Republican Rep. Samantha Lefebvre and Democrat Carl Demrow share some similarities. Both entered politics on a whim. Both have represented their Orange County district for one term in the Vermont House: Demrow from 2019 to 2020 and Lefebvre from 2021 until now. Both sit on their town’s selectboard and previously served as volunteer firefighters. And most importantly, both ran against each other before.
After Lefebvre ousted Demrow in the 2020 election, the candidates are now in a rematch to represent an Orange County district that’s recently been reduced to a single seat.
In the legislative reapportionment process earlier this year, lawmakers dropped Chelsea and Williamstown from the Orange-1 district, leaving only the towns of Orange, Washington, Corinth and Vershire. The formerly two-seat district will now be represented by a single House member.
Lefebvre, who is from Orange, served on the House Committee on Government Operations, which oversees reapportionment. She played a role in advocating for Williamstown to separate from the district, she said, because of Corinth voters’ concerns that the boundaries were too wide.
“I made sure that Corinth and Williamstown were not in the same district, and that’s what they have gotten,” she said. “The voters spoke and I did my due diligence, and that is the new district that we have.”
Demrow, who is from Corinth, agreed that the former six-town district was challenging to represent.
“I do think single seat districts are sort of more democratic,” he said.
But while Demrow served alongside a Republican seatmate, Rodney Graham, for his 2019-20 term in office, only one party can claim the lone Orange-1 seat this cycle. With both parties hoping to secure enough seats to make or break Gov. Phil Scott’s vetoes, Democrats have eyed the district as an opportunity to regain a seat, while Republicans have pointed to Lefebvre as an example of the type of candidate they hope to defend.
Lefebvre beat Demrow by 2.6%, or 212 votes, in 2020. She and Graham served as the district’s two representatives in 2021 and 2022, but after redistricting, Graham, of Williamstown, is now running in the Orange-3 district.
During Demrow’s time in the House, he served on the Corrections and Institutions Committee. He said he visited most of the state’s prisons and decided to focus primarily on helping incarcerated women because the state’s only women’s prison, the troubled Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, was built in 1970 as a facility for men.
“It was never meant to be a place that women live, or anyone to live, long term,” he said. “I worked really hard as a member of Corrections and Institutions to be sure that we were doing something a little bit more appropriate for incarcerated women here in Vermont.”
As a result, Demrow said, there are now plans underway to build a new women’s prison.
Lefebvre, who is a per diem licensed nursing assistant on the maternity unit at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, said that one of her proudest accomplishments in her time in the House was chaperoning an effort to allow Vermont to join the Nurse Licensure Compact. The compact lets nurses practice in other NLC states “without having to obtain additional licenses,” according to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.
“It was something that our new nursing students were asking for,” she said. “They’re going through college. They are getting this license in a field that is in such dire straits for more support.”
If elected, Demrow said, he wants to tackle what he termed a three-sided issue: workforce, child care and housing. For Vermont to have a strong workforce, child care and housing must be improved, he said, or “we’re going to be in a lot of trouble down the line.”
“Attracting young families here is really important. Keeping young people in Vermont is really important,” he said. “And we’re not going to do that if we don’t have things like housing.”
Lefebvre, who served on the House Committee on Government Operations, said she’s focused on accountability in the Legislature. The state needs to be looking at programs and commissions — dozens of which are created each session — to ensure that they are effective, she said.
“One of the best committees we have at the Statehouse is the Sunset Advisory Commission. And they look at committees and commissions that the state Legislature has put up and make sure that they’re actually meeting and they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” she said. “That’s the accountability I’m looking for.”
Lefebvre said she has not changed her campaign strategy since the last time she and Demrow faced off.
“I am still going door-to-door. I am still doing the same campaigning strategies that I did before,” she said. “I guess this time around I think maybe it’s better weather.”
Demrow, however, thinks this time around will be different. The Legislature, which met throughout the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, was still in session and demanding his attention during much of his 2020 campaign, he said.
“That was a little bit like having your hands tied behind your back,” he said. He also held back on campaigning door-to-door during the pandemic, thinking his constituents would be concerned about in-person interaction but said recently that he “was probably wrong about that.”
Lefebvre took the opposite approach.
“I got a lot of heat last election going door-to-door, but I did it in a safe way, with the consciousness of Covid,” she said.
Demrow also has an edge in fundraising this cycle. As of the latest filing deadline on Oct. 15, he had brought in more than $10,000, including large donations from the state employees’ and teachers’ unions and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. Lefebvre had raised just over $3,800, more than $3,000 of which came from Republican mega-donor Skip Vallee and his family.
Both candidates entered politics for similar reasons. Demrow said that in 2018, he attended a town meeting and was surprised that no state representative showed up.
“I said to my sweetheart, ‘We should be able to do better than that here.’ And she said, ‘Why don’t you run?’” Demrow said.
Lefebvre said she had no experience with politics before her 2020 run, but a few days before the filing deadline, she saw an ad seeking a running mate for the district.
“My husband and I talked about it, and we thought maybe he should do it,” she said. “Then we both agreed that I’m better at talking with people, so I threw my hat in the ring.”
Both agree that campaigning face to face is vital to rural Vermont politics.
“I can’t tell you how many people have said to me, ‘I really appreciate your coming by and taking the time to ask me what I’m thinking,’” Demrow said.
Lefebrve agreed, saying, “I’m there to listen to what they have to say, and that’s super important for them to know.”