VTDigger will be posting updates on Vermont’s Primary Election Day throughout the day and into the night on August 14. We’ll have reporters talking to voters and candidates at precincts and campaign parties across the state, but we can’t be everywhere. Send tips on what to watch, and what’s happening, to news editor Colin Meyn (cmeyn@vtdigger.org) or politics reporter Xander Landen (xlanden@vtdigger.org)

Voting here today sign
State senate primary candidate Andrew Brewer campaigns in front of Montpelier City Hall. Photo by Mike Dougherty/VTDigger

 

1:55 a.m. August 15 (Colin Meyn)

Onto November

Phil Scott and Christine Hallquist
Incumbent Gov. Phil Scott will face Democratic challenger Christine Hallquist in the 2018 governor’s race. Photos by Mike Dougherty and Kit Norton/VTDigger

We’re sorry to report that we will be signing off with 5 towns yet to report: the clerks in Searsburg, Middletown Springs, Sutton, Glover and Weybridge have some explaining to do.

But in races across the state, the winners are now looking to November. For many of those who did not top the ballot, like Keith Stern, it means a return to normalcy.

“I’m back to being a produce guy, it looks like,” Stern said Tuesday night, as it become clear that Gov. Phil Scott would prevail.

On the other side of the governor’s race, Christine Hallquist made history, becoming the first openly transgender candidate for governor to get the nomination of a major party.

“We’ve got to double down and we will double down,” she said in her victory speech after her lead over James Ehlers and Brenda Siegel became insurmountable.

Other stories we posted in the last few hours:

Sanders and Welsh easily win renomination

Incumbent prosecutors sweat out election night as one goes down

‘Bellwether’ Bethel strikes a moderate tone

And our political columnist Jon Margolis weighs in on what went down.

Good night, good morning and see you in November.

 

 

10:30 August 14 (Alan Keays)

Tight Senate races starting to shake out

A Republican incumbent state senator from Rutland County appears to be in election trouble while further north in Washington County two Democratic incumbent state senators are coasting to primary wins.

In Rutland County, five Republicans are vying for the party’s three slots on the general election ballot in November, and so far with 21 or 31 precincts reporting, incumbent David Soucy is in fifth place.

Incumbent state Sen. Brian Collamore leads the GOP field with 2,402 votes, followed by challengers James McNeil, downtown Rutland business owner, with 1,905 votes, and Ed Larson, a former Rutland City aldermen, with 1,492 votes.

In Washington County, where a field of a six Democrats are competing for three of the party’s slots on the general election ballot, the two incumbents seeking re-election, Anthony Pollina and Ann Cummings, appear to be sailing along.

Holding the third spot is Andrew Perchlik, the director of Vermont’s Clean Energy Development Fund, with 2,142 votes.

Out of the running at the moment in fourth place is Ashley Hill, a deputy state’s attorney in Washington County.

 

9:38 August 14 (Colin Meyn)

AP calls primaries for Hallquist and Scott

The AP has declaring Christine Hallquist and Phil Scott the winners of their respective primaries.

 

 

8:55 p.m. August 14 (Alan Keays)

Incumbent gets the boot in Brattleboro

A Democratic incumbent House member has lost a primary challenge in Windham County.

In Windham 2-1, one of the House districts in Brattleboro, challenger Emilie Kornheiser garnered 589 votes to 227 votes for incumbent Valerie Stuart, according to unofficial results posted on the Secretary of State’s website.

Kornheiser was one of only two Vermont House candidates endorsed by Our Revolution, the political organization started by Bernie Sanders.

 

7:58 August 14 (Xander Landen)

Democratic unity? Maybe not

The two leading candidates in the Democratic governor’s race have different ideas about how they would handle their defeat in Tuesday’s primary.

Christine Hallquist says she would immediately endorse her opponent, James Ehlers, if she lost. Ehlers said his endorsement would only come after subsequent discussions with Hallquist about campaign finance.

“If she’s going to take corporate money and is going to put forward a Phil Scott-like budget then I’ll probably go back to working on the issues,” Ehlers said in an interview at the polls Tuesday morning. “If this campaign has had a moving impact on her, then I’ll consider working with her.”

In response to pressure from the Ehlers campaign and some Democratic voters, Hallquist has already returned the $16,000 she had accepted from Vermont companies early in her campaign.

Because she’s already given back the corporate money, Hallquist called Ehlers’ criticism of her campaign’s finances a “dead issue”

“I don’t even know why he continues to harp on it,” she said during a stop in St. Albans Tuesday afternoon.

Asked if she would support Ehlers, Hallquist did not hesitate to say yes.

“I will work hard if I lose to make sure we unite as a party. I will work hard if I win to make sure we unite as a party,” she said. “I would say it’s highly selfish if people don’t do that because that means they’re not thinking about the greater good.”

The results are trickling in here, and things are looking good for Hallquist early on.

