The Vermont 2014 primary is only two days away, but you’d hardly know it. Lawn signs are practically nonexistent. Pols waving at busy street corners are a rare sight. And the media’s coverage of the primary has been sleepy.
Given the lassitude of this election season, voters can be forgiven for not paying attention. Fact is, there isn’t much to pay attention to.
This primary is remarkable for what isn’t happening, and the dynamic isn’t apt to improve much during the General Election season. There is no presidential race. No U.S. Senate race. There are no open seats for statewide office. Democrat Peter Welch is expected to win the U.S. House seat by a landslide. The primary candidates for governor are miles behind incumbent Gov. Peter Shumlin, and most of the other statewide officeholders have no challengers of note.
Eric Davis, retired professor of political science at Middlebury College, says voter turnout this year could be the lowest in decades. There are about 440,000 registered voters in Vermont and typically, the turnout is between 12 percent and 15 percent. This year the primary could draw as few as 35,000 voters, he said. Davis anticipates that the Republican turnout could be as low as 10,000 voters. By contrast, the Democratic primary race for governor in 2010, which featured five candidates, the turnout was about 110,000, Davis says.
Davis says this season the races are not competitive, the media isn’t covering the primary election and there has been a dearth of radio and TV campaign ads.
The governor’s race includes primary candidates from four different factions of Vermont politics: the Democrats, Republicans, independents and libertarians. Brooke Paige is running as a Democrat against Shumlin (Paige is also listed as a candidate in the race for Vermont Attorney General), and three candidates are running on the Republican ticket for governor — Scott Milne, Steve Berry and Emily Peyton.
Milne has the backing of the Vermont GOP and is favored to win, even though he does not have enough support to raise the money he would need to race competitively against Shumlin who has $1.2 million in the bank.
Milne has taken some blows in the last few weeks. His mother Marion Milne died. He only has $15,000 on hand. His no-show at an Essex GOP debate created more headlines than his first campaign ad. And key figures in the Vermont GOP have split off to support Dan Feliciano, a libertarian, in an aggressive write-in campaign. Feliciano hopes to not only qualify for the Republican nomination (he needs 250 votes to meet that threshold) he also hopes to beat Milne in the Republican primary race. Feliciano has the backing of the more conservative wing of the GOP, including Darcie Johnston and Brady Toensing.
The only hotly contested statewide race is for a position that holds very little power: The lieutenant governor’s office. (The lieutenant governor presides over the state Senate, breaks tie votes and fills in for the governor when he is out of state.) Dean Corren, a Progressive, who is running for the seat, managed to qualify for public financing and will have $200,000 to spend in a contest against incumbent Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican.
Corren wants the Democratic nomination, and is campaigning hard for party stalwarts to write him on the Democratic primary ballot. Though he only needs 250 votes to get on the ballot as a Democrat in November, Corren hopes to get about 2,000 write-in votes, according to Rep. Chris Pearson, P-Burlington, who is managing the campaign. The higher number of Democratic votes would signal the broad support Corren needs to persuade the party to fully back his general election campaign. Although Shumlin has endorsed Corren, it’s not clear how much support the Democrats will give a statewide Progressive candidate this year.
Scott has the backing of several powerful senators, including John Campbell, Dick Mazza and Dick Sears.
A key supporter for Scott, Cathy Lamberton put out a pitch on Facebook to encourage her friends (presumably Republicans) to do the same — in order to get the lieutenant governor on the Democratic ballot. When asked whether he would accept the nomination, Scott’s campaign manager Rep. Patti Komline, R-Dorset, demurred. The lieutenant governor is not actively soliciting write-in votes on the Democratic ballot, she said.
The other race pols are watching is the Windham County state Senate Democratic primary race, in which four candidates, including one incumbent, are vying for two seats.
But all of the above is inside baseball. For the average voter, none of this will likely be more interesting than the first week of school and plans for the Labor Day weekend.
