Category Archives: Campaign finance

The Political Money is Kind of Underwhelming

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Another campaign finance deadline has come and gone, and the big news is… there’s not much news. Well, not much new news, anyway. For the top two statewide races, the latest reports follow familiar patterns.

In the gubernatorial campaign, Democrat Amanda Janoo continues to hold a financial edge over Gov. Phil Scott, whose minimal-effort approach either indicates that (1) he’s very confident or (2) he’s lost his fastball after several easy victories. When you look at his fundraising numbers, you realize the last time he really had to work at it was 10 years ago, in 2016.

In the race for lieutenant governor, Democrat Molly Gray holds a substantial lead over incumbent Republican John Rodgers, whose campaign would be scraping bottom if not for big checks from a handful of donors and a $20,000 infusion from the state GOP. You know, Rodgers’ campaign signs tout him as “a voice of the working class,” but working Vermonters seem unappreciative. The vast majority of Rodgers’ money has come from Vermont’s upper class, and most of them hail from Chittenden County. Some kind of disconnect there.

The other four statewide races are uncompetitive, as the Republicans put up unknown and severely underfunded candidates against well-known Democrats.

The most recent filing deadline was Thursday, October 15. Reports covered the period between October 1 and October 15. So let’s get to the numbers.

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The RGA Doubles Up — CORRECTED

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Update: Turns out I got this wrong. The RGA’s total contribution to A Stronger Vermont is $400,000 not $800,000. I will explain two paragraphs below.

The Republican Governors Association continues to pour money into Vermont. Today the RGA’s local outlet, A Stronger Vermont, reported spending another $252,826.90 on TV and digital advertising in support of Gov. Phil Scott and against Democratic challenger Amanda Janoo. (Mass media expenditures must be reported to the state within 24 hours when an election is 45 or fewer days away.) That’s on top of previously reported spending of $174,562, for a grand total of $427,388.90 — all of it deployed in the last five days.

If you’ve been paying close attention, you might recall that the RGA devoted $400,000 to help ASV defend Scott against his toughest electoral challenge in a decade, and that ASV has now overshot that total. Well, never fear, because the RGA has reported giving ASV another $400,000. I think we can expect that money to be spent quickly, with more likely on the way.

CORRECTION. In recent days A Stronger Vermont submitted two mass media spending reports. Each reported a $400,000 contribution from the RGA. But A Stronger Vermont’s latest campaign finance filing reports only a single $400,000 gift from the RGA. It’s likely that more money will flow because ASV has spent a total of $463,000 and the RGA is its sole benefactor. I’m leaving the post here, but my inferences and conclusions were incorrect.

A Stronger Vermont has now spent more this year than in any campaign since 2018. It spent a total of $218,717.40 in 2020 to help defeat David Zuckerman. If ASV spends its entire $800,000 in RGA funds and goes anywhere beyond that, it will eclipse the $826,365.84 spent in 2018 against Christine Hallquist.

This is remarkable stuff, given that Janoo is at a substantial disadvantage in name recognition and has never before sought public office. In a year when Republicans are fighting desperately to stave off a national Democratic wave, they are committing more and more money to defend the guy who used to be, not that long ago, America’s most popular governor. And some thought this was going to be a sleepy election season.

Now There’s No Denying We Have a Real Race on Our Hands

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And there it is: A major ad buy from the Republican Governors Association, which hasn’t bothered to spend real money in Vermont since 2020. The RGA’s local outlet, A Stronger Vermont, just reported spending $160,869 for a blitz of ads mentioning Gov. Phil Scott and his Democratic opponent Amanda Janoo.

Be prepared for an onslaught of attack ads featuring ominous music and weirdly darkened images of Janoo. Because this is only the first step in the plan: The RGA has donated a total of $400,000 to A Stronger Vermont, so there’s plenty of money in the bank for more negative advertising.

We’ve seen the polls showing the most competitive gubernatorial race in a decade. We’ve seen the Scott campaign spend more than $210,000 in the past two weeks on TV and digital ads. And now, here comes the RGA stomping its way into our little corner of the world.

Yep, Phil Scott is no longer safe. He knows it, and national Republicans know it.

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Janoo Catches Up with Scott in the Money Race

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The latest round of campaign finance reports reveal that the race for governor is very real and very competitive. It’s more evidence to support those recent opinion polls showing Gov. Phil Scott and Democratic challenger Amanda Janoo are in a tight race.

