Updated May 3, 11:30 a.m.
Since announcing she would seek the Republican nomination for Vermont’s open U.S. Senate seat this year, former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan has been asked — and repeatedly dodged — the same question.
Would she vote to elect U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to once again serve as the chamber’s majority leader should Republicans retake the chamber?
“I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals,” she told VTDigger in February. “I don’t know who I’m going to vote for majority leader,” Nolan said in an NBC5 interview that aired in March.
But even if Nolan isn’t ready to publicly commit to McConnell, the Kentucky Republican appears eager to back Nolan.
On Tuesday, according to an invitation obtained by VTDigger, McConnell is scheduled to headline a fundraiser for Nolan’s campaign at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill.
Other “special guests” advertised on the invite include several high-profile female Senate Republicans, including Susan Collins of Maine — whom Nolan frequently cites as a politician she would seek to emulate — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Collins and Murkowski are some of the more moderate members of the Senate Republican caucus; Ernst and Blackburn are considered staunch conservatives.
Collins and Murkowski, for example, were two of three Republicans to break with their party to help confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. Blackburn, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, played a highly visible role in Jackson’s confirmation hearings when she pressed the nominee to define a woman.
William Barr, who served as attorney general under both President Donald Trump and President George H.W. Bush, was also listed in the invitation as a member of the event’s “host committee” — those who have donated or pledged $2,900 to the campaign. Michael Sherwin, Zach Terwilliger, Jessie Liu and Erin Nealy Cox — all former U.S. attorneys under Trump — were also listed as host committee members.
Like Nolan, U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., is also making a bid to replace outgoing U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Very early polling shows Welch, who has been Vermont’s sole U.S. House member for over a decade, with a 2-1 advantage over Nolan. And so far, her fundraising has been lackluster. But Nolan has the endorsement of one of Vermont’s most popular politicians — Republican Gov. Phil Scott — and is expected to receive significant support down the line from national Republicans, who say Vermont, while a longshot, is still worth competing in.
“I think we’re going to have some sleepers, where people are going to say, boy, we didn’t anticipate that one,” U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told The Hill in March, later citing Nolan by name.
A spokesperson for Nolan’s campaign wrote in a statement Monday, “Congressman Welch votes 100 percent with his party leaders in Washington and his campaign is awash in special interest money. Christina Nolan is running as an independent voice who will vote only in the best interests of the people of Vermont, and she is honored to be attending an event headlined by Senator Susan Collins tomorrow.”
