Category Archives: 2026 election

All the Weirdness with County Republican Committee Finances

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(The above screenshot was taken on the evening of September 9. As of this writing, on the afternoon of September 10, you can still see this on the Bennington County Republicans’ homepage. Which kind of sums up the tactical and strategic genius of the VTGOP’s county party committees.)

This week, I’ve spent waaaay too much time digging through campaign finance reports from September 1. I’d already done the requisite review of statewide candidates*, and then I started looking around at political committee reports, a jungle where few choose to enter.

*Not sure if it’s really “requisite” anymore since our major media completely ignored the filings. Sigh.

And boy, did I ever hit a rich vein of weird.

What I found, in brief, is that the Vermont Republican Party continues to struggle financially, but some of its county committees are raking in the cash while others have little to nothing. The well-funded committees are in solidly Republican or uncompetitive Democratic counties, so the money is kind of pointless. And the fortunate committees are spending their loot in very different ways, many of which seem irrelevant to the presumed goal of winning elections.

I’m telling you, none of it makes sense. Some of it might trigger legal jeopardy if there was any oversight or enforcement regimen for campaign finance. Which there is NOT, at all.

Here’s a little soupçon to whet your appetite.

The Orleans County Republican Committee spent $15,000 on travel expenses for Lt. Gov. John Rodgers.

I’ll just let that sink in for a moment.

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The Barons Seem Uninterested in Saving John Rodgers’ Bacon

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The second most notable results from the September 1 campaign finance disclosures were about the race for lieutenant governor, and they once again show that incumbent Republican John Rodgers is in some trouble. Maybe a lot of trouble.

Two years ago, his campaign was buoyed by a wave of four-figure checks from the folks I call the Barons of Burlington: the moguls, developers, landlords, and others capable of making large donations to favored candidates. From July 1 onward, Rodgers’ 2024 campaign finance reports were riddled with familiar names: Pomerleaus, Pizzagallis, Tarrants, Bruce Lisman, Ray Pecor, Doug Nedde, etc., all kicking in sizable donations. The flood of cash may or may not have been the deciding factor in Rodgers’ win over incumbent David Zuckerman, but it sure as hell didn’t hurt.

This year, however, something has changed. The Barons are almost entirely absent from Rodgers’ filings. He did receive $1,000 from Ernie Pomerleau in August, but otherwise his September 1 report was barren of Barons. As a result, Rodgers lags far behind Democratic nominee Molly Gray in total fundraising and cash on hand. (Gray has received $2,250 from former Rodgers backer Brian Boardman plus $2,000 from ski resort tycoon Win Smith, so the balance of Barons tips slightly in her direction.)

Gray’s lead in spendable cash is kind of stunning, since she had to weather a costly primary battle while Rodgers faced no Republican opposition. The bottom line: Gray has raised $412,000 for the campaign to date compared with Rodgers’ $143,000. Gray has spent $339,000, and reported cash on hand totaling $73,000. Rodgers has somehow managed to spend $118,000 despite the lack of a primary challenge, and has only $26,000 in the bank.

Standard caveat: Money isn’t the only factor in a campaign, and Rodgers does have the incumbent’s advantage. But pre-primary polls by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center showed weakness in Rodgers’ position. The disparities in fundraising prowess and cash position are more evidence that Rodgers is on the back foot. And the reticence of the Barons suggests they might just see him as a lost cause.

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Vermont Democrats Offer Amanda Janoo a Hearty Backslap and… That’s About All

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The latest round of campaign finance reports is in, and it looks like Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amanda Janoo is suffering the same fate as the other challengers to Gov. Phil Scott. She’s getting the cold shoulder from her party’s top officials and elected leaders.

Janoo raised $112,000 in August, bringing her campaign total to $415,000. Even if she still had all that money in the bank, it wouldn’t be enough to seriously contend with the governor. But she spent most of it in a costly primary against Aly Richards, so she enters September with a measly $59,000 in cash on hand.

Scott, who has barely even tried to mount a campaign, has five times as much in his kitty. And we’re practically in the home stretch; a bit more than two months remain before Election Day.

I ran into fellow Vermont Political Observer Kevin Ellis in the food coop earlier this week. He asked me what Janoo needed to do to win. “Everything,” I said. For starters, I said she needed a strong September 1 finance report: a minimum of $200,000, and preferably something north of $500,000. I didn’t honestly expect her to crack a half mill, but she certainly needed to do better than one-fifth of that.