 

7:40 p.m. August 14 (Colin Meyn)

A brief history of breaking results

Polls are closed, and the results are coming in (from Dover and Poultney so far).

VTDigger (and presumably anyone else who cares to commit their evening to the primaries) will be watching the Secretary of State’s election results website.

Who breaks the results tonight will likely come down to who can tweet the fastest (if that counts), or who writes the best algorithm.

In past elections — especially general elections with competitive races — things have gotten fierce, especially for the town clerks.

Before there was a digital system for reporting results, who got the results came down to who could contact clerks the fastest. Which meant a ton of calls coming in, so many that some clerks refused to take or make calls at all and headed home without reporting results.

WCAX dominated the race for years (less so as operations have slimmed down), sending reporters across the state and forging close relations (wink-wink) with clerks, according to folks who have been in the game for a while.

For those who wanted reliability over speed, AP was the place to look, and will surely have the results up early tonight. Will anyone beat them to it? Watch this space.

 

6:40 August 14 (Colin Meyn)

The Ethan and Christine show

Ethan and his gang
Ethan Sonneborn, far right, and his campaign team greet voters in Burlington on August 14. Photo by Kit Norton/VTDigger

Most of the national attention being given to Vermont politics in the past few months falls in one of two categories; Ethan Sonneborn because he’s a 14-year-old legally running for governor; or Christine Hallquist because she could be the first transgender gubernatorial candidate for a major party. And a bit of Gov. Phil Scott because of the political damage done by his signing of new gun control laws in April.

Christine Hallquist
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Christine Hallquist backed legislative leaders’ plan to address state finances at a press conference Thursday. Photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger

With Vermont among the 4 states holding primaries today, journalists and political junkies outside Vermont are…still focusing on those things.

‘Vermont governor: Democrats consider a 14-year-old and a former energy executive who could be the first openly transgender gubernatorial nominee,’ is how Vox sets up a brief overview of Vermont’s primaries.

‘Vermont features a competitive and quirky gubernatorial race, as incumbent Republican Phil Scott is seeking re-election in a typically blue state against a curious group of challengers,’ is how CNN leads into its Vermont preview (and it’s Keith Stern).

Over at FiveThirtyEight, Nathaniel Rakich notes that Vermont is a rare case where the outcome of the gubernatorial primary races could drastically change the shape of the general election (if Gov. Phil Scott loses to Keith Stern, and that’s a big if).

The betting odds on Christine Hallquist winning the Democratic primary have been rising throughout the day on PredictIt,org, for whatever that’s worth.

The odds at 6:24 p.m.

And looking beyond the primaries, Cook Political Report still has Vermont’s governor’s race safely in the red (again, for what it’s worth this early in the game).

Republican seats

 

4:55 p.m. August 14 (Colin Meyn)

Where the parties at?

Looking to party with the governor tonight? Too bad. Phil Scott’s campaign is ditching the classic primary night party for supporters in favor of “a small team meeting with family and volunteers,” his campaign told the press.

But all the other candidates, including 14-year-old Ethan Sonneborn, will be throwing down Tuesday evening as results come in. Like the election, you can’t choose them all (though with the first one starting at 5:30 and results coming in after 8 p.m., it’s worth a try). Here are the options, in order of start times if you accept the challenge.

Ethan Sonneborn: Aerie Consulting, Winooski, starts at 5:30
Brenda Siegel: Echo Restaurant, Brattleboro, starts at 6
James Ehlers: VFW in Burlington, starts at 7:15
Keith Stern: Killarney Pub, Ludlow, starts around 7:30
Christine Hallquist: Skinny Pancake, Burlington, starts at 7:30

4:05 p.m. August 14 (Mike Dougherty)

Adding the absentees

If you voted early or absentee — and based on past elections, there’s about a 30% chance you did — you probably handed or mailed your ballot back to your town or city clerk sometime in the 45 days before the election. What happens then?

Probably not much. The secretary of state’s office mandates that early voter absentee ballots “shall be stored in a secure place and shall not be returned to the voter for any reason.” Which means they stay boxed up until officials open them on election day, as Montpelier City Clerk John Odum is doing today.

Election officials first check to make sure each absentee voter hasn’t also showed up to vote in person. Then they run the ballots through the same scanner that’s used for in-person votes. The early and same-day ballots are “commingled,” as the secretary of state puts it — but tracking the number of absentee ballots is still part of every election’s turnout report.

Odum will open hundreds of absentee ballot envelopes today. (A letter opener comes in handy.)

3:50 p.m. August 14 (Colin Meyn)

Another test for Our Revolution

Bernie Sanders
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks in front of a packed hall Friday at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Bennington. Photo by Holly Pelczynski/Bennington Banner

It’s been a roller coaster of a primary season for Bernie Sanders and Our Revolution, the political action committee that grew out of his 2016 presidential election.

