Two-term Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin ran for re-election in 2014 and was widely expected to win easily. However, he only took a plurality of the vote, 46.36%, to Republican Scott Milne's 45.1%, and thus the result was decided by the Vermont General Assembly. The Assembly picked Shumlin by 110 votes to 69. Shumlin announced in June 2015 that he would not run for a fourth term. Vermont and New Hampshire are the only states in the country whose governors are elected every two years.
Democratic primary
In August, Vermont House SpeakerShap Smith announced that he would be a candidate, but ended his candidacy in November 2015, after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. In September, Matt Dunne announced that he would also be a candidate. Also in September, former state legislator Sue Minter, then serving as Vermont's Secretary of Transportation, announced that she would resign her position in order to join the Democratic race. Former Ambassador Peter Galbraith announced his candidacy in March 2016. In July, H. Brook Paige was excluded from official Democratic Party events after making derogatory comments on social media. Minter won the nomination decisively, and was endorsed by Dunne but not Galbraith.
Candidates
Declared
Matt Dunne, former state senator, Google executive, and candidate for governor in 2010
Sue Minter, former secretary of the Vermont Agency of Transportation and former state representative
H. Brooke Paige, former CEO of Remington News Service, candidate for Governor and Attorney General in 2014 and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2012
Peter Welch, U.S. Representative and nominee for governor in 1990
Endorsements
Polling
Poll source
Date administered
Sample size
Margin of error
Matt Dunne
Sue Minter
Peter Galbraith
Other/Undecided
June 26–29, 2016
217
± 6.7%
31%
36%
8%
25%
February 3–17, 2016
895
± 3.27%
19%
11%
–
69%
Results
Republican primary
In September 2015, Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott entered the race, and 2014 gubernatorial nominee Scott Milne, who had been considering running, endorsed Scott. In October 2015, retired Wall Street executive Bruce Lisman officially announced his "outsider" candidacy. Scott was endorsed by most active Vermont Republican politicians, and held a strong lead in a February poll. Lisman's campaign criticized Scott for being too closely connected to outgoing Democratic governor Peter Shumlin and for "plagiarizing" Lisman's ideas, and linked Scott to the "failures" of the Vermont Health Connect insurance platform and the school redistricting Act 46; the candidates' campaigns disagreed over whether this constituted "negative campaigning," and Scott's campaign said the attacks were "patently false". Scott won the nomination by a large margin.
On May 6, 2016, Scott received the endorsements of all Vermont Republican legislators except State Representatives Donald Turner, Doug Gage, Mary Morrissey, Job Tate, and Paul Dame. Among those five legislators who did not endorse Scott, four said they always remain neutral in a party primary election, and one was waiting until after the filing deadline to make an endorsement.
