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By Sam Douglass
When voters went to the polls this past Tuesday, Vermont Republicans suffered a tremendous defeat in what many are calling the “blue tsunami,” an election that will have major implications for what policies are decided in Montpelier over the next two legislative sessions. It wasn’t just the Statehouse. With the exception of Gov. Phil Scott, Vermont’s statewide races were also soundly won by Democrats.
In the 2024 election, voters sent a clear message that they wanted change, sending 18 new Republicans to the House and six to the Senate. This year, 18 Republicans in the House and six in the Senate lost their seats, many of whom were the same lawmakers elected in 2024. Democrats and Progressives in the House hold an estimated 109, while House Republicans have an estimated 37. Senate Republicans now hold 8 seats, and Senate Democrats hold 20 seats.
One of the surprising losses of the evening for Republicans came from Bennington, where Rep. Mary Morrissey (R-Bennington-5), who served in the Vermont House for 15 terms and nearly three decades, lost her seat to political newcomer Tom Blakely (D), who reportedly ran a robust campaign. Vermont voters tend to support incumbent candidates, especially after a long time in office.
So, the question remains: Why? Why did voters who overwhelmingly elected Republican candidates in 2024 reject so many of them just two years later?
Republican politicians and political commentators across the nation have largely placed the blame for their party’s losses on nationwide frustration with the policies of the Trump administration. US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the results of the election, “a Watergate-level repudiation.” This may be the case in Vermont as well. Between frequent No Kings rallies held across the state, especially in Vermont’s largest municipalities, and ICE protests throughout 2026, opposition to Trump has been highly visible in the Green Mountain State.
According to voter exit polls conducted across 45 states by NBC News and a number of other news outlets, 63% of voters disapproved of the way President Trump is handling the presidency and 66% believe that economic conditions have worsened in the US under Trump. The polls were the result of in-person interviews at the polls and voter outreach to capture mail-in voters. The polls do not list the number of respondents, nor which states were left out.
In an interview with VDC, Vermont Republican Party Chairman Paul Dame believes that sentiment in opposition to President Donald Trump did play a significant role in Vermont, including among voters who had previously supported Republicans.
“The 2024 Trump voters who did turn out, turned out not to support Republicans, but to punish them. And punished even state-level Republicans for Trump really breaking his promises about no wars and getting gas and grocery prices down,” said Dame.
However, while dissatisfaction with the President and the national Republican Party appears to be the underlying factor, some Vermont Republicans blame themselves and point to hiccups in their own campaign strategy and messaging. The election raised questions among lawmakers and party officials about organization, and whether Vermont Republicans did enough to distinguish themselves from their national counterparts and effectively communicate their priorities to voters.
“Politics is a team sport and democracy is only as good as its weakest link,” said Rep. Gina Galfetti (R-Washington-Orange) in an interview with VDC Thursday evening. She stressed that candidates needed to work together and elevate each other, even if they live on opposite sides of the state.
Galfetti was one of the few members of the House Republican Caucus who made it through the election unscathed. She is also a candidate for Speaker of the House in January, where she will face Democratic Majority Leader Lori Houghton (D-Chittenden-22) for the speaker’s gavel.
Political campaigns can benefit greatly from personal interaction when voters can meet someone face to face, even if it isn’t the candidate doing the outreach. Knocking on a voter’s door or picking up the phone to make calls can often be the difference between success and failure.
Joshua Bechhoefer, the VTGOP’s national committeeman, pointed to organizations that conducted door-to-door outreach for Democratic candidates and criticized his own party’s lack of collaboration with similar grassroots organizations, as well as its limited campaign infrastructure.
“We didn’t have infrastructure for a door knocking operation,” said Bechhoefer. “Democrats had a machine and a standard for infrastructure that candidates could replicate. We needed boots on the ground in every district and we didn’t have anything like that.”
Some nonprofits in Vermont, including Vermont Conservation Voters and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG), managed extensive canvassing operations across the state during the election either in support of specific candidates, to build awareness of key issues, or to raise funds, though these operations were not specific to 2026.
Bechhoefer also pointed to his party’s messaging in hindsight, as how candidates and their party communicate with the public can also make a key difference.
“It’s clear that we [Vermont Republicans] didn’t insulate ourselves from national headwinds well enough. We didn’t distinguish our unique, separate brand of Republican. The data seems to bear that national headwinds were the largest contributing factor on Tuesday,” Bechhoefer said.
Galfetti likewise pointed to shortcomings in the Republican messaging strategy, particularly its ability to communicate legislative accomplishments and explain to voters how their representation in Montpelier has made a difference.
