By Sam Douglass

Republican primaries are rare in Vermont. But in Addison County, three candidates – Andrea Treadwell, Andrew Klein, and incumbent Steve Heffernan- are competing for the GOP nomination for the two Senate seats.

The winner of the August 11 Republican primary will advance to the general election in a district that has historically leaned Democratic. Democratic incumbent Sen. Ruth Hardy of Middlebury is seeking re-election.

Andrea Treadway has lived in Orwell since 1984 and is making her second run for the state Senate. She ran for the seat in 2010, earning about 15% of the vote in a five-way race. In an interview this week with the Vermont Daily Chronicle, Treadway described her twenty-five years of service on several town, county, and state boards as an asset and a reason she should prevail in the primary to take on Hardy.

Treadway owns and operates AGR Business Services, a payroll and bookkeeping firm. She also serves as chair of the Orwell Selectboard, vice chair of the Addison County Regional Planning Commission’s Transportation Advisory Committee, and is a board member of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity.

Treadway said her campaign is built around fiscal and social responsibility, with an emphasis on working across party lines to address Vermont’s affordability crisis. Her priorities include healthcare costs, education spending, property tax reform, housing, and agriculture.

On education, Treadway supports efforts to reduce administrative costs and views Act 73, the 2025 education reform law, as an opportunity to reduce those costs. She believes that Vermont should consider different approaches, including school choice, to bring localized reform to communities.

“The reality is that education is not a one-size-fits-all solution; each community faces unique challenges that demand tailored responses,” she wrote on her website.

On her website, Treadway argues that reform is necessary to reduce healthcare expenses, which she says will have a downstream ripple effect on education spending. She supports healthcare administrative reform and believes universal primary care is a worthwhile goal if Vermont can develop a fiscally responsible way to implement it.

Treadway has also made protection of working lands a major issue. While she believes climate change is important to consider, she doesn’t believe that Vermont should legislate it and has argued for the repeal of Act 181. She supports protecting farmland and argued that Vermont’s Current Use program should be considered when measuring conservation goals under Act 59, which seeks to conserve 30% of Vermont’s land by 2030 and 50% by 2050.

Treadway’s campaign has raised $3,160.25 and spent $3,015.25. The campaign is almost entirely self-funded, with the primary expenditure being development of her campaign website.

As for her opponents, Treadway spoke highly of Senator Heffernan. In addition to praising him for his time in office, she commended him for standing his moral ground on issues for his own convictions, something she believes is important in public office.

“You have to have a moral compass and sometimes you have to stand strong and do what’s morally right for yourself,” Treadway said.