What’s truly remarkable is that Janoo is now in a virtual tie with Scott in cash on hand. Reminder that she began September at a huge disadvantage: Scott $307,000, Janoo $59,000. Now Scott is reduced to a statistically meaningless edge: $296,000 to $280,000.

Janoo outraised Scott in September, $291,000 to $223,000. She also spent far less, $70,000 to Scott’s $234,000. (As previously reported in this space, Scott spent heavily on TV and digital ads in September, with five ad buys totaling more than $150,000.)

Those figures are pocket change by normal gubernatorial standards. But they mean that Scott can’t simply spend Janoo into oblivion. Even if he turns on the fundraising afterburners, time’s running short to spend effectively — and early voting is already underway.

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So This Is What a Real Campaign Looks Like

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We made a quick trip to Michigan last weekend and were suddenly immersed in American politics, post-Citizens United style. Our main exposure came in the form of campaign ads on bar and restaurant TV screens with the sound muted.

Lots and lots and LOTS of campaign ads. Every commercial break contained at least two political commercials about Michigan’s races for governor and U.S. Senate. The screenshot above is from a conservative attack ad against Democratic senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed. These ads blow ALL the dog whistles about El-Sayed’s ethnicity. One ad tries hard to tie him to progressive influencer and Fellow Brown Person Hasan Piker, who’s become the conservative movement’s bête noire in 2026.

It’s exhausting, even with no sound to go with the images. (The only TV we watched with sound was PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre, shout out Marble Hall Murders.) And Michigan voters will have to endure another five and a half weeks of this saturation bombardment. It’ll only get worse as the election draws closer, and even worse than that if the polls continue to show El-Sayed leading the very bland Republican candidate Mike Rogers. The conservatives are getting desperate.

But hey, this isn’t a blog about Michigan politics, so let’s get to the point. Which is, I’d forgotten what it’s like to be immersed in a high-profile election campaign. For the most part, it makes you want to bathe in Purell for a day or six. But there is one undeniable advantage to the nonstop barrage of political advertising: It reminds everyone that there is, in fact, an election with real consequences. Which is not the message you get from Vermont media.

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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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I Hope the Democrats Have Money Left After the Primary

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The good news, if you favor the Democrats, is that many of their candidates have been able to raise impressive amounts of money in advance of next week’s primary.

The bad news: They’ve spent a lot of their cash in ways that are only tangentially related to advancing the cause in November. Here’s hoping there’s more money where all of that came from.

I mean, look: The two top Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor, Molly Gray and Ryan McLaren, have raised a combined total of close to $750,000. That should be more than enough to fuel an entire campaign for the ol’ bucket of warm piss, but Gray and Mclaren are going to spend most of it by next Tuesday. Gray’s reported spending totaled $248,000 as of August 1, while McLaren had spent $293,000 by then — plus another $52,000 on TV ads reported separately after he’d filed his 8/1 report. Add it all up, that’s $593,000 spent, invested, squandered, take your pick, on the Democratic nomination for an essentially ceremonial office.

The two gubernatorial candidates, meanwhile, have raised $742,000 and spent $632,000. (Amanda Janoo: raised $303,000 and spent $255,000; Aly Richards raised $439,000 and spent $347,000.) The winner will have exceeded expectations for fundraising, but August 12 will find her back at the bottom of the mountain having to push the giant boulder up to the top. As of August 1, Richards had $92,000 in the bank but has spent another $30,000 on TV ads since then, which drops her account balance down to $62,000. Janoo had $46,000 in the bank on August 1 and has since spent $2,000 more on Facebook ads, so her known balance is at $44,000.

Gov. Phil Scott, meanwhile, has been coasting along. He entered the campaign with $240,000 left over from 2024. He’s spent virtually nothing and raised a modest amount, bringing his bank balance up to $309,000. In other words, the Democratic winner will have to do some heavy lifting just to catch up with the governor. And if he feels threatened at all, he’ll kick it in high gear and his base will respond. Two years ago Howard Dean estimated that a challenge to Scott would cost a minimum of $2 million; that seems like a reasonable amount. The Democratic nominee will have less than three months to build a warchest and mount a statewide challenge against a popular governor. Calling it “a tall order” seems like an understatement.