“Our messaging strategy of what we’re winning on is deficient and we aren’t doing a good enough job telling voters how their votes matter,” Galfetti said.
Affordability, particularly rising property taxes and the cost of living, was a central issue in the 2024 election and helped propel Republicans to significant legislative gains. However, in this year’s election, Democratic candidates also campaigned extensively on affordability, challenging Republicans to distinguish their positions from those of their opponents.
“When every candidate is running on affordability, it can be challenging to tell the difference,” said Galfetti, and other Republican candidates agreed.
“This race was run on affordability and Democrats caused the affordability problem, and now voters believed them when they said they could fix it,” said Lynn Lafleur, who ran for State Treasurer against incumbent Mike Pieciak (D). She also serves as Treasurer for the Vermont Republican Party.
Lafleur told VDC that during her campaign, she heard from Democrats across the state that they couldn’t vote for Democrat candidates in light of the affordability issues allegedly caused by Vermont’s Democrats. However, she also heard from voters who couldn’t vote for any Republican candidate because of Trump.
“It was so many things,” said Lafleur about the election. “Trump was certainly the main cause but party organization had an effect.”
Despite entering the 2025 legislative session with substantially greater representation, Republicans remained in the minority in both chambers, yet championed a handful of issues and collaborated on issues championed by Democrats. Agricultural policy reform, tax exemptions for veterans, and the prominent education policy reform that aimed to reduce property taxes. However, it’s been observed that Republicans in Vermont have not yet achieved the reduction in fees and property taxes that they campaigned on in 2024.
“I’m not sure Vermont Republicans could have done anything to stem that tide,” said political analyst Rob Roper about Trump’s effect on the election. “but I don’t think they [Vermont Republicans] helped themselves after getting elected on a promise to lower property taxes, putting all their political capital behind a universally unpopular education reform plan that didn’t even try to lower property taxes.”
Despite what some are calling failures, for Dame, there is a positive message after the results on Tuesday.
“I think we did what we could confidently do, Vermont Republicans are not national Republicans,” he said, referencing Gov. Phil Scott and Lt. Gov. John Rodgers who have both publicly opposed President Trump and yet still suffered strong opposition at the polls.
“I feel just as miserable now as I did following the 2022 election, but we proved following that election that we can rebound, and there’s nothing I see that shows we can’t do that again in 2028,” he said.
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Categories: politics, Uncategorized
Vermonters do not like involvement in FOREIGN WARS………..this has been true for years & years…….
It would help if we had a more positive message from our Vt. GOP. I understand that a lot of Republicans do not like Trump (TDS), but he is our Pesident and he is an R. Also, it would be nice if more people acknowledged what Trump HAS done for our country. Closing borders for one. I could go on and on, but I will sto here.
BTW-I spent 10 months in a Third World Coumtry where I witnessed daily what life is like under that regime. Wake up people!
Trump negative of high gas prices due to a failure to resolve the reign of the horrible, apocalyptic, misogynist, homophobic, murderous regime in Iran touched people personally in their wallets. All of the positive aspects of Trump’s Presidency were purposely eclipsed by the mainstream media, so those of us who dont pay attention forgot about his policies of greatly reducing violent crime in major cities, controlled the borders and having ICE round up many of the violent criminal invaders let in by the previous administration. It’s really that simple. Now we go back to the democrat plan of imposing white guilt and returning us to a trajectory of becoming part of the third world by inviting it into our midst and preventing law-abiding Americans from defending ourselves from it. It’s a hard thing to accept that at this point in American history, half of our country are ignorant, self-hating fools.
““The 2024 Trump voters who did turn out, turned out not to support Republicans, but to punish them. And punished even state-level Republicans for Trump really breaking his promises about no wars and getting gas and grocery prices down,” said Dame.””
If this is true it shows how absolutely ignorant some/most of Vermont voters have become. There is no correlation between what is happening federally to locally here in VT. Any punishment (so called) should have ended with US congress and senate seats. Reps in Montpelier should have been elected based on what is/has/should be happening here, NOT Washington!
Dominion.
Agreed.
There was no plan. There was no team. There was no message.
VRGOP often takes the bait, the red meat bait thrown out by the Marxist to get a drastic reaction. For example they will state you voted for Trump and are racist. They can not veer from this message otherwise they will be canceled, that is their weakness. Even in the debate between Rodgers and the other Dem previous Zuckerman, the base line was getting Rodgers to admit that he didn’t support Trump.
All Republicans had to do is say,
We care about Vermont. We are focused on Vermont issues and are representing Vermonters, we don’t run Washington. Say this over and over again and suddenly people would be like, how come the Democrates don’t stand for something. Call them out on what they are doing, don’t fight them one on one, let them defeat themselves, they are about power, control and ruining our state, becoming a first colony of the united nations, and they can not, can not under any circumstances deviate, it’s their strength and huge weakness.
