 Hello everyone and welcome to town meeting TV's primary election results recap show We'll be giving you a brief overview on the outcomes of the races as well as the candidates You can expect to see on the ballot in November now I am Emily Brewer and this is I'm Jordan Butterfield So Jordan this was quite the Historic primary election there was Really big turnout on the number of people who actually went out to vote for the primary, which isn't usually the case and I could certainly see the excitement when I went to the polls in Shelburne It was honestly one of the most pleasant voting experiences. I've had to date and It was just Really good voting experience and The last couple of times I voted I did absentee So it's always different when you go in person versus doing it ahead of time There's there's a time and a place for both, but I'm glad I actually went out to the polls for this primary Yeah, and this was one of the first, you know for the last several years We've been doing a lot of absentee voting people getting their ballots mailed to them And this was one of those first elections where we're really not as many Of those absentee ballots getting sent out. They weren't mailed out in the same ways Yeah, you actually had to request one if you wanted it absentee this time around kind of going back to the older way to do it And you know doing it at the polls. I haven't been in the polls for a while and And I missed it. It's it's good to go there grab your ballot go and you know fill it out and put it through the machine I also enjoyed my my experience. I've been voting in the same spot for a long time at orchard school And so it was good to get back there well, um, I'm glad to hear that and um, I I think we'll get started Right away with Honestly, one of our biggest stories of this election cycle, which is Senator Patrick Leahy's retirement after 48 years in the Senate um and now Peter Welch who's currently Vermont's congressional delegate. Um, he's running to take Senator Leahy's place In the Senate and which has left an open seat for Welch's vacated congressional position and So Jordan Can you tell us a little bit about how those races um played out? Yeah, so there's a little bit of a shift across the board here With Leahy retiring, you know People running for the new Senate seat and then with Welch going to that Senate seat or looking to you know vying for that Senate seat People going to the congressional seat. So there's a lot of turnover and there's going to be a theme for tonight's uh for You know the the primary and for the general election So for the democratic side, we had Peter Welch running against Isaac Evans france and nicky thron um Pretty clear win for Peter Welch 87.4 percent of the vote. Um, that was somewhat expected. Um, he's been a long term A lot long term political figure But a bit of a surprise on the republican side is Gerald Malloy Beating out Christina Nolan and Myers-Merle for the republican nomination. Christina Nolan is the former U. S the u. S attorney for the vermont district and was somewhat of the Favorite Gerald Malloy lived in vermont for two years Kind of came out of nowhere on this one But he had a big marketing campaign and I think it it worked out for him He had the deploy Malloy signs you could see around town and Maybe more of a populist republican candidate and maybe that's showing a bit of a trend is You know political parties or have been changing over the last, you know I guess eight years and continuing to change so This could be an element of that change But yeah, we had Peter Welch for the democrats and Gerald Malloy for the republicans in the november general election um I'll move down here as well to the the u. S house race The u. S house race on the democratic side was kind of the big news story This election cycle. I'm sure you saw a lot of advertisements from both candidates Um Becca ballant winning over molly gray louis mires and shanae chase cliford With a 60 percent 60 percent of the vote compared to molly gray's 37 percent of the vote The polling was showing that move You know Becca ballant has been uh, senate Senate pro tempore and has been a long term political figure in vermont so that's What was expected due to the polling molly gray former lieutenant governor. I'm sure we will be seeing her again On the ballot Down the road And another surprise from the republicans Liam madden beating out eric eretic and ania tainio Liam madden was very open about the fact that he was running as an independent and if he got the republican nomination He would not seek it Liam is more of a he's he's more of a Well, he's an independent and he's A former anti-war for iraq war veteran anti-war activist Works in solar And is more of a breakdown all party structures type of candidate So he won the republican nomination, which is very interesting over more more classic conservatives eric eretic and ania So That's that's very interesting. They've been asking liam, you know, what he's going to do if he is going to Not seek the republican nomination. He said that if that If the republicans were to put somebody else in the republican Place if he decided to not seek that nomination and just run as an independent Then he he'd rather keep it a two-person race So it may be that he stays a republican on the ballot. He's been in conversation with the vermont Republican convention. So that's an interesting one. Yeah, that'll