This year, the only two candidates on the Vermont ballot for U.S. House of Representatives are incumbent Peter Welch, a Democrat who is also the Republican nominee; and Liberty Union nominee Erica Clawson. This is the first time since 1976 that a Vermont U.S. House race has had only two candidates on the general election ballot. Vermont ballot access laws are lenient, and the state has had a tradition of lots of minor party and independent candidates for the past fifty years.
Liberty Union’s nominee for Secretary of State, Mary Alice Herbert, is also in a two-person race, against the incumbant Secretary of State, James Condos. Like Congressman Welch, Condos is the nominee of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Where is the VT LP?
Can someone explain to me what has caused the Democrats and Republicans to nominate the same candidates for the two races mentioned in the above post?
That just goes to prove the Democrat and Republican parties are now just one big establishment party, at least in Vermont they are honest about it.
Vermont is one of several states where candidates can be nominated in a primary via write-in.
So if nobody runs as a Republican vs Peter Welch, Welch can usually pickup enough write ins to win the GOP nod too. Similar sort of dynamic in some state house seats in a state like Oregon or Pennsylvania.
I’m surprised the Progressive Party didn’t nominate. They would have had a better chance at winning both elections. They currently hold 6 seats in the State House compared to 0 for the Liberty Union Party.
For contested races, there were around 45,000 votes in the 2016 Republican primary. Welch received 2093 write-in votes.
Vermont does not have party registration, and a voter is given a ballot for each party. They vote one and discard the others. So a voter could conceivably look at the Democratic ballot, and copy the candidates onto to the Republican ballot. Or there might be deliberate crossovers.
At least they have two candidates on the ballot. In Illinois, I believe they are two districts where incumbents are running unopposed.
Yes, the Liberty Union Party is far-left communist, but that’s how the political climate in Vermont is. Beautiful state, been there twice – but it is not fertile ground for right-wing or libertarian thought.
I think it shows that the Liberty Union Party is not going away soon – they have more candidates for the statewide and federal offices than the Vermont GOP – I think that’s what it showed on Politics1.com last time I checked.
“Yes, the Liberty Union Party is far-left communist,”. That is an absurd statement.