[F]our incumbent sheriffs won re-election Tuesday, another sheriff’s candidate was elected to succeed his boss, and one more in an open race pulled out a narrow win in contested races to become their county’s top law enforcement official.
Incumbent Sheriffs Steve Benard, a Republican of Rutland County, Chad Schmidt, a Democrat of Bennington, and Dean Shatney, a Republican from Caledonia County, easily outpaced their opponents in Tuesday’s general election to win re-election to four-year terms.
In a closer contest in Orleans County, Republican incumbent Kirk Martin defeated Democrat Jennifer Harlow Jacobs, a detective with the Newport Police Department. In complete but unofficial results, Martin had 5,061 votes, or 50 percent, while Jacobs received 4,725, or 47 percent.
In Addison County, Peter Newton, a Democrat and currently a lieutenant in that county’s sheriff’s department, defeated Kevin Gibbs, an independent and the former Bristol Police chief, by a margin of 62-30 percent in the race to succeed outgoing longtime sheriff, Don Keeler.
Franklin County produced the closest sheriff’s race of the night, with Democrat Roger Langevin, a member of the St. Albans Police Department, just getting by Republican Tom Oliver, a captain and chief deputy in the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department. The final but unofficial tally from the Secretary of State’s Office showed Langevin with 9,106 votes to Oliver’s 8,884, or a margin of 49-48 percent.
They were vying to replace Sheriff Robert Norris, who retired.