Caveat: Money isn’t everything. Grassroots enthusiasm helps. But you can’t run an effective statewide campaign without at least some cash. You’ve gotta get on TV in a substantial way, to try to eat into Scott’s huge advantage in familiarity. Janoo doesn’t have nearly enough, and her shortfall sends a loud signal to the monied class: Don’t waste your money.

Janoo did very well with small-to-medium donors, racking up page after page of gifts in the range of $50 to $500. She got very few large donations. Conspicuous by their absence from her donor list: Democratic Party bigwigs and elected officials. That’s a dirty goddamn shame, and a stain on the party’s soul. If it has one.

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The Republicans Choose a Candidate for Chittenden State’s Attorney Who Doesn’t Want the Job

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This is a much younger Jace Laquerre (age 17 at the time), seen here with his beau ideal during the 2016 Republican convention. As he said at the time, “I got involved in politics through Senator Rand Paul, who inspired me to get involved through his principles of liberty and limited government.” At the time, Laquerre boasted of his involvement in “Young Americans for Liberty, Students for Life and the NRA.”

Fast forward to 2026, and Laquerre, now in his late 20s and sporting a J.D. Vance-style close-cropped beard, has just been chosen by the Chittenden County Republicans to run against incumbent Democratic State’s Attorney Sarah Fair George. This, despite the fact that (1) he’s not an attorney, and (2) he doesn’t actually want the job. (He is, according to his LinkedIn page, a software engineer. Something something relevant skills and experience.)

See, the Republicans didn’t field a candidate for the position. George’s Democratic primary opponent Bram Kranichfeld won the Republican nomination thanks to write-in votes from Republican voters who failed to heed (or misunderstood) Gov. Phil Scott’s advice to vote for Kranichfeld in the Democratic primary in order to defeat George. Kranichfeld then declined the “honor” of the Republican nomination, which allowed the county Republican committee to name anyone else as a replacement.

Anyone, it would seem. Including someone who isn’t qualified and, need I repeat myself, doesn’t want the job.

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Dregs of the Ballot, Assemble!

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Now that the August primary is safely in the rear-view, the rest of the November ballot is rounding into shape. Actual winners earned their spots on August 11; now we’re seeing a parade of no-hopers, never-wases and cranks making their way onto the ballot through processes that have nothing to do with, you know, actual appeal to the electorate.

The usual suspects are being joined by a new crop of “candidates” who are not worth a moment of your time. Hopefully they don’t clutter up the debate stage, although I’m sure some of them will.

(And please don’t @ me about accessibility and openness and such. There is no constitutional right to a spot on the ballot or a lectern at candidate forums. Any debate that’s all-inclusive is a waste of everybody’s time. It only takes away from a viewer’s ability to learn pertinent information about people who might actually be elected because the fringies Must Get Their Share Of The Attention.)

Like, for instance, “Not That” Zachary Hampl, who weaseled his way to the Progressive nomination for treasurer despite the party’s refusal to endorse him. (He has a track record of conservative activism covering his entire and brief adulthood.) Credit for his “victory” goes to the Progs’ complete inattention to their own primary, since they didn’t bother to nominate an alternative and turnout was as dismal as usual; Hampl won with the distressing total of 289 votes.

In the entire state.

But it was enough, because only 474 people bothered to vote in the Progressive primary. In the entire state. Kinda makes you wonder if the Progs should be doing a bit more to earn their “major party” status.

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Instant Statewide Ticket, Just Add Water

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Stop the presses! Big news from the world of Vermont politics! The state Republican Party just filled out its statewide ticket with three people who… uhhhh… you’ve never heard of. And who have roughly the same chance of winning as I do, and I won’t be on the ballot.

The few who voted in the Republican primary were greeted, over and over again, by the name of H. Brooke Paige, Vermont’s favorite novelty candidate. He was the only name on the Republican ballot for attorney general, auditor, secretary of state, and treasurer. His stated intent was to occupy those slots so no Democrat could slide to an easy write-in victory. (It happened in 2020 when Doug Hoffer captured the Democratic, Republican, and Progressive nominations and won the November election with 84% of the vote.) After the primary, Paige withdrew from all races except secretary of state, allowing the state Republican committee to nominate replacement candidates.

And now they have. I don’t know if they picked names out of a hat or held a W.C. Fields lottery* or if some thought actually went into the exercise, but it really doesn’t matter. None of the “lucky” three nominees has a snowball’s chance of winning in November. Vermont Public ran a brief story about their nominations but didn’t put in the slightest effort at identifying them beyond their names and home towns.

*”First prize was a week in Philadelphia. Second prize was two weeks.”

