[F]acing a largely empty ballot just days away from this year’s general election candidate deadline, the Vermont Republican Party selected five nominees Wednesday evening for statewide and federal offices.
Before this year’s primary on Aug. 14, Republicans had struggled to find a slate of candidates to take on incumbent Democrats in top offices.
That opened the way perennial contender H. Brooke Paige to sweep up six GOP nominations in mostly uncontested primary races. He withdrew from five of those contests last week so other candidates could step forward.
Paige, who is still running against incumbent Democrat Jim Condos for secretary of state, has said he ran in the primary to secure the seats for Republicans, and prevent Democrats from snagging spots on the party’s ballot through coordinated write-in campaigns.
At its meeting on Wednesday, party members voted for nominees in two contested bids for the open spots, and tapped nominees who were unopposed for three others.
In the race for the U.S. Senate seat held by incumbent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Republicans nominated Lawrence Zupan, who had run against Paige in the primary.
A real estate agent from Manchester, Zupan received the nomination over Dan Feliciano, of Essex, who ran as a Libertarian candidate in the 2014 gubernatorial election.
Zupan said he plans on inviting Sanders to take part in eight debates with him, and criticized the sitting senator for spending too much time out of state.
“His biggest fault right now is that he’s abandoned the people of Vermont for national ambitions,” he said after he secured the nomination.
Zupan said he champions “creative capitalism” and railed against Sanders’ platform as a Democratic Socialist.
“He needs to be spoken to by somebody who understands how the economy works,” he said.
Taking on incumbent U.S. Rep. Peter Welch is Anya Tynio, who also lost against Paige in the primary but did not face any competition Wednesday.
Tynio, 25, works in advertising — currently as a sales rep for the Newport Daily News. A Second Amendment advocate who hopes to foster Vermont’s agricultural sector and draw more young people to the state, Tynio said Welch has been an ineffective leader in Congress.
“I don’t think he has pushed any legislation … that has been for the state of Vermont,” she said.
In the race for attorney general, Republicans chose Janssen Willhoit, a defense attorney and outgoing state representative from St. Johnsbury, to challenge incumbent TJ Donovan.
Willhoit beat out Jasdeep Pannu, a defense attorney who was vying for the nomination and also ran for the U.S. Senate seat in this month’s primary.
Willhoit said that in the House Judiciary Committee, where he served for his last two years in the Legislature, he has always been a strong advocate for criminal justice reform and would go further than Donovan has in improving the system in Vermont.
He said that he spearheaded legislation to reform the state’s bail system, but was stymied by the attorney general’s office. He wanted to eliminate bail for people who are charged with nonviolent offenses, while the attorney general’s office advocated to keep bail, but to limit it to $200. The office’s recommendations were reflected in the legislation signed into law this year.
“These are compromises that should never have been made,” Willhoit said.
Willhoit added that the attorney general’s office under Donovan has routinely denied records requests, and that he would champion openness and transparency in government.
“Sunshine, to me, is always the answer,” he said.
In the two remaining races, Republicans appointed Rick Kenyon, a tax preparer from Brattleboro, to run against Doug Hoffer, the incumbent state auditor, and Rick Morton, the party’s treasurer, to run against the incumbent state treasurer, Beth Pearce.
Jack Moulton, executive director of the Vermont Republican Party, called the crop of candidates Republicans nominated Wednesday “fantastic.”
But he acknowledged that the party faces some blame for the Republicans’ poor showing in the primary.
“There’s always fault with us in not recruiting. I mean we actively recruited constantly for 24 months before the primary process started, but there were faults that we all found and that we’ll reassess as we go into 2020,” he said.
“But right now I think we’re all happy with the outcome of what’s happened here.”