Vermont 2020 Election Results

Vermont held its general election on November 3, 2020, deciding 180 legislative seats across 117 districts and 6 statewide offices led by the governorship. No chamber changed party control.

Highlights

• Democrats kept both chambers, but Republican House gains broke the veto-proof supermajority Democrats and Progressives had held over Gov. Phil Scott (R), and House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D) lost her own seat.
• Johnson's defeat in the two-seat Grand Isle-Chittenden district was what Seven Days called the cycle's highest-profile upset: she finished third behind Republican incumbent Leland Morgan (R) and his nephew Mike Morgan (R), missing the second seat by 20 votes. She requested a recount, which confirmed the result, and Majority Leader Jill Krowinski (D) was poised to succeed her as Speaker. It was not Johnson's first close race: she won by 31 votes in 2014.
• Elsewhere, incumbent losses fell mostly on Democrats and Progressives:
  • In the Senate's one change of party, Sen. John Rodgers (I), a Democrat who ran as an independent after filing too late for the primary, lost his Essex-Orleans seat to Russ Ingalls (R).
  • Rep. Robin Chesnut-Tangerman, the House Progressive Party chair, lost Rutland-Bennington to Sally Achey (R) by 32 votes.
  • In multi-seat districts, Charen Fegard (D) (Franklin-5), Carl Demrow (D) (Orange-1), and Dave Potter (D) (Rutland-2) each lost a seat to a Republican.
  • Jim Carroll (D) (Bennington-2-2) and Cynthia Browning (D) (Bennington-4) lost to fellow Democrats in multi-seat districts.
  • Running the other way, Alyssa Black (D) unseated Robert L. Bancroft (R) in Chittenden-8-3.
• Scott, who launched his campaign pledging not to actively raise money or attend political events, easily won a third term, beating Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman (P/D) by about 40 points. To replace Zuckerman, Molly Gray (D), an assistant attorney general in her first bid for office, beat Scott Milne (R) by about seven points. The other four Democratic statewide incumbents were re-elected comfortably.
• Taylor Small (P/D) won a seat in the two-member Chittenden-6-7 district to become Vermont's first openly transgender legislator.
• Across the 117 legislative districts, 9 incumbents lost in November. Beyond those, 2 races finished inside two points, including Windsor-2, where John Arrison (D) won by 42 votes.

Legislature

• House (150 seats): 95 D, 43 R, 12 other or vacant before the election, 92 D, 46 R, 12 other or vacant after; control stayed with Democrats.
• Senate (30 seats): 22 D, 6 R, 2 other or vacant before the election, 21 D, 7 R, 2 other or vacant after; control stayed with Democrats.

Statewide races

Legislative races