Deputy Secretary of State Chris Winters wants to succeed his boss, Jim Condos, when the latter retires at the end of his term. He will run as a Democrat.
Winters, who has worked at the Secretary of State’s Office for 25 years, announced his run on Thursday, pitching his candidacy as a continuation of the work he’s been doing for years.
“I’ll bring my hard-earned experience and intimate knowledge of the operations of the Secretary of State’s Office to the top job and we’ll hit the ground running,” he told reporters during a virtual press conference. “I want to ensure stability and continuity at a time when conducting elections has gotten more complicated than ever, at a time when it feels like everything we thought to be true is under attack.”
Winters, who grew up in Williamstown, first came to the Secretary of State’s Office in 1997, and worked for the bulk of his career in the Office of Professional Regulation, a department he eventually led. He was promoted to the deputy’s post in 2015.
Condos has not formally endorsed his second-in-command, although he has seemingly done everything but. He even supplied a quote for Winters’ press release announcing his run, in which he called his deputy “an indispensable partner in carrying out my vision.”
“You won’t find anyone more dedicated or knowledgeable about this office than Chris,” Condos said.
Condos’ predecessor, Deb Markowitz, has endorsed Winters, and is serving as his campaign treasurer.
As Condos’ right-hand man, Winters has helped advocate for and implement some of Vermont’s landmark ballot access initiatives, including same-day voter registration and universal mail-in ballots for general elections. Winters called it “the honor of my professional career to help guide Vermont through a presidential election in the middle of a pandemic, ensuring that no voter had to choose between their health and their right to vote.”
“The 2020 election was an incredible success, with record-breaking voter turnout and a successful first run of voting by mail, which I’m proud to say is now permanent law,” he said.
But while Winters will be able to lean on his decades of experience in the office when making his pitch to voters, he is untested politically. He has run for office only once before — for school board.
“There was only one other person running and it was a close race,” Winters said. “I barely eked it out for Berlin Elementary School Board.”
Winters is very likely to have competition in the primary. Longtime Montpelier City Clerk John Odum is thinking of jumping in. He said Thursday he would make a decision before Town Meeting Day, and probably within a week.
“It’s not a 100% sure thing, but I’m very, very likely to get into the race,” he said.
So is Rep. Sarah Copeland Hanzas, D-Bradford, who chairs the House Committee on Government Operations. Copeland Hanzas, whose committee oversees many of the same topics handled by the Secretary of State’s Office — including elections, reapportionment and open meeting laws — confirmed to VTDigger on Tuesday that she was mulling a run. She declined to elaborate further on her plans Thursday.
On the Republican side, Dustin Degree, who currently serves as the deputy commissioner at the Department of Labor, is also considering getting in the race. But the former Franklin County state senator said a statewide race would be a “massive endeavor,” and one he was weighing carefully.
“It would be foolish of me to make that decision without having time to talk to folks who I trust about what that might look like, and how that might be possible,” he said.
The integrity of elections is a fraught topic for the Republican Party, which is deeply polarized around former president Donald Trump and the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. In a brief interview with VTDigger, Degree made sure to make clear where he stood.
“It was truly heartbreaking not just to see the destruction of the United States Capitol but that because of misinformation and lies, that a whole section of the American people have lost faith in that process,” the former aide to Gov. Phil Scott said. “Election results have to be a common source of truth that we can move forward with together.”
