Jon Margolis is a political columnist for VTDigger.
More than two-thirds of the vote?
Get real. Everyone knew Gov. Phil Scott was going to be reelected Tuesday. But with 67% of the 369,484 votes for governor? That’s not just a victory; it’s a blowout.
And challenger David Zuckerman’s 27% isn’t just a defeat; it’s a disaster. Especially considering that Zuckerman was the candidate of the Democratic Party, which dominates this state.
Vermonters gave Democrat Joe Biden 66% of their votes, reelected all the incumbent Democrats to statewide office, chose Democrat Molly Gray by a healthy margin over Republican Scott Milne to take Zuckerman’s job as lieutenant governor, and returned large (if slightly diminished) Democratic majorities to both houses of the Legislature.
The results raised two questions. First, has anyone ever won (or lost) by such huge margins before?
Yes, and not that long ago. In 1996, say the records in the Secretary of State’s office, incumbent Democrat Howard Dean got 71% as he beat Republican John Gropper, whose 22.4% was less than Zuckerman’s, if slightly higher than the 19% Republican David F. Kelley got losing to Dean in 1994.
The biggest vote-getter ever (in the last hundred years) was Republican Ernest Gibson, who in 1946, back in the days when Republicans ruled Vermont, got 80% to Democrat Berthold Coburn’s 20%. So Scott’s triumph is not unprecedented. But it is impressive. So is Zuckerman’s thrashing. He didn’t get as many votes as Donald Trump.
The second question is how did it happen? How did a Republican governor get so many votes in a Democratic state while his Democratic challenger got so few?
Start with the Covid-19 pandemic, which Scott dealt with so effectively that Vermont, according to the latest data, has the lowest infection rate in the country.
And really, what else is there? Almost all public opinion surveys taken in the last few years indicate that most Vermonters agree with Zuckerman and disagree with Scott on a host of issues: the minimum wage, family leave, greenhouse gas emissions, legalizing marijuana.
But these are beliefs, not necessities of life. Living is a necessity of life. Health comes pretty close. As the pandemic sickened and killed thousands in other states, Vermonters could thank their governor for their relative safety.
On Tuesday, they did.
Another reason Zuckerman did poorly for a Democrat is that he isn’t really a Democrat. He was first elected to the House in 1996 and then to the Senate in 2012 as a Progressive who was often critical of Democrats. He sought and won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 2016, and for governor this year. On the ballot, he was listed as “Prog/Dem.”
Voters knew that, and it seemed to matter. These days the default position for most Vermont voters is that unless Phil Scott is running, they vote for the Democrat. As always, there are exceptions, the big one being the apparent defeat (there will be a recount) of House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, by a Republican.
But two of the more unpredictable (and sometimes ornery) Democratic legislators lost their jobs because they didn’t run as Democrats this year. For different reasons, Sen. John Rodgers of Essex/Orleans and Rep. Cynthia Browning of Arlington ran as independents. They both lost.
By and large, Vermonters prefer Democrats not only to Republicans but to independents to the left of the Democratic Party. These activists are articulate and often well-organized around specific issues. They can win in (low-turnout) Burlington city elections and a few House seats; seven Progressives won on Tuesday. But unless given some reason not to, the typical Vermont voter opts for the Democrat.
It’s not that the Democratic party has a strong organization. It doesn’t (though it’s stronger than the Vermont Republicans). But strong party organizations are largely a thing of the past everywhere. In Vermont, voting for Democrats just seems more comfortable.
Voting for real Democrats, that is, and Zuckerman did not always campaign that way. In some ways, he campaigned very well. He had a good organization and did well in the debates with Scott. His TV commercials were professionally produced. He looked and sounded good behind a podium.
But his message sometimes seemed like a parody of a solemn, left-of-liberal political movement, an image consistent with a pony-tailed candidate who operates an organic farm for a living. He occasionally mentioned reviving the idea of proposing a Vermont-only single payer health care plan. He stressed his support for taxing and regulating marijuana, even though pot is now legal in the state, thanks to a bill (S.54) that Scott allowed to become law without his signature.
Marijuana still isn’t as easily available as Zuckerman and others want. Still, you’d think he’d have figured out that this issue has lost its political punch for now.
And then he called for more spending and higher taxes, a tough sell even in a liberal state. The higher taxes, he said, would only be levied on the very wealthy. But as he first proposed it, there was some confusion about that.
Zuckerman has his political strengths. He’s articulate and thoughtful, and in private conversation he comes across as more pragmatic than his public image often suggests. Nobody was going to beat Scott this year. At 49, Zuckerman may not have made his last run for office.
Milne, at 61, possibly has. This was his third loss and it’s hard to see where he could win.
And Phil Scott? He’s a political Superman in this state.
A very dangerous thing to be. It tends to make a guy think he can do just about anything. That’s how you get in trouble.
Correction: An earlier version of this column misidentified the year and voting percentages of the candidates when the winner in the governor’s race received 80% of the vote. It was in 1946 and the margin was 80-20.