Another example they will not allow a candidate a women to choose her body her choice when running for office, if she believes what is in her pregnant womb is a baby, then she is automatically disqualified to get training and run for office.
What happened to my body my choice and women making their own decisions in life?
Can you see how incredibly weak they truly are? You only need to call them out on what they do and suddenly the house of cards fall.
We need to be wiser than snakes and more innocent than doves.
We really need to rebuild the team over the next four years, not even run a governor or lt. governor position and let them own their whole mess while we rebuild. Marxist math always fails, epically. All the stuff they are doing, the problems they are creating are all man made so they can be changed just as easily by man. With no team, no plan, no money, no message, we have no chance.
VTGOP is actually in a very, very powerful position right now. When they have a super majority there are no excuses for what they do. And the VTGOP being in the weakest position can take much advantage of the situation. I’ll use a national example first to demonstrate.
The Dems have been saying release the Epstein files, Repubs should be pushing for this! Will the Democrats ever release the files NEVER!!!! This is how you call them out on their B.S. lies and rub it in their face.
There are many Vermont examples too that could be used in the same fashion.
Women’s rights to choose.
Equality between men and women.
Money for the homeless.
Affordable housing
Affordable health care
Let’s take health care, Vermont has the solution and we actually specialize in it, it’s called captive insurance. We could be the biggest captive health insurance capital of the entire united states, perhaps reduce health care costs by 30% and bring in much money for the state. They won’t do it, because it’s not the plan they have to follow. A company of 100 people save huge sums of money via captive insurance, the state could save even more!
They will NEVER veer from the plan, despite how good an idea somebody may have, despite common sense staring them in the face. It is all about divide and conquer, the last thing they want is people working together and thinking for themselves. It’s the kryptonite to Marxism.
Part of the Republicans problem is the fact that the Vermont Media fails to provide equal coverage to their candidates AND that the coverage they are “given” is frequently biased in favor of the opposition.
Part of the Republican’s problem is the extremism of many nominated Republican candidates and the fact that the party ran only 89 candidates against 130 Democrats and Progressives. Messaging, outreach, and insulation from national politics do not matter when Republicans nominate candidates who are unacceptable to most people – or nominate no one at all.
Brooke, that isn’t going to change, so what’s the plan? They can freely speak on this site, it’s the only free-speech platform in Vermont. We don’t see any reps speaking here, your post aside. Thanks for the work you are doing.,
And to address Mark, the problem is GOP leadership, under their leadership the GOP has NEVER been so weak, and the Dems have NEVER been so strong. It’s almost like they don’t want Montpelier to change, at all……
Agree with Tyler Austin. Dominion is a factor.
Yes.
2026 Dem #’s = 1.15x Trump’s 2024 #’s.
2026 republican #’s = 0.85x Trump’s 2024 #’s.
All counties in 21 states shifted blue.
Statistical analysis available on X, via Truth is freedom.
Malloy should have never been allowed to run. Even a child could see he was in it for has bloated ego. GOP gifted the race to Ballint. I or a thousand other successful, native Vermont professionals could have run a better campaign. Who wants to bet he moves out of Vermont?
Stop trying to convince people the price of oil is Trump’s fault when we are the #1 oil producing county in the world that has not built a new refinery since 1975 but have closed over ninety refineries between 1990 and 2020 totaling 3,550,327 barrels a day of crude distillation capacity. Not to mention the Commiecrat’s favorite country Ukraine who’s bombing of the refineries in Russia has affected the price of diesel and gas worldwide. Every US Refinery Shutdown Since 1990: The Full Record
I call for the immediate resignation of Paul Dame, time and time again he has failed us in elections!
So, Paul Dame you must have voted for the Democrats to punish us republicans! What the hell are our state democrats going to do with lowering gas prices?? My prediction for 2027 is the following: increase property tax, stricter gun control, carbon tax, fuel tax, etc., etc., etc.
In the next few days we will all know why it was a Dem run in every state. Yes, Dominion is a key player….it’s not over by any means…
well, that and 2.6 million new voters in Texas and very likely all the other southern states that are not us citizens, just like Vermont want s to do! Oh, but they live here so they should vote, and the high schoolers too, they should vote too!.
Somehow with a majority in house and senate they couldn’t pass the save act, how useless and a sell out can you be?
Meanwhile in Vermont we are congratulating Scott for what? Building the weakest GOP Vermont has ever experienced? A second democratic super majority? More drugs and crime?
We need to clean our own house, this is pathetic.