His “army is in disarray,” but has scored some major wins (along with plenty of losses), while the movement he represents is “just beginning.” It all depends on who you ask — and the result of the latest primaries.

As four states vote in primaries on Tuesday, Our Revolution has given its endorsement to just 6 candidates, including 3 in Vermont (including Sanders himself).

The other Vermont candidates with the group’s backing:

Emilie Kornheiser, the Director of Workforce Development at Youth Services, writes that she is “Extensively involved in the grassroots and grass-tops of her community.” She is running for the House in Windham 2-1.

Mari Cordes, a founding organizer of the UVM nurses union, writes that has “put my body on the line multiple times to protect access to healthcare for all.” Cordes is in the race for a House seat in Addison-4.

There are two Our Revolution-backed candidates running in Minnesota (Keith Ellison for attorney general and Ilhan Omar for the state House), one in Connecticut (Eva Bermudez Zimmerman for lieutenant governor) and none in Wisconsin.

Ellison has received the most attention of the bunch of late, but not for the right reasons.

2:00 p.m. August 14 (Mike Dougherty)

New on VTDigger: Meet Sanders’ challenger

Folasade Adeluola
Folasade Adeluola. Photo by Kit Norton/VTDigger

Just posted: Meet Folasade Adeluola, who’s facing Sen. Bernie Sanders in today’s Democratic primary.

Sanders has benefited from a major national profile since his 2016 presidential run. But Adeluola is looking to end Sanders’ strategy of “gaming” the Democratic race:

If he wins the primary, Sanders has said he will continue his practice of declining the nomination and running as an independent in the general election — a traditional Adeluola aims to stop.

She filed a formal complaint against the incumbent senator with the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office on Monday, alleging that Sanders’ plan makes him not “a true contestant” in the primary and that he is disrupting democratic procedure.

Read more in Alexandre Silberman’s full story.

1:10 p.m. August 14 (Mike Dougherty)

Hallquist leads Dems in unscientific stats

Handicapping the gubernatorial primary without consistent statewide polling is a challenge (RIP Castleton Polling Institute), but other preliminary indicators put Christine Hallquist at the head of the Democratic pack.

Last month’s poll by VPR and Vermont PBS showed Hallquist had higher name recognition (about 41%) than her competitors (25-29%).

Today, we analyzed pageviews for the candidate profiles in our Voter Guide as of 12 p.m. Hallquist tops this list, too — but by a slim margin against James Ehlers.

NB: This is a completely unscientific measurement. It only indicates which candidates our readers have been looking to learn more about — which may explain in part why incumbent Gov. Phil Scott, who VTDigger covers more regularly, is at the bottom of the list.

The online prediction market PredictIt, which allows spectators to place online bets on political races and more, analyzed its users’ behavior leading up to the Democratic primary. They forecast Hallquist as “a heavy favorite,” with 79% odds of winning.

This, too, is unscientific: Prediction markets have been criticized for creating “feedback loops” among users, and they mostly blew it in 2016. But without more controlled public opinion polls, these numbers are the best we have until returns come in later tonight.

(h/t Stacey Peters)

12:30 p.m. August 14 (Mike Dougherty)

Candidates go digital to get out the vote

Have you voted in today’s gubernatorial primary? At least half of the candidates have.

By noon today, all six of the candidates on the ballot for Vermont governor had taken to social media to push voters to the polls. Some showed off their polling places:

Brenda Siegel voted in Newfane. She tweeted that she’s brought her son to vote every time since he was born.

Christine Hallquist posted that she voted in Hyde Park this morning:

https://twitter.com/christineforvt/status/1029363432632602624

James Ehlers brought his two children to his polling place in Winooski.

Phil Scott put in a plug to vote in today’s primaries, but he hasn’t made a show of hitting the polls. This is likely a pre-recorded message — the Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers continues today, and his campaign ran an almost identical video ad starting last week.

Keith Stern posted a live video from Bennington encouraging Vermonters to vote. “Today is the day to start to put out the fires that have been brought to us from Montpelier,” he said.

Ethan Sonneborn, at 14 years old, is too young to legally vote. But he took to Twitter last night with a one-word summary of what was on his mind:

6 p.m. August 13 (Colin Meyn)

Are you ready to primary?

If you’re still not entirely sure who to vote for in these coming primaries, or you’re not even sure who’s running, don’t despair. Check out VTDigger’s candidate guide to get familiar with the people running and where they stand on the major issues facing Vermonters.

And here’s a quick primer on how to vote, which has become easier than ever this year with the implementation of same-day voter registration (for more on that, listen to the latest Deeper Dig podcast).

Check back throughout Tuesday for updates and brief dispatches from VTDigger reporters and editors. We’ll kick things off in the morning and keep it rolling well into the night. To get a wrap-up of the primary results straight to your email inbox Tuesday night, sign up for our Daily Digger newsletter.

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