[P]olitical gadfly H. Brooke Paige rode a swell of Republican apathy on Tuesday to secure six nominations for statewide office, including the GOP’s spot in separate races against Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.
Four of the six races were uncontested, meaning Paige became the automatic Republican nominee by entering the contests for state auditor of accounts, treasurer, attorney general and secretary of state.
He narrowly beat out Lawrence Zupan, a Manchester real estate broker, for the U.S. Senate nomination. Jasdeep Pannu, an attorney from Essex Junction, and Roque De La Fuente, a California businessman, were also in the running.
Paige scored an easy win over Anya Tynio, a sales rep for the Newport Daily Express, in the U.S. House primary.
He received a total of 14,718 votes in the House race and 9,832 in the Senate race, compared to 24,220 votes for Gov. Phil Scott in the gubernatorial primary. A total of 35,869 people voted in the primary for governor, compared to fewer than 25,000 for the House and Senate races.
Hours after Paige secured the six nominations, he posted a message to Facebook asking for potential candidates to contact him or Vermont Republican Party Chair Deb Billado if they were interested in running. Under Vermont law, Paige may give his nomination to another candidate.
“Your expressions of support and encouragement have been a godsend as my one-man show worked to keep the Democrats from again embarrassing our party by ‘crowding’ the ticket and writing in Democrat candidates on the Republican ballot — preventing the Republicans the opportunity to place worthy, late arrivals on the ballot for the General Election,” he wrote.
“Each of my competitors, Anya, Jasdeep and Lawrence, did a yeoman’s job gathering resources and gaining support, however, as neophytes to politics, they lacked the time to hone their skills and gain the necessary momentum to best this ‘old salt,’” he wrote.
Paige said in a telephone interview Wednesday night that he was open to stepping aside for qualified candidates in all of the races — except for secretary of state, an office that he thinks needs an overhaul.
However, he’s not willing to give up the seats to just anyone. Paige said he has talked to “every single person that you have associated with Republican state politics,” asking if they know of anyone up for the job, but hasn’t had much luck.
The Republican party, he added, wasn’t having any more success filling his seats than they did fielding candidates in the first place, and were becoming frustrated that he was being too selective.
“I’ve given myself a small amount of control here in choosing these candidates, but I think I’ve earned that, you know,” he said, adding that he did not think any of the candidates he faced in the primaries were up for a general election challenge.
What Paige really wants, he said, is to expose the open primary system as being ineffective — a goal he says drove him to run in Democratic primaries in the past — and encourage Vermont to adopt a closed primary that encourages parties to be more engaged in the selection process.
“I don’t enjoy any of this,” he said, “because I would have much preferred the party have a full slate of candidates in the primary.”
Billado confirmed that she was talking to Paige and Secretary of State Jim Condos about getting some other Republican candidates on the ballot, but declined to offer specifics about who might run for which positions.
Condos, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary, said that Paige could legally remain in the race for all of the positions if he wanted. “There is nothing in the election law that prevents that,” he wrote in an email.
The secretary of state said he did not believe that people could serve in multiple offices at the same time, in a scenario in which one person won multiple statewide elections, but referred the question to the attorney general’s office, which was not able to provide an answer in time for publication.
If Paige does decide to hand over some of the nominations, he will have to do it within 10 days of the primary, by Aug. 24, Condos said. The Republican Party would then have seven days to appoint a different candidate to compete in the general election on Nov. 6.
Paige has previously sought the Democratic nomination for governor, and made an unsuccessful run for the Senate as a Republican. In recent years, he has filed lawsuits challenging the presidential candidacies of Barack Obama, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, all because he claimed they were not natural-born citizens.
Paige ran a newsstand business in Philadelphia for years while spending weekends in Vermont, and has also worked as a food service manager and industrial chemical salesman. He works two evenings a week at Panera Bread in Berlin. “It’s something to do,” he said.
Tough times for the GOP
Billado declined to comment on why the Republican Party did not put forward other candidates for the statewide positions, or how Paige’s sweep reflected on the party. She also declined to comment on whether she supported Paige as a representative of the party.
Statewide races are not the only area where the Republican Party has struggled to field candidates. The party recruited only 77 candidates for the 150 state House races this year, as of the registration deadline for primaries, compared to 103 in 2016.
Democratic leaders say they can win a veto-proof majority in the House outright, or at least reach the 100 votes to override a veto with allied independents and Progressives. Republicans have seen almost a dozen incumbents leave their seats, including Minority Leader Don Turner, who is running for lieutenant governor.
Turner is running against incumbent David Zuckerman, P/D. He said he had spoken to Paige about his multiple entries and appreciated his efforts to prevent Republican nominations from going to Democrats by default.
“He feels very strongly that he doesn’t want Dems to get the Republican nomination because we haven’t been able to secure a candidate, so I do appreciate that and respect him for doing that,” he said.
Turner, who is also the Milton town manager, said that his own candidacy was driven by a desire to give Vermonters a choice for their top state officials, but that he also appreciated how tough it can be to make the commitment.
“It’s very difficult to run for a statewide office, it takes a lot of effort, and it’s very hard to beat an incumbent in Vermont, so I think those are two factors that discourage people from running for those positions,” Turner said.
“I hope that it doesn’t happen again in the future that we have one person to fill all those positions,” he added.
Former Republican Gov. Jim Douglas said Wednesday that it was a bad time for the party, but that having Paige win the slate of statewide races wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.
“It’s better than no one at all, which is what we had in some recent years,” he said. “It could be seen as progress.”
Douglas noted that in previous years Welch won the Republican primary for U.S. House through write-in votes. Before becoming governor, Douglas also received the Democratic nomination multiple times for treasurer and secretary of state, also through write-ins.
“Things go in waves,” he said. “There was a time when Republicans were stronger, obviously, and now is a time when Democrats are stronger.”
But the former governor also said that he saw an increasingly polarized and hostile electorate that placed little value on diversity of opinion.
“Overall I think a lot of folks are unhappy with the political discourse generally, and less inclined to become involved, concerned that the level of scrutiny would be more than they care to endure,” Douglas said.
“It would likely be futile,” he said of Republican challenges for the congressional seats in particular. “On the other hand, I think democracy is better served when there are choices and ideas are tested.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with an interview with H. Brooke Paige, who could not be contacted in time for initial publication.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Paige moved to Vermont after retiring from his newsstand business in Philadelphia. He moved to Vermont in the 1980s and commuted each week for years. Paige sold industrial chemicals in a previous job, not pharmaceuticals.
