The Blue State Where Republicans Scored Their Biggest Gains

Editor's Note: This article is part of Governing's Inside Politics newsletter. Sign up here.

The Blue State Where Republicans Scored Their Biggest Gains: Phil Scott has long been one of the most popular governors in the country, despite being a Republican in heavily blue Vermont. He faced only token opposition this year and won by a 50-percentage-point margin. His triumph was more than personal. Scott was able to sweep enough Republicans into office to put Vermont Democrats on the defensive in a way they haven’t been for years.

Voters shifted to the right all over the country, particularly in the Northeast, but GOP gains were especially notable in Vermont. The biggest surprise was that Republican John Rodgers was able to unseat Democrat David Zuckerman as lieutenant governor. But the most substantial impact came in the legislature. Republicans gained 17 seats in the state House and six seats in the state Senate. Democrats still control both chambers, but no longer enjoy supermajority power.

The flips in Vermont represented half of the GOP’s total net gain in legislative seats across the entire nation. Every legislative candidate that Scott endorsed, save one, went on to victory. “Most of the money that he did spend was spent on supporting Republicans in key races around the state, so his endorsement definitely meant something for those folks in those races,” says Bert Johnson, a political scientist at Middlebury College.

Scott has remained popular by taking Democratic-sounding stances on some issues, notably support for abortion rights and opposition to Donald Trump. This year, he was able to help extend his own popularity to other Republicans by trading on cost-of-living issues. Inflation was key to Trump’s success, but there are some Vermont-specific struggles that made voters ready for a change. Across the state, school property taxes have gone up by an average of 14 percent this year. Scott wanted legislators to do more to deflect the cost, but in June the legislature overrode his veto of a bill that cemented the increases. “Republicans also made a lot of hay over the issue of the Affordable Heat Act, which requires the new legislature in 2025 to make a determination about a clean heat standard to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, which Republicans claim will raise heat bills a significant amount,” Johnson says.

With Democrats having lost supermajority control, Scott’s vetoes are going to mean something over the next couple of years. What’s more, they’ve lost a lot of veteran talent. The Senate saw a number of retirements, as well as the deaths of longstanding members including Bill Doyle, who’d served for half a century. The chairs of some key committees lost their jobs, among them House Appropriations Chair Diane Lanpher.

The legislature’s loss of institutional memory and talent will strengthen Scott’s hand. But sheer numbers are the most important thing. With this year’s results, Scott will not only be personally popular but far more effective.

Does Campaigning Even Matter?: Vice President Kamala Harris enjoyed some key advantages over Trump. She had raised more money and there was universal acknowledgement that her campaign had the stronger ground game. Harris opened more than twice as many field offices as Trump, and they deployed armies of eager volunteers. Trump largely outsourced his turnout efforts to Elon Musk, who hired people who weren’t always even aware which campaign they were promoting.

Nonetheless, Trump not only won but gained support all over the country and with just about every demographic group. Harris garnered fewer votes than Joe Biden in 2020, notably in large cities. All this raises the question — do phone calls, texts and knocks at the door really work to move voters? “Trump had edgier and stronger material that he was constantly communicating at rallies, on podcasts and in other appearances,” said Donna Brazile, a former Democratic Party chair. “Democrats tried to compete in seven battleground states and call it a day.”

Still, evidence from the seven swing states suggests that Harris’ efforts did make a difference. Trump improved on his 2020 vote share by roughly 6 percentage points nationwide. In the swing states, however, his share was up by 3 percent — good enough for a sweep, but only half the size of his gains in states that saw comparatively little campaign activity. “Because of the work at every level, from our candidates to first-time canvassers knocking GOTV doors, Trump's margin in Wisconsin was just 0.9%,” tweeted Ben Wikler, who chairs the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

It may be impossible to tease out what made the most difference — advertising, rallies or old-fashioned door-knocking. But clearly holding active campaigns did make a difference, if not enough of a difference for Harris to win. Total turnout declined from 2020 in 42 states. Of the states where it went up, four were battlegrounds — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“This election is one of the better examples of campaigns mattering,” says Joshua Darr, a political scientist at Syracuse University and co-author of a new book about field efforts called Storefront Campaigning. “Obviously, the tendency is to just say anything the loser did is bad and anything the winner did is good. But if you look at the rightward shifts in uncontested states, they're much bigger than the states where the actual campaigns were happening.”
The Pitfalls of Being a Black Woman Mayor: Several cities have elected their first Black women mayors in recent years. They have not all been faring well. Last week, San Francisco voters ousted London Breed after a single full term, replacing her with Daniel Lurie, a white businessman and nonprofit executive. Across the bay in Oakland, Mayor Sheng Thao, who is of Hmong heritage, was recalled, as was Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, a Black woman.

All of them lost primarily due to concerns about public safety. Breed joins a list of several recent Black women mayors who have been ousted because of the crime issue, most notably Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot last year. “This is yet another situation where a Black female mayor has lost to a man who focuses heavily on public safety and law and order,” says Sharon Wright Austin, who edited a recent book on Black women mayors. “This follows the usual trend when a Black female mayor isn’t re-elected.”

The challenges that doomed Breed’s chances — crime, homelessness, a vacant downtown post-COVID — are, of course, by no means limited to Black women mayors. Other mayors have been shown the door due to similar issues, including white men.

But Breed happened to have the bad luck of running in the same city where Kamala Harris started her political career. San Francisco has been one of the cities most often highlighted by Fox News and other conservative outlets — as well as much of the mainstream media — as emblematic of urban woes. There has been no end of stories about businesses closing in San Francisco, retail stores suffering from theft and residents afraid to take transit or show up in person for work.

“With the issues in San Francisco, one of the things that hurt her was that she received so much national attention with the Harris ties,” says Austin, a political scientist at the University of Florida. “The Trump campaign was able to say Kamala Harris has ruined San Francisco and she’s going to do the same for the nation.”