Vermont Governor's Race Shifts as New Poll Shows Phil Scott Trailing

Five-term Vermont Governor Phil Scott is asking voters for a sixth term in a state that has never given him much trouble at the ballot box. A poll released Thursday suggests that streak is now in genuine doubt. The University of New Hampshire Survey Center's Green Mountain State Poll puts Democrat Amanda Janoo ahead of the Republican incumbent 49 percent to 43 percent -- the first survey of the general election to show Scott behind. Vermont votes on November 3.

The finding lands in a state where Scott has been among the most popular governors in the country. He won five races by steadily widening margins, and much of that success came from Democrats who crossed over to back him. With Janoo's lead landing outside the survey's margin of error, Vermont's governor race has moved from a likely Republican hold to one of the more closely watched state contests of the midterm cycle.

Inside the Numbers That Put Scott Behind

The poll surveyed 882 members of the survey center's Vermont panel between September 17 and September 21, producing a 40 percent response rate. Janoo's six-point advantage reflects a sharp drop in Scott's standing with the voters who once carried him across the finish line.

Scott's overall favorability has slipped to 47 percent, and his approval among Democrats has fallen to the lowest level the survey center has recorded in its tracking. The pattern is less a Republican collapse statewide than a partisan sorting: the crossover Democrats who made Scott a durable winner appear to be coming home to their party's nominee.

"His approval rating among Republicans has been climbing as the years have gone on," said Sean McKinley, project director for the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. "But among Democrats it's declining. It's now the lowest since we've been keeping track."

The poll also measured the rest of the statewide ticket, and the result pointed the same direction. Former Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray led the race for lieutenant governor, another sign that Vermont's Democratic base is consolidating behind a fresh slate instead of the split-ticket habits that kept moderate Republicans in office for a generation.

Amanda Janoo's Improbable Rise From Long Shot to Front-Runner

Janoo is an economist who had never run for statewide office before this cycle. She won the Democratic primary on August 11, edging out better-known rivals, and has since converted low name recognition into a narrow lead in the general election. Before the primary, local coverage treated her candidacy as a long shot against two established Democrats.

Pollsters credit her surge to something larger than her own profile. Democratic voters in Vermont, they say, are unusually motivated this year, driven by opposition to President Donald Trump's agenda and eager to send a message in a state that has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992.

That energy shows up in the money, too. Campaign finance reports filed last month showed Democratic candidates on the statewide ticket outraising and outspending their Republican counterparts, an early warning that the party's base was engaged well before the fall sprint began.

Janoo's message has tracked with the mood. She has campaigned as a change agent in a state where the same man has held the governor's office for a decade, and she has tied her pitch to affordability, housing, and what she describes as a need for new leadership in Montpelier.

A Deep-Blue State Tests the Limits of Crossover Appeal

Vermont is one of the most reliably Democratic states in the country, and its Republican governors have survived by being something other than conventional party standard-bearers. Scott built a brand on fiscal restraint, pandemic-era pragmatism, and an arms-length relationship with national Republicans. The formula worked as long as Democrats were willing to split their ballots.

The same dynamic has been tested elsewhere this year, including in New York's tightening governor race, where voters have been weighing a change in direction against the comfort of an incumbent they already know.

Vermont's version is sharper because Scott's margins have historically come from the other party. If Democrats who once backed him stay with Janoo, no amount of Republican enthusiasm can replace those votes in a state where the GOP is outnumbered nearly two to one -- and where Scott himself has occasionally been a target of frustration inside his own party for distancing himself from the president.

Scott has also had to defend a record that Democrats now frame as drift. His allies counter that steady, low-drama governance is exactly what a small state with an aging population and a tight labor market needs, and they argue that voters will return to that comfort once the fall campaign is fully joined.

What to Watch Before November 3

Scott has room to recover. One poll taken four weeks into the general election is a snapshot, not a verdict, and the incumbent has a long record of outperforming expectations on Election Day. Debates, advertising, and the state's small local media ecosystem still have time to move the numbers.

Watch two things. First, whether Scott can pry back the crossover Democrats who once defined his coalition, or whether a nationalized electorate keeps them locked in. Second, turnout: Vermont's governor race now shares a ballot with a newly energized Democratic bench, and the poll suggests that enthusiasm is not confined to the top of the ticket.

The survey center is expected to release further rounds before Election Day. Both campaigns will treat each one as a test of whether Thursday's numbers reflect a durable shift in a blue state, or an early-autumn wobble in a race that has suddenly become competitive.