[R]UTLAND — A Democrat has broken through in the GOP stronghold of Rutland County.
Cheryl Hooker, a write-in candidate who also ran under the Progressive Party banner, captured one of three of Rutland Senate seats.
Hooker secured second place in the six-person field, becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Rutland County since Bill Carris won election in 2012.
With all but the small town of Shrewsbury reporting results late Tuesday night, incumbent Brian Collamore, a Republican, was the top vote-getter in the county, with 11,160 votes.
He was followed by Hooker with 10,527, and James McNeil, another Republican and a former House member from Rutland Town, who won election to the third county Senate seat. He had 10,469 votes.
Rounding out the field was Republican Ed Larson, a former city alderman, with 9,820 votes, Greg Cox, a Democrat and Progressive, with 9,683 votes, and Scott Garren, another Democrat and Progressive with 7,090.
Hooker, a former state Senate and House member from Rutland City as well as a past member of the Board of Aldermen, garnered the most votes in the city of any of the candidates.
Through the night, Hooker continued to post strong results in the communities outside the county’s largest municipality.
Cox had generated a lot of buzz going into the election, a first-time candidate and farmer from West Rutland making his first bid for elective office.
However, it was Hooker who garnered the most votes among the candidates running as members of the Democratic and Progressive parties.
Two years ago, Hooker finished fourth, one spot out of the running for one of the county seats in the Senate. She previously served one term in the Senate from 1997 to 1998.
No candidate filed to run as a Democrat in the August primary.
Hooker waged a write-in campaign, as did Cox and Garren, and they each gathered enough votes to earn spots on the general election ballot as members of both the Democratic and Progressive parties.
On the general election ballot, Collamore, who was elected to his third two-year term, was the only incumbent. Fellow Republican incumbent Peg Flory did not seek re-election, and David Soucy, appointed to the post last year, lost in the Republican primary. Soucy had been tapped for the state Senate seat after incumbent Republican Kevin Mullin was named to head the Green Mountain Care Board more than a year ago.