be very interesting to keep an eye on that to see how that particular one actually plays out as well and Continuing on even on the state level as well We see the same sort of theme of shifting seats and retirements And we have several seats that are changing hands and we're seeing a lot of new candidates as well So can you tell us what happened with some of those state races? Sure, um for the state races, we can start off with the with the big one the governor. Yeah This one was not too big of a surprise. We had phil scott beating out steven bellows and peter duvall That was somewhat expected Or or predicted rather and brenda seagull who was running uncontested will be the democratic candidate for the governor's race in november And then we get to where all the all the turnover was lieutenant governor. That was molly grace seat David zuckerman is the winner for the democrats on that race David zuckerman is and the lieutenant governor in the past. He ran for governor last round and lost to phil scott He squeaks out a win over kitty toll was his closest What was his closest challenger? And it's pretty well known in the political Sphere so it's not Very surprising not too surprising. No that was that was definitely uh But it was still quite close. It was pretty close zuckerman and toll was pretty close And kitty toll was the former danville representative. I believe here. Yeah state rep from danville We can go then to secretary of state Secretary of state was formally held by uh jim condos And we'll put both these attorney general and secretary of state up And jim condos is stepping down as secretary of state and we had three democratic challengers We had sarah copeland hanses chris winters and john odham Sarah copeland hanses was a veteran lawmaker chris winters is the former deputy secretary of state under jim condos And john odham was the montpelier city clerk This one was pretty close as well. But sarah sarah hanses Gets the win over chris winters and will be the next secretary of state Which is interesting because like you just mentioned chris winters was the um deputy deputy secretary of state under jim condos, so The fact that um sarah copeland hanses um beat out chris winters Is just an interesting to note. Um considering he uh was already pretty well known in that sphere as well and um Just so many um Tight races. Yeah. Yep. A lot of tight races and um And there's a lot of a lot of democratic women Winning um this primary season that that's that's been a theme as well. That has been a theme and um I've seen some reports calling it historic. Sure And then on that with the attorney general another democratic woman winning charity clark beating out rory tibbo charity clark is the former assistant attorney general um under Uh tj donovan who is resigning um to be the director of public policy and us state strategies for the company roblox Which when we were doing research for this earlier. I was absolutely um I I didn't know this news and so when I found that out I was um I was just fascinated that um That's what he went to do and it's I personally think it's super cool so um I I also know that he is an adjunct at champlain college and um which is um Teaching law over there. So it's cool that um, you know, he's getting around. He's doing all sorts of stuff. Yep And uh and charity clark will be his uh his replacement for the democratic ticket And uh she if she wins she will be the first woman to be elected to the top law enforcement job Which is pretty historic. Yeah And exciting. Yeah um Was there more and that and that does it for the um the state races that we were going to talk about here. Yeah, um and like I mentioned before it's um it's always um interesting when the uh races are super um close and um So we had some of those on the state level, but we also had um several tight races amongst those who were running for um our state legislature and um Something interesting and I'd say that is important to note. Um is that this year we actually um both the house and senate districts um Went through a process known as legislative reapportionment and this is also more typically known as um redistricting and it happens uh every 10 years and um redistricting essentially affects uh where you vote as well as who you can vote for um and uh So for example, um Due to redistricting chitinon county used to have a single um senate district that had six seats total that senate district um during this redistricting process was broken down into um three separate senate districts known as um chitinon north chitinon central and chitinon southeast and um Combined those three districts now have a total of seven seats um So it's always important um when the legislative legislative redistricting process happens um to just be up to date with um What has happened? Check out the state legislative website um to you they have super detailed maps of um The district changes just so you know like what district you're voting in so that you can be informed Before you head to the polls or before you fill out your um absentee ballot um and um So with that said what we can move on now um To talk more about uh how the state legislator state legislature races played out Sure. Yeah. Um, we can start with those uh state senate races And we'll start with the really close one Which was the for chitinon central which is berlington and includes wanouski and a little bit of