(Washington Insider Magazine)-Could Vermont midterms be the most progressive races yet?
Despite the state of Vermont’s political reputation as a progressive blue state these past 32 years, it may come as a surprise to some to learn that in 2018 the Green Mountain State became the last remaining state of the union to never send a woman to the United States Congress. The Vermont midterms have repeatedly chosen to seat men, limiting representation to the other half of Vermont state.
This stunning distinction is likely to change, however, at the upcoming Vermont midterm elections with current state senator Becca Balint, as the favorite to win the state’s lone seat in the US House of Representatives.
Popular with Democrat voters, Balint, a former middle school teacher, has served in Vermont’s state Senate since 2014, as Majority Leader since 2017 and as President of the Senate since 2021, the state’s first woman and openly gay person to assume that role.
Conversely, her unlikely opponent, Liam Madden, a Marine Corp veteran, has never served a day in public office. Madden, currently employed as director of solar energy, is a self-professed libertarian despite running as a Republican – without the backing of the GOP – and running mostly on ideologies rather than experience.
Although Vermont can boast an above average percentage of women in its congressional houses, the state’s voting patterns have demonstrated that Vermontians tend to elect incumbents who have previously, coincidentally or not, all been white males.
US Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont, for example, has served eight four-year terms before announcing he would not run for reelection in 2022, leaving a vacancy.
This senate vacancy subsequently prompted Peter Welch, currently serving as US Representative from Vermont, to run for Leahy’s seat and thereby creating a vacancy in the US House for Vermont for the first time since 2007.
The timeliness of the shift in Vermont’s representation in the US Congress has ripened considerably for its current State Senator, Becca Balint, to be ushered in as the first US Congresswoman from Vermont.
Not surprisingly, Balint is a proponent of term limits for members of congress and federal justices including the United States Supreme Court.
Should she be successful in her race for US Congress in November’s midterm elections, Becca Balint will be the first woman and openly gay person from Vermont to do so.
