The Deeper Dig is a weekly podcast from the VTDigger newsroom. Listen below, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
[W]hen voters in Stowe head to the polls on Election Day, they’ll choose whether incumbent Rep. Heidi Scheuermann or challenger Marina Meerburg will represent them in the House next session. They’ll consider the candidates’ stances on a statewide minimum wage increase, or on using tourism dollars to help fund Lake Champlain cleanup. But they may not be thinking that their votes could sway control of the chamber.
Next month’s elections could give Democrats a shot at a veto-proof majority in the Legislature: enough votes, including Progressives and some left-leaning Independents, to override a gubernatorial veto.
Gov. Phil Scott, who leads in the polls for reelection to another term, tied the record set by former Gov. Howard Dean for most bills vetoed in a single biennium. While Senate Democrats had enough votes to overturn those vetoes, House Republicans last session voted as a bloc to uphold Scott’s decisions.
According to Eric Davis, a political science professor emeritus at Middlebury College, party strategists are paying attention to the balance of power. But local voters likely aren’t.
“Vermont House elections have often been based on personal identification with the candidates,” Davis says, “that someone was well-known in the district for other reasons before they became a legislator. They were on the school board, or they were active in a voluntary organization in the town, or owned a local business.”
In turn, most candidates aren’t campaigning on a state-level “blue wave” — the term applied to national Democrats, energized in opposition to the Trump administration, looking to shift the balance of power in the U.S. Congress.
But Davis says national trends may be affecting some Vermont races, too.
“The word Republican, to many Vermont voters, is associated with Trump,” he says. “And Trump is not very popular in the state right now.”
Davis says this is why a candidate like Rep. Fred Baser, a Republican from Bristol, is campaigning as “an independent voice.”
“I think there are some parts of the state where a person with Republican leanings might be better advised to run for the Legislature as an Independent rather than as a Republican,” he says — a trend he’s seen increasing this year.
On this week’s podcast, Davis talks about ten Vermont House races that appear competitive enough to turn red seats blue. Plus:
- Stowe Reporter’s Caleigh Cross weighs in on the Lamoille-1 race, where Democrat Marina Meerburg is giving Rep. Heidi Scheuermann her first challenge since 2006.
- Addison Independent’s John Flowers breaks down the Addison-4 race, where a seat vacated by Democrat David Sharpe is mobilizing candidates from both parties.
- John Gregg, news editor at Valley News, discusses why the Windsor-Orange-1 race could come down to a margin of only a handful of votes.
Subscribe to The Deeper Dig on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Music by Chad Crouch.