his administration brought its dog-and-pony Capital for a Day to Chittenden County, the governor attended some events in the suburbs but skipped the ones in Burlington. And now he’s holding a series of summits with city luminaries? Yeah, that’s a change in posture and a pretty dramatic one.

Setting aside that bit of casual mendacity, it’s a really smart move. And it positions him to pull off a masterstroke that will cement his reputation as a practical centrist. Especially to the Burlington area’s donor class. You know, the Barons.

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John Rodgers is STILL a Campaign Finance Scofflaw

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Hey, remember December 17, when I broke the news that Lt. Gov. John Rodgers’ campaign had reported spending 31.5% more money than it had received? (His final filing for 2024 reported receiving $216,468 and spending $288,588.01.) Curious thing for a tough-minded fiscal conservative, right?

Now, remember when someone in The Respectable Media finally deigned to report on Rodgers’ faulty filings?

One and a half months later?

Yeah, watchdogs, hahaha. (VTDigger, which couldn’t wait to breathlessly inform us that U.S. Rep. Becca Balint’s leadership PAC received small quantities of corporate cash, which is absolutely legal, has yet to publish a goddamn word about Rodgers’ violations of the law. Vermont Public, also silent.)

That single published report about Rodgers’ faulty filings, by Seven Days’ Kevin McCallum, quoted campaign manager Rep. Casey Toof as attributing the gross discrepancy to a pair of whopper-sized bookkeeping errors. McCallum also quoted Rodgers as whining about how hard it is to comply with campaign finance law.

Oh, boo hoo hoo, Johnny, everybody else manages to do it. Why not you, or your experienced politician of a campaign manager?

But enough about the past. Let’s bring things up to date.

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But It’s Way Too Early to Even THINK About the 2026 Cam — Oh. (UPDATED)

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You probably heard about the baby race at a recent WNBA game. Yeah, the one where all the babies sat unmoving at the starting line until one of them got up and walked, allegedly for the first time ever, all the way to the finish line. It was a heartwarming moment, at least until the Internet trolls started accusing the baby’s parents of cheating.

Well, the Vermont Democratic Party’s competition for the top of the ticket reminds me of that baby race, except it’s been going on for close to a decade. We’re all staring at these babies waiting for one of them to make a move.

And now, suddenly, one of them has made a move. Unfortunately, the move was to walk off the race course.

Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas has announced she’s running for a third term, presumably against H. Brooke Paige, the world’s most elegantly dressed tomato can. (This development was apparently of interest only to WPTZ-TV. I’ve seen no other reports on her announcement. Hell, VTDigger ran a story about Copeland Hanzas today that somehow didn’t even mention her 2026 declaration.) But there are three things more important to us Vermont Political Observers than the fact that she’s running for re-election.

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Bipartisanship Comes to the Chuckle Hut (Now With Extra Insider Tidbit)

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You know it’s a weird day when THIS pops up in your email inbox.

The guy on the left is, of course, Lt. Gov. John Rodgers, who spent 2024 cosplaying as a Republican in order to win Vermont’s bucket of warm piss, and has lately been pivoting madly to the left with his openly anti-Trump public statements, almost as if he plans to run for governor on the Phil Scott plan whenever an opening next presents itself. On the right is Jason Lorber, former Democratic state representative, standup comedian, and all-purpose consultant for hire. Two peas in a bipartisan pod, right?

So why did this too-large-for-comfort image appear in my inbox? It was sent by a reader who is, I suppose, on Lorber’s email list. The accompanying text announces a standup gig featuring Lorber on May 15 at the Savoy Theater in Montpelier. And guess who his opening act is?

Why, John Rodgers, widely known for his, uhh, comedic stylings?

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Gentlefolk, Start Your Engines

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It’s been two and a half months since Election Day, which means I’m way behind the Political Observer curve in terms of looking ahead to the next election.

Or perhaps the 2028 election, depending on when Gov. Phil Scott decides to retire undefeated. Because until that happens, there won’t be a serious contest for the Democratic nomination — and when it happens, we’re going to see a political stampede the likes of which we haven’t seen since Jim Douglas’ retirement in 2010 touched off a five-way contest in the Dem primary.

If you think it’s Way Too EarlyTM for such talk, well, let me tell you, the engines have been revving for some time now. Recent examples: Former Burlington mayor Miro Weinberger’s emergence as the public face of Let’s Build Homes, a nominally bipartisan slash nonpartisan organization promoting the cause described in its name; and the obligatory tongue bath given to Lt. Gov. John Rodgers in the cover story of last week’s Seven Days, which touted the notion that this crusty, ornery Son of the SoilTM was suddenly transformed into gubernatorial timber by his extremely narrow plurality victory over David Zuckerman. Which I don’t buy, but hey, I’ve been wrong before.

In reality, the race to succeed Scott began at least two years ago and maybe four, when Mike Pieciak left his post in the, ahem, Scott administration to run for treasurer and immediately succeeded his predecessor Beth Pearce as the person most likely to get a standing ovation at party meetings. Pieciak’s been fundraising far beyond his minuscule needs ever since, and the only plausible explanation is that he’s preparing to run for governor as soon as Scott steps aside.

A more pointed signal of Pieciak’s intent could be seen in his November 19 campaign finance report: a $3,000 payment made on November 6 to Silver Strategies, LLC.

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