Category Archives: 2026 election

With a Friendly Affect and Some Damn Sharp Elbows, Molly Gray Officially Enters the Race for LG

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This is a screenshot of the first two rows of prominent Democrats and Progressives endorsing former lieutenant governor Molly Gray’s bid to return as The Hand That Holds The Gavel. Gray, who’d all but announced (to Seven Days) before Thanksgiving, finally made it official today, Monday, January 5.

After those first two rows there are 11 more. Declared Gray supporters include nine sitting state senators, 29 state representatives, plus prominent figures such as former governor Howard Dean and former lawmakers Brian Campion, Kitty Toll, and Jessica Brumsted.

It truly is an impressive haul, not only for the numbers but for the ideological spectrum. Team Gray ranges from the Progressive camp to centrist Democrats. If she’s left a lane open for another Democratic candidate, I can’t identify it. The lefty names on the list should help overcome the perception that she’s a policy squish, which helped doom her 2022 bid for Congress.

Not that endorsements are the be-all, end-all. But this is a show of force aimed at avoiding a competitive Democratic primary, and it may well succeed. Curtis-Hoff award winner Ryan McLaren, who’s been an aide to Peter Welch (as U.S. Representative and Senator) since 2015, has been considering a run for the office, but he has to know he’d be facing a very well-connected opponent with far more name recognition. This is not the softest of targets.

So how did we get here? Cue the semi-informed speculation!

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We Have an Early Contender for the Least Surprising Political Development of 2026

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The inevitable has occurred, to the surprise of no one paying the slightest attention. Former Senate pro tem Tim Ashe, pictured here alongside some guy, has declared his candidacy for State Auditor*. This has been inevitable since current Auditor Doug Hoffer hired Ashe as his chief deputy back in 2021. It became extra-double inevitable when Hoffer made it clear he would not run for re-election in 2026.

*Credit where credit’s due: Political blogger Matthew Vigneau spotted Ashe’s candidacy filing on December 22, a full ten days before Ashe officially announced. He deserves credit for getting the story first, not that any mainstream media outlet ever gives proper credit to bloggers.

Both men wear the same political label as Democrat/Progressives. Both hail from Burlington. Both have ties to Bernie Sanders. Both are the kind of policy/financial nerds who would make good small-a auditors. All indications are they have worked well together in the capital-A Auditor’s office.

So yeah, of course Ashe is running for Auditor. And assuming the Vermont Republican Party can’t do any better than nominating the likes of H. Brooke Paige, he’s almost certainly going to win.

But the most politically impactful thing about this announcement has nothing to do with the man. It’s all about that D/P thang.

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Just Waiting for Smilin’ Mike to Dash Your Hopes to Smithereens

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This oddly askew photo of Your Treasurer Mike Pieciak, cropped exactly as it appears above, can be found on his “End-of-Year Survey” webpage, in which Our Man feigns interest in your top priorities for the year 2026. It is, in actual fact, aimed more at building a contact list than shaping Smilin’ Mike’s political agenda.

But okay, I thought, I’ll play along. But before I relate my survey experience, I’m going to skip ahead to a little shocker that came later in the process. Because after you SUBMIT the survey, you’re redirected to a fundraising pitch that includes the following bit of news beneath yet another photo of Smilin’ Mike:

“I’m running for reelection to continue investing in housing, climate resilience, and rebuilding the middle class because every Vermonter matters.”

My first thought: Did I miss his re-election announcement? Is this his re-election announcement? Perhaps. But upon reflection, it’s probably a bit of sloppy work on the part of Team Pieciak, a failure to update the website from his 2024 campaign. (Let’s see if they fix it after they read this, which they will.)

Still, I think it’s just a matter of time before we get the disappointing news. If he was going to run for governor, we would have been hearing about it by now. He’d be charging around the state, fundraising and pressing flesh at every opportunity.

But for the moment, let’s hold onto a shred of hope that we could see a top-shelf Democrat stepping boldly into the arena in 2026 instead of hanging back in the locker room waiting for the reigning champeen to retire. There are only three people with the name recognition and connections to make a serious run: Pieciak, Attorney General Charity Clark, and Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, who has already announced her run for re-election. It’s gonna take a lot of money, a strong message, and a unified, engaged state party to mount a credible challenge to Gov. Phil Scott.

In a previous fundraising email, Pieciak sought our help in building “a movement.” My thought was, a movement to what, exactly? Re-elect our treasurer by a lopsided margin over some novelty Republican like H. Brooke Paige? The only thing that would qualify as “a movement” in my book is making a run for governor.

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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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