BURLINGTON — Six weeks after she lost the primary contest for lieutenant governor, Sen. Debbie Ingram, D-Chittenden, has decided to back the Republican candidate for the position, Scott Milne, over her own party’s nominee, Assistant Attorney General Molly Gray.
Ingram said that she believes Milne, who owns the travel company Milne Travel, is better equipped to serve as lieutenant governor because of his background as a business owner and manager.
“I campaigned counting myself as a person who had professional experience and life experience. And so when I didn’t make it, I looked to the candidate that I felt had the same qualities,” Ingram told reporters during a press conference with Milne Monday morning.
“And I feel I had a kinship to Scott, and I really feel that he’d be the best person for the job at this time,” Ingram said.
She added that Milne has “an attitude of humility, which leads him to listen to and learn from others.”
Ingram said that Gray “is certainly a person with a lot of drive and energy” but that she’d like to see the assistant attorney general “get some more experience.”
“I think her time will come. I don’t think this is the time,” Ingram said.
Ingram added that although she is “committed to supporting the advancement of women” in the political system, the lieutenant governor’s race is “too important to decide solely on the basis of sex, rather than the many other characteristics necessary for the job.”
“In my opinion, Mr. Milne’s qualities in other respects matter more than electing a woman,” Ingram said.
Ingram also praised Milne’s policy platform, which he released last week. She called Scott’s proposals to grow the state’s workforce and increase transparency in the lieutenant governor’s office “persuasive, even across party lines.”
Gray beat out Ingram and two other Democratic candidates — Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P Chittenden, and progressive activist Brenda Siegel — in the primary election on Aug. 11. She won with 44% of the vote compared to Ashe’s 33%. Ingram and Siegel both received about 9%.
In the months leading up to the primary, the assistant attorney general received endorsements from many members of Vermont’s Democratic establishment including former Govs. Madeleine Kunin and Peter Shumlin and former Lt. Gov. Doug Racine.
Since winning the primary, she has been endorsed by many of the state’s prominent Democratic leaders including U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, Attorney General TJ Donovan, and State Treasurer Beth Pearce.
In a statement, Gray’s campaign manager Samantha Sheehan said that the assistant attorney general “is happy to discuss job qualifications directly with Scott Milne.”
She noted that the campaign has invited Milne to attend eight community forums around the state and that the Republican candidate has declined to attend.
“Given that the primary responsibility of the Lieutenant Governor is to preside over the Senate, Molly’s legal training and work in public policy uniquely qualify her for the position,” Sheehan wrote.
“These qualifications, along with her deep roots in Vermont and her willingness to engage voters in their communities is why she has received endorsements from former Lieutenant Governors Madeleine Kunin, Peter Smith, Howard Dean, and Doug Racine.” She pointed out that Smith is a former Republican lieutenant governor and Dean is also a former Democratic governor.
Ingram’s endorsement received some criticism from Democrats on Monday, including from former education secretary Rebecca Holcombe, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor earlier this year.
“On this, I have an attitude of what I will call ‘mystisad,’” Holcombe wrote on Twitter in response to the news.
“Mystification that Ingram did this and sadness that an elected woman leader’s tool of choice to take down another woman candidate is a sexist trope,” she said.
During the press conference Monday, Ingram noted that she was concerned that Gray might violate the constitutional residency requirement for candidates running for lieutenant governor.
According to the state’s constitution, candidates must live in Vermont for four years before they can seek the lieutenant governor’s office.
For more than a year between 2017 to early 2018, Gray lived in Switzerland working for a human rights nonprofit focused on overseeing private military contractors.
But Gray has said that she maintained a permanent residence in Vermont throughout this period, and that if she wasn’t eligible to run, she wouldn’t be campaigning.
Ingram also said she was “distressed” by Gray’s voting record.
Gray did not vote in four Vermont election cycles — 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 — a fact that also drew criticism from some Democrats during the primary race.
