Updated at 5:05 p.m.
It’s official: Vermont Lt. Gov. Molly Gray wants to make the jump from America’s smallest state capital to the nation’s capital.
Gray on Monday announced her candidacy for Vermont’s sole seat in the U.S. House. Should she prevail in the Democratic primary and then the 2022 midterm, she would be the first woman to represent Vermont in Congress.
When asked In a Monday interview with VTDigger why she’s running for the seat, Gray rattled off a list of issues too big for a small state like Vermont to tackle alone: an aging population, skyrocketing housing costs, workforce shortages and more.
“As Vermont’s lieutenant governor, I’ve spent a lot of time getting to every corner of the state, meeting with Vermonters directly,” she said. “And what I know is that we will need a champion in Washington who’s going to fight like hell for every corner of our state.”
Her announcement is the third in a series of interconnected political events to fall into place as the future of Vermont’s congressional delegation begins to take shape. First, Vermont’s longest-serving U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy on Nov. 15 announced his plan to retire when his current term concludes in 2023. With his retirement comes Vermont’s first open congressional race since 2006.
Stepping up in hopes of taking that seat is Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, who has served as Vermont’s at-large representative in the House since 2007 and launched his Senate campaign one week after Leahy’s retirement announcement. With Welch’s candidacy for higher office comes another opening in the delegation: his soon-to-be-former House seat.
Enter Gray. And though they have not officially announced any campaigns yet, state Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, and Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, have indicated an interest in contending for the seat, as well.
Ram Hinsdale told VTDigger in a Monday written statement that Gray “brings an important voice to the debate.” As for herself, she is still “considering (her) own candidacy.”
“Meanwhile, there’s a legislative session coming up, and I’ve been listening to Vermont families about what they need from it,” Ram Hinsdale said. “This is clearly a time that requires big changes.”
No other Democrat has indicated a willingness to challenge Welch for the Senate seat, so the most brutal primary is expected to be for the House seat. Gray is the first to step into the ring.
Democrats currently hold a narrow, eight-seat majority in the House. And while Vermont tends to lean blue, Gray said Monday that the House seat she’s gunning for “can’t be taken for granted.”
“The balance of the House is absolutely in question,” she said. “Nationally, Republicans will be looking at Vermont and saying, ‘How much money can we spend? And what can we do to send a Republican to Washington?’ ”
Asked in a series of questions about her policy standpoints, Gray said she supports Medicare for all, the Green New Deal, passing the Equal Rights Amendment and codifying Roe v. Wade into law via congressional action. As for propositions to grant the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico statehood, as well as expand the U.S. Supreme Court’s bench, she said she needs to learn more before taking a hard stance.
Gray also made a commitment to not accept campaign contributions from corporate PACs for her congressional race.
Gray, 37, grew up on a farm in Newbury. She has worked in Washington previously, having served as a congressional aide to Welch. Before winning election to the lieutenant governor’s post in 2020, she served at the statewide level as an assistant attorney general. She also had been a law clerk for then-Judge Peter Hall on the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
She attended the University of Vermont and Vermont Law School. In addition to her work in the justice system and government, she has done humanitarian work throughout the world.
If she were to win the Democratic primary and then 2022’s midterm race, it would be her first time serving as a legislator. Similar to Leahy when he entered office in 1975, she would begin a congressional career during a period of immense strife, and sometimes violence, in American politics.
As for how she would navigate the polarization that’s taken hold in Washington, Gray pointed to her 11-month tenure as lieutenant governor as evidence of her ability to work with Democrats and Republicans.
“I’ve worked with the most popular Republican governor in the nation (Phil Scott), and with a Democratic supermajority in the legislature, and navigated both,” she told VTDigger. “That’s the kind of leadership that I bring. It’s collaborative. I will work with anyone who wants to work for Vermonters to get real solutions for our state, for our working families and for our rural communities. I have the ability to work across the aisle to bring people together.”