So just for shits and giggles, let’s fire up the Internet Machine and see what we can learn about these three “major party” candidates.

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Phil Scott Presses Thumb Firmly on the Partisan Scale

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Here’s a screenshot from a recent hostage video political message posted on Gov. Phil Scott’s non-governmental Facebook account. And if there was any doubt about whether Scott is first and foremost a political animal, this video should remove it entirely.

The video was posted on August 6, five days before the primary, and it’s a brazen invitation for Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary. Specifically, Scott wanted Republican voters to tip the scales in the primaries for Chittenden County State’s Attorney and Sheriff. He openly supported Bram Kranichfeld’s bid to unseat incumbent Sarah Fair George (and let’s not forget that she would never have been chief county prosecutor if not for the fact that Scott himself appointed her, pause for ironic laughter), and incumbent Sheriff Dan Gamelin over challenger Kevin Bloom.

This is beyond the pale. It’s blatant meddling in Democratic Party affairs. I can’t say I’m ever surprised anymore at what our media fails to cover because there’s so goddamn much they don’t cover, but this ought to have been a big story before primary day. It should still be a big story.

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Now, This Is a Fascinating Map of Vermont

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No, not THAT map. Although it’s fascinating in its own way; it seems that Vermont has been gay-friendly for a very long time. Ooh, strapping young men with powerful (ahem) tools!

But I digress, and right off the top too. I’m referring to a map prepared by VTDigger’s ace data reporter Erin Petenko which I dare not reproduce for copyright reasons. You’ll have to check it out in situ. Scroll down far enough in Digger’s recap of Amanda Janoo’s primary victory and you’ll see it.

The map shows how each Vermont city and town voted in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. You can see at a glance which candidate won where. (If you run your cursor over a town, the map shows you the winner’s name and their percentage of the vote. Also, for real nerds, the caption includes a link to the Secretary of State’s Excel spreadsheet containing all the results town-by-town.)

And the map is kind of a muddle with some really interesting features.

The first thing I noticed, because of my membership on the board of The Hardwick Gazette, is that Janoo did extremely well in The Gazette’s home turf. She took 72% of the vote in Greensboro, 68% in Hardwick, 67% in Stannard, 66% in Woodbury, 65% in Craftsbury, and 60% in Walden. She also did very well in nearby communities like Elmore, Barton, and Glover, hometown and legal nemesis of Lt. Gov. John Rodgers.

Indeed, Janoo scored well across a great swath of northern Vermont from Franklin County through Lamoille and Orleans and into the Northeast Kingdom. Just south of that you find a thinner band of Aly Richards strongpoints, from the Burlington suburbs through the Barre-Montpelier area and on to the upper Connecticut River Valley. And south of that is another Janoo band in Addison, Orange, and Windsor counties. Southern Vermont is a mixed bag, with Janoo scoring well in the southeast and south central, and getting a pocket of support along the New York border in places like Middletown Springs, Wells, and Pawlet. Richards dominated the rest of the southern tier below a line from Orwell to Norwich.

See what I mean? Make sense of that, will you?

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It’s a Janoo Day, Yes It Is

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For those unfamiliar, this was The New Day, an uber-popular tag team in the WWE who began their entrance routine with the slogan “It’s a new day, yes it is.” I’m not suggesting that newly minted gubernatorial nominee Amanda Janoo adopt it as a campaign slogan because WWE has squadrons of copyright lawyers on speed dial. But the sentiment is appropriate after Janoo, a candidate of progressive ideas, won out over the well-funded but sketchily defined Aly Richards.

Richards began her campaign with a pitch amounting to “A lot like Phil Scott, but nicer and maybe more competent” and ended with the generous backing of an independent PAC operating under the blandest possible name “Time for a Change.” Turns out that wasn’t a compelling message. Who could have guessed.

It was a big missed opportunity for Richards. Her stewardship of Let’s Grow Kids is an authentic political success story. She shepherded a major child care reform plan through the Legislature and got Gov. Phil Scott to sign it*. Since then, he’s been constantly whingeing about one Democratic initiative or another — but never ever utters a word about the child care plan. To me, that’s proof of its popularity.

*Correction: Scott vetoed the bill and the Legislature overrode. Which makes his subsequent reticence all the more noticeable.

Richards could have used child care as a banner of progressive reform. Or if you prefer, solid Democratic reform. She could have presented plans to address other major issues instead of vague gestures. Instead, she used LGK as proof of her backstage maneuvering success. It was a process argument, and those rarely resonate with voters.

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Primary Night Instant Reaction, To Be UPDATED Until All the Key Races are Settled

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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.

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