Updated at 10:46 p.m.
Vermont’s delegation to next month’s Democratic National Convention has become the latest to rally around Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential pick.
At a virtual meeting Monday night, the state’s pledged delegates voted unanimously to support Harris, the Vermont Democratic Party announced in a press release later that night. According to the party’s executive director, Jim Dandeneau, 14 of Vermont’s 16 pledged delegates attended the meeting and two others indicated their support for Harris by text message.
The vote came the day after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential election and endorsed his vice president to take his place atop the Democratic ticket. Biden had faced weeks of mounting pressure to exit the race after a heavily scrutinized debate performance in June raised questions anew about his age and ability to defeat the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.
Since then, a parade of prominent Democrats — and state delegations from New Hampshire to Tennessee — have thrown their support behind Harris. Late Monday night, after Vermont’s delegates announced their preference, the Associated Press reported that Harris had locked down enough delegates to secure the nomination.
The Vermont Democratic Party is sending 24 delegates in total to the convention, which commences August 19 in Chicago.
Sixteen of them are known as pledged delegates, who were selected by party activists and leaders in May and June to deliver Vermont’s primary election votes for Biden at the convention. Though they had previously been committed to Biden, they are now free to support a candidate of their choosing.
Another eight are “automatic delegates,” formerly known as “superdelegates,” who are generally members of Congress, party leaders or other prominent Democrats. They were not previously bound to Biden or any other candidate. Automatic delegates cannot participate in the first round of voting but can, if necessary, in subsequent rounds.
The state party is also sending two alternates to the convention.
In addition to the 16 pledged delegates, several of Vermont’s automatic delegates were quick to throw their weight behind Harris — among them, U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., who endorsed the vice president in a statement Sunday afternoon. She wrote that Harris “has been an exceptional partner in the battle for dignity for working families, for reproductive freedoms and fighting corporate greed.”
“Through her leadership, we will be able to build on the President’s legacy and get the job done,” Balint said. She added that “it’s time for all of us to get to work and secure Kamala Harris in the White House.”
Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee chair, joined Balint in supporting Harris. He, too, is an automatic delegate to the convention.
“She’s really the only person with any presidential experience — or near presidential experience — running, and the only person with any kind of name recognition,” Dean told VTDigger in an interview Monday afternoon.
Vermont Democratic Party chair David Glidden and vice chair Amanda Gustin joined Democratic Party leaders from 56 other states and territories in endorsing Harris on Sunday night.
In written statements Monday night, several of Vermont’s pledged delegates explained their reasoning for supporting Harris.
“Reproductive rights are on the ballot this year and there is no better standard bearer than Vice President Harris,” said one of them, Thea Wurzburg, of Winooski. “I’m ready to defeat Trump’s extremist agenda that would turn back the clock on so many of our fundamental rights, and finally elect our first woman president.”
Earlier Monday, a number of pledged delegates reached by VTDigger had declined to say how they might vote at the convention.
“I need to see the process through,” delegate Molly Moore, who works for House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said in an interview. “I think that’s really important for the American people.”
Also in wait-and-see mode earlier Monday was delegate Peter Trombley, who told VTDigger that he would hold off on making any decision on his own ballot until the delegation’s Monday night meeting.
“I just really respect the opinions of my fellow delegates,” Trombley said. “A number of them have been working in politics or active in politics … and have served and been around the block a few more years than I have, and I just like to hear their thoughts before I make up my mind.”
Samantha Sheehan, a delegate who most recently worked for former Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, was in a similar place.
She told VTDigger that she wanted to wait to commit her vote until she was done “absorbing” feedback from voters and her fellow delegates Monday night. But she did point to a “phenomenal groundswell of support” for Harris’ campaign, which raised a historic $81 million in campaign contributions in just 24 hours.
Sheehan said she was focused on two questions in particular. “One is: Who is the best nominee to defeat Donald Trump?” Sheehan said. “And the second is: What is the will of Democratic voters in Vermont?”
Vermont’s two U.S. senators, both of whom are automatic delegates, had not publicly supported Harris by Monday night.
During a Sunday appearance on CBS News, U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., declined to endorse her, saying he hoped to see an open, “truncated” nomination contest play out at the DNC. Though he said he believed Harris would still prevail as the nominee “in all likelihood,” Welch said that an open race would strengthen the campaign of the party’s ultimate pick.
“It’s really important for us as Democrats to take advantage of the extraordinary energy that’s been unleashed by the President’s decision to step aside, and show that we’re confident about engaging everyday Democrats to participate in this,” Welch said.
Welch was the first Democratic U.S. senator to call on Biden to withdraw from the race, saying that doing so would be “for the good of the country.” Just days before he made that call, Welch told VTDigger in an interview that Biden’s June 27 debate performance raised questions over the 81-year-old president’s age, and that American voters were “not going to unsee what they saw.”
In a written statement Sunday, Vermont’s junior senator commended Biden’s decision to step down as “a difficult and selfless choice” that “put our democracy and the future of our nation ahead of himself.”
Now, with Biden out of the race, Welch said the Democratic Party had “a deep bench of leaders who will carry on the Biden legacy and inspire the voters we need to deliver the White House.” Harris, he said, was “among” those capable of beating Trump, he said.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had in recent weeks been among Biden’s most vocal supporters as pressure mounted for him to step down. Come Sunday, Sanders publicly thanked Biden for having “served our country with honor and dignity,” but evaded the question of his replacement.
“As the first president to ever walk on a picket line with striking workers, he has been the most pro-working class president in modern American history,” Sanders wrote in a post on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. “Thank you, Mr. President, for all you’ve done.”
