Esther Charlestin wins Democratic gubernatorial nod while statewide incumbents cruise to primary victories

Updated at 11:55 p.m.

Gov. Phil Scott, the incumbent Republican, will face Democratic challenger Esther Charlestin, an educator and former selectboard member from Middlebury, in Vermont’s general election this November.

The Associated Press called Tuesday’s Democratic gubernatorial primary for Charlestin less than an hour after polls closed around the state. In her race for her party’s nomination, Charlestin competed with Peter Duval, a former Underhill selectboard member who had previously run statewide as a Republican.

Charlestin won 49% of the vote to Duval’s 19%, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office. An unusually high 32% of voters wrote in another name or left their ballot blank.

At an election night celebration in Burlington, Charlestin told VTDigger that clinching the Democratic nomination “feels amazing.” Now the first woman of color representing a major party on Vermont’s gubernatorial ballot, Charlestin called her primary victory “history in the making.”

Until November, she told VTDigger, her plan was to “go hard” campaigning for Vermonters’ votes.

“That means raising a lot more money,” she said. “That means knocking on doors. That means seeking endorsements.”

Reached by phone Tuesday night after the race was called for his Democratic opponent, Duval told VTDigger that the primary results were “as expected.”

For the first time in roughly two decades, Scott faced no primary challenger on Tuesday, according to his campaign manager, Jason Maulucci. In a written statement after the results came in, Scott — who is seeking his fifth two-year term in office — thanked voters “for once again placing their faith and trust in me.”

“Now, we turn our focus to November,” Scott said. “I am committed to working hard to help elect a more balanced, pragmatic, Legislature, and supporting candidate(s) who will work with me, regardless of party, to make Vermont a more affordable place to live, work, raise a family, start a business, and retire in.

“I invite all Vermonters who want to see change in (the) Legislature to step up, reach out, and get involved,” he concluded.

According to the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office, two other candidates are slated to appear on the gubernatorial ballot this November: Eli “Poa” Mutino, an independent from Barre City, and June Goodband of Springfield, who is running as a member of the Peace and Justice party. Neither had to compete in a primary election for a major party nomination.

Perhaps emboldened by his better-than-ever general election performance in 2022, Scott appeared not to be preoccupied with his gubernatorial opponents this campaign cycle. Instead, the Republican has set his sights on Democrats’ theoretically veto-proof majority in the state House and Senate.

As a governor from a party out of power in the Legislature, Scott has issued a record number of vetoes during his nearly eight years in office. And this biennium, especially, a record number of those vetoes were overridden by at least two-thirds of state legislators.

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On Monday, the governor’s campaign sent an email to supporters not pleading for their votes in his own contest, but urging them to vote down-ballot.

“The current Super Majority in Montpelier is so far out of balance and out of touch, and we desperately need more common sense in the State House,” the Scott campaign wrote. “After the Primary, we will continue our focus on getting more pragmatic candidates elected in November who will actually work with me to make our state a more affordable place to live, work, raise a family, do business, and retire in.”

It’s that attitude of the governor’s, though, and his increasingly tense relationship with the Legislature “that’s the problem,” Charlestin told VTDigger Tuesday night.

“That isn’t actual leadership,” she said. “We have to work together. We have to figure out a way. It's not about who we like. It's about, how do we move Vermont forward in a way that we can all thrive?”

Monique Hanson, 34, of Burlington, said Tuesday that she had voted for Charlestin for governor. “She just gave me hope,” Hanson said.

Edgar Butterfield, 70, of Middlebury said that he had voted Republican across the ballot. “I just don’t like the liberal mentality,” he said. “This woke-ism.”

Butterfield, a farmer, said he saw Scott as an important check against Montpelier’s liberal supermajority. “He tries to keep stuff under control,” Butterfield said. Nonetheless, times are tough. “I see taxes continuing to go up,” he complained.

Scott was one of many statewide incumbents who cruised to easy victory in Tuesday’s primary elections, with all but one facing no competition for their party’s nomination.

This year’s primaries were markedly different from the 2022 election cycle, when six out of Vermont’s nine statewide officeholders opted to leave their posts — spurring hotly competitive primary contests and a rare level of turnover in Vermont politics.

Just two years later, though, only Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, a Progressive/Democrat, saw a primary challenge — from Thomas Renner, a Winooski Democrat who serves on the city council and as deputy mayor.

Also on Tuesday’s primary ballots were a slate of Vermont’s incumbent statewide officers, all Democrats, also unchallenged for their party nominations: Attorney General Charity Clark, Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, Auditor Doug Hoffer and Treasurer Mike Pieciak. All four of these uncontested incumbents easily secured their Democratic nominations. Hoffer has also historically run as a Progressive.

On the Republican ticket, perennial candidate H. Brooke Paige secured the GOP nomination in three statewide primaries, in which he ran uncontested: attorney general, secretary of state and auditor. He will face off against Clark, Copeland Hanzas and Hoffer, respectively, in November.

Having won his uncontested bid for the Republican nomination on Tuesday, Josh Bechhoefer of Cornwall will compete against Pieciak to serve as treasurer come November. Bechhoefer was recruited to run for the seat by the Vermont GOP this spring.

The only contested statewide Republican primary was for lieutenant governor: former Democratic state Sen. John Rodgers, of Glover, competed for the GOP nomination against Gregory Thayer, a Republican from Rutland who unsuccessfully sought the nomination for the same seat in 2022.

Two of Vermont’s three members of Congress are also up for reelection this year — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt. — and were unchallenged in their primaries. (Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats, historically competes in the Democratic primary, and then forgoes the party nomination to run as an independent.)

Both Balint and Sanders’ Republican challengers were also uncontested in their party primaries this week. Running against Balint this November is Mark Coester, a small business owner from Westminster. And challenging Sanders is Republican Gerald Malloy of Weathersfield, who ran against then-U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., for Vermont’s other Senate seat last cycle.

Chloe Jad and Theo Wells-Spackman contributed reporting.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Esther Charlestin wins Democratic gubernatorial nod while statewide incumbents cruise to primary victories .