Vermont U.S. Senate- Race of the Day

29 Days Until Election Day

 

Vermont U.S. Senate

Status: Democrat Open

2020 Presidential Result: Blue State (East)

 

Outlook: Safe Democrat

 

Only one Democrat has ever been elected to the U.S. Senate in Vermont history. That was Patrick Leahy, who came to Washington after the election of 1974. Currently, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and recently recovering from a broken hip that kept him away from Senate votes, Leahy is retiring at age 82. This may allow him to make some more cameo appearances in future "Batman" films, and liberal Vermont is poised to elect a second ever Democrat to the Senate.

Leahy who faced some very competitive elections early in his tenure, has had an easy ride in recent decades. Republicans had hoped that the state's popular moderate Governor Phil Scott might run and provide a true challenge for the incumbent, but Scott is running again for Governor, and Leahy, Vermont's longest serving Senator is not running for another term. With that announcement, it set things up nicely for Peter Welch, the state's 75 year old At Large Congressman, to move up to the Senate, just as Vermont's junior Senator Bernie Sanders, now 81 years old did, technically as an Independent. Welch has been around Vermont politics for decades. In 1990, he was unsuccessful as the party's nominee for Governor. After some time away from politics, he was first elected to Congress in 2006 to succeed Sanders. Welch had first sought that office in 1988. In August of 2022, Welch took 87 percent in a three way primary for the Senate nomination. The much younger runner-up had the endorsement of Vermont's Progressive Party, but they are not running a candidate in the general election. Several other unknown or frequent minor candidates will appear on the fall ballot. Based on his voting record in the House, there should be little doubt that Welch will be a solid vote for the left.

Considering the rare open seat nature of this contest, Vermont Republicans hoped to make some sort of serious effort to compete. They believed they had a credible candidate in Christina Nolan, the former U.S. Attorney for Vermont. Although technically nominated by Donald Trump, she refused in the campaign to say if she had ever voted for him, citing the nature of the job she held as a prosecutor. Nolan did run as a moderate to slightly Republican and most significantly as an openly gay candidate. I believe she would have been the first openly gay Republican ever to be nominated for Senate or for Governor. While some hoped that someone like Nolan could accomplish the success statewide that Governor Scott had done in several elections, she still had to win a primary. Two candidates ran to her right, and despite a large financial advantage, she finished in second place with 38 percent. Behind that showing was real estate banker Myers Mermel who took 18 percent. 

While she would have been the underdog against Welch, Nolan was considered the only Republican in the field who might have been competitive. Vermont is still the only state to never elect a woman to Congress, but that is all but certain to change this year in regards to the female nominee of Democrats for the U.S. House seat. The winner of the Republican primary with 42 percent of the vote was businessman Gerald Malloy, a U.S. Army veteran.  His campaign slogan is "Deploy Malloy" and aspent most of his life as a Massachusetts resident, before moving to Vermont two years ago. Malloy stressed that he was more conservative than Nolan, especially on social issues, which helped him to narrowly win the lowly participated primary. Unlike his opponent, he also said he voted twice for Donald Trump although he stressed he was his own man.

One polling company, associated with Republicans, that gets a lot of attention from party supporters, showed a relatively close race between Welch and Malloy but a more recent independent poll shows a blowout in favor of the Democrat. It appears that Malloy may be running on a shoe-string budget, and based on the overwhelmingly liberal nature of the state in federal elections, which include several large Welch victories, I do not think this will be close at all.

U.S. Senate races predicted thus far:

14 D (8 Safe, 1 Likely, 2 Leans, 3 Tossup)

19 R (10 Safe, 4 Likely, 4 Leans, 1 Tossup)

Total with predictions thus far:

50 D (36 Holdover, 8 Safe, 1 Likely, 2 Leans, 3 Tossup) 

48 R (29 Holdover, 10 Safe. 4 Likely, 4 Leans, 1 Tossup)