This commentary is by Garrison Nelson, professor emeritus of law, politics and political behavior at the University of Vermont.
Vermont’s three-member congressional delegation is the smallest in the nation but is not unusual. It is tied with six other states for the smallest size. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming all have only one U.S. representative to serve with their two U.S. senators.
What makes it unusual is that is that its three members are all elderly white men — U.S. Sen. Pat Leahy is 82; fellow U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will be 81 on Sept. 8, and Peter Welch, the state’s lone U.S. House member, is 75, making the average age of Vermont’s congressional delegation 79, the oldest on record.
Pat Leahy has been in Congress since 1975, Sanders since 1991 and Welch since 2007 for an average service of 32 years each.
But what makes the delegation most unusual is the absence of women. No woman has ever represented Vermont in the U.S. Congress. When Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant named Agriculture Commissioner Cindy Hyde Smith to replace long-term U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in 2018, Vermont became the only American state with that dubious distinction.
Pat Leahy’s announced retirement has the potential to alter that circumstance.
Leahy’s announcement and Peter Welch’s decision to forgo a ninth House term and run for the Leahy seat has created vacancies in both seats. And those vacancies have generated serious candidacies from Vermont’s politically active women.
Ten of the 20 candidates for these offices are women. Seven are facing off in the upcoming primaries. In the Senate primaries, Republicans Christina Nolan and Democrat Niki Thran are vying for the opportunity to succeed Pat Leahy. Nolan appears to be the likely Republican winner to challenge Peter Welch, the odds-on favorite for the Democratic nomination.
Easily the most fascinating and expensive race is for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House seat to replace Welch. It’s not quite a lifetime post, but only one of its post-1960 occupants was defeated for reelection — Republican Peter Smith in 1990 — while four went on to win Senate seats: Republicans Winston Prouty in 1958, Bob Stafford in 1971 and Jim Jeffords in 1988, and independent Bernie Sanders in 2006. Only two-term Republican Dick Mallary, who lost to Leahy in 1974, failed to make the leap to the Senate. This should be good news for Welch.
The two leading Democratic candidates, Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint and Lt. Gov. Molly Gray, are high-ranking women who are articulate, well-educated and both present well on their ubiquitous television commercials.
Adding to the drama is that both have used high-power endorsements to further their causes. Balint has received endorsements from Sanders as well as from Sanders’ ally, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a leading member of the Jan. 6 investigating committee.
Gray, who worked in both the Leahy and Welch offices, has no formal endorsement from either, but Marcelle Leahy has publicly endorsed Gray. Gray’s uncle, the late (and lamented) Bill Gray, ran Leahy’s successful 1986 campaign against ex-Gov. Dick Snelling. Bill was less successful in his own Senate campaign against Jim Jeffords in 1988.
Because politics in Vermont tend to be more personal than partisan, it is not surprising that Leahy and Welch have passed on formally endorsing Gray, but it is easy to infer from her ads that she anticipates receiving their votes in the primary. Gray was first out of the gate with her well-made ads emphasizing her roots as “a farmer’s daughter.” She is at least one of four female contenders this year who have designated themselves this way. I am unsure if this will be a successful springboard for all four, but I doubt if any other state can make this claim.
Their campaigns have overshadowed the other two House Democratic candidacies of Sianay Chase Clifford (who has now withdrawn) and Dr. Lewis Meyers, as well as the three Republican candidacies of Liam Madden, Ericka Bundy Redic and Anya Tynio.
However, no Vermont Republican has been elected to the U.S. House since 1988, when Peter Smith gained his lone victory, only to be the worst-defeated GOP incumbent in 1990.
There is little doubt in my mind that the Balint-Gray winner will be Vermont’s next U.S. representative and end the state’s embarrassing lack of women in Congress. With regard to their race, Balint started late but gained momentum with her ads, helped by the Sanders endorsement. Her ads portray more gravitas than Gray’s and she has already accomplished more in the Vermont Senate than Gray has promised to do if elected.
My guess is a narrow victory for Becca Balint but, having once predicted that Bernie Sanders would lose to Burlington Mayor Gordon Paquette in 1981 (a fact that Bernie reminds me of frequently), I wouldn’t put any money on my prognostication.