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The Barons Have Lowered Their Sights for 2026

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This is a screenshot from state Sen. Steven Heffernan’s latest campaign finance report. You may recognize the names; the first is actually Amy Tarrant of the Richard Tarrant Cinematic Universe; the other three are Burlington-area developer/real estate types.

The Addison County Republican, allegedly a champion of rural Vermont, is getting virtually all of his money from greater Burlington. In the month of July, Heffernan received a mere four donations of $100 or less and 54 donations of more than $100. NONE of the large gifts were from his own district. All but a handful came from Chittenden County. Grassroots? More like Astroturf.

Now I ask you, do the Barons of Burlington give a rat’s ass about the problems of rural Vermont? Of course they don’t. All they want is a reliable anti-tax vote in the state Senate. (They also have no qualms about supporting an extremist who holds deeply prejudiced views about gender-nonconforming folk.)

After the July 1 campaign finance deadline, I noted a distinct lack of activity from the Barons. In July 2024 they’d flooded the zone with four-figure gifts to the campaigns of several Republican Senate candidates plus John Rodgers, who went on to win the lieutenant governorship. So I wondered if this year’s August 1 reports would reveal another round of early-summer Baronial largesse.

The answer is yes, but in a much more limited and less impactful way.

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Some Deep Out-of-State Pockets are Backing Aly Richards

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This is a screenshot of an ad that’s been circulating on behalf of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Aly Richards. But it didn’t come from her campaign; it was paid for by the (apparently) newborn Independent Expenditure PAC known as “Time for a Change.”

IE-PACs, for those just tuning in, can spend on behalf of favored candidates but can’t coordinate their activities with anyone’s campaign. And this one has a bucket of money to spend by Vermont standards— although it’s getting in gear awfully late in the game.

As of the July 1 reporting deadline, TFAC was in the Secretary of State’s campaign finance system but had yet to raise or spend a single dime. Its August 1 report is a different kettle of fish altogether. TFAC reported raising $230,025 in a single month. The bulk of the total, a flat $200,000, was donated by businesses, not individuals. What’s more, $225,000 came from out of state. Only $5,025 was donated to TFAC by Vermonters. Are anyone else’s hackles raised a little bit, or is it just me?

In its August 1 campaign finance filing, TFAC only reported spending $8,500 (to D.C.-based Liftoff Campaigns LLC for “Media – Consulting”), but that doesn’t tell the story. It has also filed FOUR separate Mass Media filings in the last three days, none of which are reflected in its August 1 report. TFAC sent $50,000 to D.C.-based Middle Seat for online ad buys; another $60,000 to Liftoff Campaigns for “text messaging”; $35,000 to Liftoff for “Online Advertising”; and another $56,500 to Liftoff for more “online advertising.” That’s a total spend of $210,000 in a matter of days!

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So Who’s Spending It, and Where’s It Going?

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While us campaign finance sickos breathlessly await the August 1 filing deadline, we can occupy a bit of our time by tracking the mass media buys reported since July 1. There are quite a few, in fact.

Explainer for those who need it: Whenever a candidate spends $500 or more on mass media (radio, TV, digital ads, printing, mailing, etc.), they must report it to the Secretary of State’s office within a couple of days, a rule often honored more in the breach than the observance.

Can you guess where the most money was spent on mass media this month? That’s right, it’s the Democratic race for lieutenant governor by a country mile. Ryan Mclaren, last seen trailing badly in the polls, poured $125,100 into TV ad buys conducted by Georgia-based Canal Partners Media. Apparent front-runner Molly Gray has spent $112,918 on TV ad buys done by Virginia-based Screen Strategies Media and another $26,537 on postcard mailings by Berlin Rosen LLC of New York for a grand total of $168,135.

Couldn’t help noticing as I scanned all these reports that virtually all statewide candidates and some legislative hopefuls are contracting their printing and media buys out of state. I guess the big firms know what they’re doing, but home cooking seems to be a thing of the past.

Anyway, McLaren and Gray have combined to spend almost $300,000 on a non-gubernatorial primary election. That’s got to be an all-time record. If it’s not, make sure to let me know in the Comments.

Whatever, it’s a fuck-ton of money for a bucket of warm piss, and a further indication that incumbent Republican John Rodgers is extremely vulnerable; both Democrats must feel like the primary is their biggest hurdle.

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