[D]emocrat Dennis Wygmans has won re-election in the race for Addison County state’s attorney, but with only a 10-vote margin, his opponent says he’ll likely request a recount.
Wygmans received 7,803 votes, or 44.77 percent, to independent challenger Peter Bevere’s 7,793 votes, or 44.71 percent, based on complete but unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office.
“Yesterday morning, I had a feeling it was going to be close,” Wygmans said Wednesday.
Wygmans said he stayed up until 5 a.m. looking for results, which still hadn’t come in from Bridport. Wygmans called the clerk’s office at 9 a.m. to hear he lost the town, 336-189. However, he had gained the votes he needed from other towns to win the race.
Wygmans, who lives in South Burlington, became Addison state’s attorney in 2017, after he was appointed by then-Gov. Peter Shumlin. He said the fact he was appointed and not elected previously could have played a role in the tightness of the race.
Wygmans, 53, started campaigning in July and said he spent about $3,000 on his campaign. Bevere raised about $8,600.
Bevere, 44, stayed awake until about 2:30 a.m., he said Wednesday afternoon after a full day of work, where he was in court for most of the day. Bevere is currently the deputy state’s attorney in Rutland County.
“It was a hectic day,” said Bevere.
Bevere said it was a challenge to run as an independent, but he was proud of the votes he received.
“We ran a great campaign. We knocked on a lot of doors, we reached out to a lot of people,” he said.
He has lived in Middlebury since 2003, where his wife Kelly Bevere coaches softball and is an assistant athletic director at Middlebury College. Bevere said before the election that he wanted to work closer to home.
Vermont law allows a recount if a request is made within 10 days of the election and the difference in the number of votes between the candidates is 5 percent or less.
The Addison match-up was one of four contested state’s attorney races on Tuesday.
Defender General Matt Valerio said he wasn’t surprised by the close results in Addison. The state’s attorney position is one of the most overlooked and one of the most powerful, he said, because the prosecutor decides which crimes to take to court.
Valerio says he is concerned that some prosecutors in the state take too harsh an approach in fighting crime.
“That keeps people in the system and feeds the incarcerated population,” he said.
However, the close election in Addison County, where Wygmans favors the use of restorative justice, and the results from the other counties, could represent voters’ desire for harsher penalties.
Valerio called Bennington and Rutland the two most “law and order-oriented counties in the state.”
In Bennington County, Christina Rainville was unsuccessful in her bid against her former boss, incumbent Erica Marthage, who received 6,897 votes to Rainville’s 2,907.
“I am grateful for the thousands of voters who trusted me with their votes,” Rainville said in a statement. “I’m disappointed that the county will not be getting a drug court and that my opioid plan will not be implemented.”
Rainville ran as an independent. She was deputy state’s attorney in Bennington County under Marthage for nearly nine years until she was fired in December 2015.
Rainville has worked at a Springfield law firm since 2016. Now that she lost the race, she said she planned to establish a civil and criminal litigation practice in Bennington County.
Marthage, a Manchester resident, also defeated independent Arnold Gottlieb, who received just one fewer vote than Rainville.
Marthage will start her fourth term in office, though she has fallen under scrutiny from advocacy groups in the past due to her tough-on-crime approach to cases.
Bennington County’s tough mentality has spread to Orleans County since Jennifer Barrett took office as state’s attorney four years ago, said Valerio.
Barrett won re-election on Tuesday in a race against Garrett Cornelius with 7,643 votes to Cornelius’ 1,614.
Barrett worked under Marthage as deputy state’s attorney for about three years in Bennington before she became the top prosecutor in Orleans County in 2014.
Barrett said she was aware of Marthage’s reputation in Bennington, but didn’t think she was as aggressive in Orleans.
“We are tough, but fair,” Barrett said.
Her opponent, Cornelius, who said he is self-taught in law enforcement, planned to run again in 2022.
“The campaign started a real conversation about criminal justice reform and positive change in Bennington County,” said Cornelius, who has had run-ins with the law himself. Cornelius and his older brother allegedly were involved in a fight in 2014, in which Isaac Hunt of Island Pond died. The prosecutor concluded the brothers acted in self-defense and no charges were brought.
In Lamoille County, Democrat Todd Shove, who formerly worked under Barrett in Orleans County, defeated Republican Betsy Anderson with 5,859 votes to 5,200 for the state’s attorney seat.
Shove left his position in Orleans in June to focus on campaigning. He previously defeated incumbent Paul Finnerty of Burlington by 437 votes in the primary election Aug. 14.
Shove’s election represents a historic change in the Lamoille County state’s attorney position — a position that has had little turnover.
Finnerty served for one term. Before that, Joel Page was Lamoille County state’s attorney for almost 30 years.
Lamoille County has historically been known for its forward-thinking restorative justice actions, said Valerio. Shove could change that.
“I plan on being a little more aggressive than Paul was,” Shove said.
Shove said he wanted to hold criminals accountable and make the people in Lamoille County feel safe.
Meanwhile, Anderson, a prosecutor in the attorney general’s office, said she would continue her role there.
“I’m proud … of the campaign that I ran,” she said.
