Yesterday, the Phil Scott campaign issued a press release proudly announcing a series of three debates with Democratic challenger Amanda Janoo. Good on him, I guess, for showing up three times — al…

The latest round of campaign finance reports reveal that the race for governor is very real and very competitive. It’s more evidence to support those recent opinion polls showing Gov. Phil Sc…

VTDigger just wrapped up a successful fundraiser with a strong promise: “Reader support will power statewide election coverage, daily news and investigative reporting across Vermont.” Yeah, well, n…

I spent several hours yesterday poring over the two new opinion polls about the top contests in Vermont. So of course I missed something very interesting, which was pointed out to me by my Hardwick…

When a poll came out last week showing Amanda Janoo leading Gov. Phil Scott, it wasn’t well received by Team Scott. Campaign manager Dustin Degree called the University of New Hampshire Surve…

I spent my Sunday evening at the Old Labor Hall in Barre, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amanda Janoo appeared before a full house and held a campaign event that was unprecedented in my e…

When was the last time we had an honest-to-God “Holy Shit” moment in the bland, predictable world of Vermont politics? I’m thinking it was 2014, when Scott Milne nearly defeated i…

We made a quick trip to Michigan last weekend and were suddenly immersed in American politics, post-Citizens United style. Our main exposure came in the form of campaign ads on bar and restaurant T…

Recently I wrote a post criticizing Democratic Party bigwigs’ underwhelming support for their gubernatorial candidate Amanda Janoo. During the month of August, not a single Democratic officeh…

For many years, the beginning of every Vermont campaign’s homestretch has been marked by a gubernatorial debate at the Tunbridge Fair, broadcast by WDEV Radio. It’s the customary first …

Love the online access for legislative hearings where the audio quality is poor and the view so expansive that you can’t tell who’s talking. It’s even worse when a powerpoint pres…

I would not be so bold as to say that our news media are in the tank for Gov. Phil Scott. But their sadly reduced capacity has redounded to the governor’s benefit, over and over again. No one…

(The above screenshot was taken on the evening of September 9. As of this writing, on the afternoon of September 10, you can still see this on the Bennington County Republicans’ homepage. Whi…

Ah yes, the golden days of the early ’20s, when hordes of left-wingers took over the streets of St. Johnsbury and the town’s progressive leadership responded by cutting the police depar…

Some selectboard members worried it would create more hardship for people experiencing homelessness and criminalize them for being unhoused.

City officials argued that the proposal would bring disorder to the area while making it harder for guests to receive services.

The second most notable results from the September 1 campaign finance disclosures were about the race for lieutenant governor, and they once again show that incumbent Republican John Rodgers is in …

We may have just seen the first in a series of moves that could transform journalism in Vermont — for better or worse, but more likely the former. The five-newspaper Vermont Community News Group, a…

The latest round of campaign finance reports is in, and it looks like Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amanda Janoo is suffering the same fate as the other challengers to Gov. Phil Scott. She&#82…

So, CNN just published a little exercise in clickbait under the try-hard title “We searched for America’s best towns to visit. Here are the top 10.” And as is often the case, our …

Stop the presses! Big news from the world of Vermont politics! The state Republican Party just filled out its statewide ticket with three people who… uhhhh… you’ve never heard of.…

Here’s a screenshot from a recent hostage video political message posted on Gov. Phil Scott’s non-governmental Facebook account. And if there was any doubt about whether Scott is first …

For those unfamiliar, this was The New Day, an uber-popular tag team in the WWE who began their entrance routine with the slogan “It’s a new day, yes it is.” I’m not suggest…

For those unfamiliar, this was The New Day, an uber-popular tag team in the WWE who began their entrance routine with the slogan “It’s a new day, yes it is.” I’m not suggest…

So it’s primary night in Vermont, and as the results come in, I’m here to read and react. Stay tuned! Maybe Planet Hank Isn’t a Genius After All. The first contested race to be ca…

So it’s primary night in Vermont, and as the results come in, I’m here to read and react. Stay tuned! Maybe Planet Hank Isn’t a Genius After All. The first contested race to be ca…

So it’s primary night in Vermont, and as the results come in, I’m here to read and react. Stay tuned! Maybe Planet Hank Isn’t a Genius After All. The first contested race to be ca…

Defense contractor Gerald Malloy and logger Mark Coester are hoping to buck the 25-year-old trend this year.

The good news, if you favor the Democrats, is that many of their candidates have been able to raise impressive amounts of money in advance of next week’s primary. The bad news: They’ve …

This is a screenshot from state Sen. Steven Heffernan’s latest campaign finance report. You may recognize the names; the first is actually Amy Tarrant of the Richard Tarrant Cinematic Univers…

Something happened last Wednesday that should have been a big news story, but it wasn’t. I was out of town so it took me some time to catch up, but you know, I felt pretty secure in thinking …

ExxonMobil and Chevron, the two biggest US oil companies, reported gangbusters profits driven by the spike in global oil prices unleashed by the US-Iran war.

If this wasn’t reported as an in-kind donation to the Bram Kranichfeld campaign, it’s only because the dollars-and-cents value was incalculable. Last week, out of nowhere, and without e…

This is a screenshot of an ad that’s been circulating on behalf of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Aly Richards. But it didn’t come from her campaign; it was paid for by the (apparen…

While us campaign finance sickos breathlessly await the August 1 filing deadline, we can occupy a bit of our time by tracking the mass media buys reported since July 1. There are quite a few, in fa…

I guess Andrea Murray wasn’t discouraged by a state Senate campaign that, in the Republican wave year of 2024, saw her finish a distant fourth in the deep-blue Windsor district — and blow a b…

Back in 2021, global currency trader Paul Belogour purchased three long-established Vermont newspapers: The Manchester Journal, The Bennington Banner, and The Brattleboro Reformer. It was part of a…

After months of essentially ignoring the contested statewide primary races, our media outlets are suddenly starting to pay attention. It’s as if somebody glanced at a calendar and realized th…