essyx um and Two incumbents phil beruth whose uh state senator tanya bioski used to be a rep but now running for senate They both won their seats 23.8 percent for phil and 21.4 percent for tanya And then a super tight race for that third seat. So there are there are three seats up For election for this senate seat. The democrats are electing their three potential candidates And for martin gulick 3949 votes and erhard manke 3947 votes just a two-vote difference. So that is definitely going to be a recount um and We'll we'll see how that one shakes out Now that is absolutely the closest race of this primary Um election. Oh, yeah, and two votes is I mean that doesn't happen very often around here. It does But you know and that just goes to show you How important it is To exercise your right to vote and go out to the polls When you have races that are literally Two people off from deciding so it goes to show you that Your vote does count and your vote does make a difference So that's an important reminder. That's true I'll also note that both martin gulick and erhard manke are Current or former cctv show hosts That's good to note And we can move on here to um chitin in north So for the democrats, uh, we have iran renner and brian shellyton running against each other Irene renner has been a long time. Uh, sx politician She served on the sx select board as chair As remained active in sx politics and brian shelden Who is the chair of the sx democratic party ran for city council in town meeting day? And um and iran gets the gets the win 58.8 percent to 41 percent And she will face off against liland morgan the republican candidate who was uncontested liland is currently a rep from the grandisle chitin district or the former grandisle chitin district Um and is now running for state of senate. Uh, that chitin in north Um district is seen as a probable republican district That includes a bit of sx milton fairfax I believe i'm missing a town, but it was one of though, uh, that area So that's likely to be a republican, but we'll we'll see we'll keep an eye on that in the general um Then we can move on to the uh chitin in southeast which is um Shelburne south burlington area southern burlington Uh, where we had three incumbents across the board jenny lions keisha rom hensdale and thomas chitin Coming away with those three seats And that i mean it was pretty much by It was a significant um win over the other Candidates there so They're well known names. So all incumbents like you said. Yep And the one state house race that we were looking at for the primaries because a lot of state house state rep races are often uncontested um And the one that we were taking a look at here got to go down to it was in the Uh chitin in 16 district that's joe kowinsky's district. She's the speaker of the house And for the that district has two seats So looking for those two seats There was joe and then running against her were kate logan and ryan adario Um joe was kind of because she'd speaker of the house Seemed likely that she was going to get the knot on that in the theme of incumbents being hard to unseat And kate logan takes that second spot For the state house And i believe for many of these legislature seats other than chitin in north there were not republicans Running for it though there could be independence So we'll see that's primary may have decided who's going to be In those seats so Yeah, that that does it for this list i'd say well that was um a great uh recap of Sort of all of the And just to re-mention these we mostly went over um the contested races Um just to give sort of an idea on what you can expect to see On the ballot come november which is um coming right up soon um and um This it was certainly a historic primary election and um I do want to mention um Thank you very much to um vermont public for their um election results graphics um That came in um Much handy and is um Was very useful. So um, thank you again to vermont public and um Thank you jordan for all of your insights and um research for this recap show And uh, thank you all for tuning in to this uh Primary election results recap show. We don't usually do a show like this. Um, but um again, it was historic primary and um we want to Make sure that folks um Have elections on the brain because november is coming up very soon and we are going to start up our um general election forum candidate forums um When did those get started up jordan? Um, we're just figuring them out now. I've just got the list today. So i'm going to start scheduling those this week Perfect. I'm looking to start those hopefully in september and probably going through october as well That's awesome. So keep an eye on town meeting tv's youtube town meeting tv's cable channels our facebook um, we will um Be sure to let everybody know when those um candidate forums are scheduled so that everybody can be informed before they head to the polls and um If you'd like to support town meeting tv's future election coverage, um, we um Would love if you'd consider making a donation at cct cctv.org slash donate um Just to ensure that we can continue to provide you with the most timely accurate election coverage possible and um Again, please don't forget to stay tuned to town meeting tv during our um general election uh coverage and um Thank you for tuning in tonight to our results recap show Have a great night and take care. Yep. Thanks everybody