AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Vermont’s state primary

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vermont Democrats will try on Tuesday to do something they’ve been unable to do in five previous attempts: nominate a gubernatorial candidate who can beat Republican Gov. Phil Scott.

Voters will also decide contested Democratic primaries for lieutenant governor and state auditor and choose a Republican nominee to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Becca Balint in November.

Scott is one of only two Republican governors to serve a state that then-Vice President Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 election. But toppling him this fall will be no easy feat. He received 73% of the vote in his 2024 reelection bid , improving upon the 69% he won in 2022.

He’s also been a rare Republican critic of President Donald Trump. Scott not only endorsed former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley for president in the 2024 primaries, but he also says he voted for Harris over Trump in 2024 and for Joe Biden in 2020. He is unopposed for the Republican nomination.

Two Democrats are running to challenge Scott: economist Amanda Janoo and former child advocacy organization CEO Aly Richards, who boasts endorsements from former Democratic Govs. Howard Dean and Madeleine Kunin. Richards has raised about $453,000 for her campaign, compared to about $308,000 for Janoo. Richards also had about double Janoo’s cash reserves as of the end of July.

In Vermont, the governor, lieutenant governor and other state constitutional officers serve two-year terms. If Scott is reelected and completes another term, he’ll surpass Dean as Vermont’s longest serving governor since it became a state.

All 30 state Senate seats and all 150 state House seats are up in 2026. Democratic state lawmakers suffered significant losses in the 2024 general election, losing more than two dozen seats across both chambers, along with their supermajorities. This year could prove to be another difficult one for the party but for different reasons: Democratic incumbents in five state Senate districts and 11 state House districts face primary challengers. Republican incumbents face challengers in only one state Senate district.

For state legislative primaries, the number of winners in each contest varies by district. With multiple winners in many seats and relatively low turnout for down-ballot primaries, especially on the Republican side, determining the winners could come down to a relatively small number of votes.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. House, governor, lieutenant governor, auditor, state Senate and state House.

Any registered voter may participate in any party’s primary. Vermont does not register voters by party.

As of July, there were about 501,000 registered voters in Vermont.

About 23,000 Republican primary voters and about 33,000 Democratic primary voters cast ballots in the 2024 gubernatorial primaries.

About 30% of the vote in the 2024 state primary was cast by mail. In the presidential primaries that year, about 24% of Democratic primary voters and about 13% of Republican primary voters cast mail ballots.

As of Friday, about 17,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election.

Vermont runs elections at the town and city level. There are 247 separate jurisdictions administering local elections, and they vary in terms of how and when they release results. In many of the larger jurisdictions, the bulk of results from both mail voting and in-person Election Day voting are released together in their first vote updates.

In the 2024 state primary, the AP first reported results at 7:18 p.m. ET, or 18 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 11:45 p.m. ET with about 87% of total votes counted.

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

A candidate may request a recount if the vote margin falls below a certain threshold. In federal, statewide and state Senate elections, a recount may be requested if the vote margin between the winning and losing candidate is 2% or less of the total votes cast, divided by the number of persons to be elected for that position. For state House and local races, the required margin is 5% or less of the total votes cast, divided by the number of persons to be elected. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

As of Tuesday, there will be 84 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

The AP’s Matthew Junkroski contributed to this report.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/ .