Vermont’s most powerful state Senate delegation is set for a major overhaul next year thanks to shifts in population, radically redrawn district lines and the departures of at least two incumbents.
In total, at least three members of Chittenden County’s newly expanded seven-member delegation will be sworn into the Senate for the first time in January — and each incumbent senator will represent far fewer people than they had in the past.
The changes were set in motion this year when senators came together to complete their once-a-decade duty of redrawing the lines between their districts. They had a puzzle before them: How would they deal with Chittenden County?
Senate districts in Vermont generally follow county lines. Chittenden County is the state’s population hub — and it continues to grow. According to the 2020 Census, the northwestern county saw its population jump 7.5% between 2010 and 2020, the most of any in the state. And with a higher population comes greater political representation in Montpelier.
Until this year, Chittenden County had an unusual six-person mega-district in the 30-member Senate. But in 2019, legislators passed a law capping future Senate districts at three members. The mega-district had to be broken up.
What resulted is a cluster of three districts, tallying seven senators representing the county: a single-member Chittenden-North district that includes Milton, Fairfax, Westford and Essex town; a three-member Chittenden-Central district spanning Burlington, Winooski and Essex Junction; and a three-member Chittenden-Southeast district ranging from South Burlington to Charlotte in the west and Underhill to Bolton in the east. (Yet another Chittenden County town, Colchester, has historically been lumped in with Grand Isle County and remains so under the new map.)
Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, is seeking reelection in the newly drawn Chittenden-Southeast District. Thanks to the Chittenden County breakup, she said, the new Senate delegation will be “representing individual towns much more dynamically than we have in the past.”
“Burlington has always been so predominant in the Chittenden County environment, and the rural towns have always felt that they weren’t being fully represented,” Lyons said.
With the newly drawn lines, Lyons said, Burlington’s population will no longer be “determining an outcome for the election as it might have in the past.”
Lyons is one of four senators in Chittenden County’s current six-member delegation running for reelection. The others are Sen. Thomas Chittenden, D-Chittenden, and Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, in Chittenden-Southeast, and Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, in Chittenden-Central.
There are three open seats up for grabs, thanks to the impending political exits of Sen. Chris Pearson, P/D-Chittenden, and Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, as well as the addition of a seventh seat to the region’s delegation.
And there were almost four openings. Until last week, Ram Hinsdale was planning to leave the state Senate as she sought a seat in the U.S. House. But at the last minute, with the filing deadline upon her, Ram Hinsdale dropped out of the congressional race and filed for reelection.
Chittenden County voters have not elected a Republican to their six-member Senate delegation since 2014. But Jim Dandeneau, who has since been named the Vermont Democratic Party’s interim executive director, told VTDigger in April that the new Chittenden-North district is “solidly Republican.” The one-member district encompasses Chittenden County’s more rural towns, plus a sliver of Franklin County.
On the ballot in that district is Rep. Leland Morgan, R-Milton, who is looking to make the leap from the House to the Senate. Democrats Brian Shelden and Irene Wrenner will duke it out in the Democratic primary in August before one faces Morgan in the general election.
Vermont Republican Party chair Paul Dame said Morgan is “the right candidate in that district.” Dame sees Chittenden-North as an opportunity for Republicans to pick up a Senate seat.
“I think we’re kind of seeing Franklin County extending into northern Chittenden County in terms of that sort of political demographic,” he told VTDigger.
Under the old Senate map, Dame said, the Chittenden district “was the hardest race in the state for a Republican to win. At least if you run statewide, you get Franklin and Rutland Counties.” Those two are generally considered among the most conservative counties in the state, along with the three counties that make up the Northeast Kingdom.
Under the new map, Dame said, Chittenden-Central is poised to become a battleground between Democrats and Progressives. Vermont Progressive Party executive director Josh Wronski agreed; he told VTDigger that the Chittenden-Central Senate race is “probably the most high-profile for us.”
Twelve-year Senate veteran Baruth will be the only incumbent running in Chittenden-Central, with two more seats wide open. While not a Senate incumbent, Rep. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Essex, will be a familiar name to Essex Junction voters in her bid for the upper chamber.
“You know, I didn’t come into the House thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to serve one term in the House, then they’re going to redistrict and so I’ll jump into the Senate,’” she told VTDigger. “What really happened is … the (new) district worked politically for me as a pretty left-leaning Progressive, myself. And there was an open seat, and then there were two open seats.”
If there were ever a time to make a bid for the upper chamber, she said, it’s now.
Along with Vyhovsky and Baruth on the Chittenden-Central ballot will be Essex Junction President Andrew Brown; Vermont Human Rights Commission member and Burlington resident Dawn Ellis; Burlington School Board member Martine Larocque Gulick; and Erhard Mahnke, a Burlington resident and staffer for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
In the three-member Chittenden-Southeast district, incumbents Chittenden, Lyons and Ram Hinsdale are seeking reelection. Also vying for spots are Steve May, a social worker from Richmond; Lewis Mudge, a Charlotte resident and Central Africa director for Human Rights Watch; and Ken Scott, a Champlain Valley School District board member from Shelburne. All are Democrats.
While Dame said he thinks Republicans “can be more competitive in that Southeast district,” none have filed for candidacy ahead of the August primary. Dame said the party is still trying to recruit candidates.
VTDigger reporter Lola Duffort contributed to this report.
