November 4, 2026 | By Lisa Scagliotti While Vermonters on Tuesday re-elected Republican Gov. Phil Scott to a record-setting sixth term, voters in Waterbury and other nearby Central Vermont communities favored his challenger, Amanda Janoo.
Governor’s race results mapped on the Vt. Secretary of State's website show Gov. Phil Scott winning in the red cities/towns; Amanda Janoo won those marked in tan. The blue mark is Waterbury. Unorganized towns/gores are black. Screenshot
Waterbury voters preferred first-time Democrat/Progressive candidate Janoo 1,614 to 1,496. Janoo also won in nearby Middlesex, Moretown, Waitsfield and Warren, while the majority of voters in Duxbury and Fayston picked Scott, according to unofficial results reported by local town clerks.
After serving as a state senator and lieutenant governor, Scott first ran for governor in 2016 and has enjoyed wide margins in his four re-election bids since. A newcomer on the scene this year, Burlington economist Janoo gave Scott the closest race since competing with Waterbury Democrat Sue Minter a decade ago to succeed former Gov. Peter Shumlin.
Scott’s Tuesday win over Janoo, with 52% of the vote to 45%, came quite close to his initial victory with 53% to Minter’s 44%.
Scott’s election sets a new record to make him the state’s longest-serving governor. Former Gov. Howard Dean took office in August 1991 following the sudden death of Gov. Snelling and went on to be elected to five terms, serving until January 2003.
Speaking to supporters as the election results showed he had won the race, Scott acknowledged his opponent, crediting Janoo for running “a strong, energetic campaign” to be proud of.
He also looked ahead, telling supporters he will continue to pursue priorities he has shaped in his administration so far. “I will continue working to grow our economy, strengthen our communities, and create more opportunities for our kids,” Scott said. “And I will continue insisting that math adds up, and we spend taxpayer dollars responsibly.”
Janoo spoke to supporters in Burlington Tuesday night, admitting that the result was disappointing, but she praised those who helped make the campaign “more than I could possibly dream.” A top goal in running for office, Janoo said, was to motivate others to get involved. “I wanted to run a campaign that could remind people of their own power to change things,” she said. “Keep showing up for your neighbors, keep organizing. Keep imagining what we can build together because the future isn’t something that just happens to us. It is something we create.”
Voters cast ballots at Brookside Primary School. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
Other votes follow the trend
Local choices otherwise for the statewide offices on Tuesday’s General Election ballot mirrored the overall list of Democratic winners including Becca Balint winning a third term as Vermont’s only U.S. House member, and Molly Gray winning back the lieutenant governorship from John Rodgers, who has served one term. Gray held the office from 2021-2023.
Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
Also re-elected were state Treasurer Mike Pieciak, Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas and Attorney General Charity Clark. Deputy State Auditor Tim Ashe was elected to succeed Doug Hoffer, who did not run for another term.
All 180 seats in the Vermont General Assembly were on Tuesday’s ballot. Washington County had a competitive race for its three state Senate seats. Voters across the district – which also includes Stowe in Lamoille County and Orange and Braintree in Orange County – re-elected the three incumbents: Democrat Ann Cummings, of Montpelier, and Democratic/Progressives Andrew Perchlik of Marshfield and Anne Watson of Barre City.
This will be the 16th term for Cummings, who is the Senate’s longest-serving current member. She first won election in 1996 and has served since January 1997.
Of their three Republican challengers, Rob LaClair, of Montpelier, won the most votes with 10,973, followed by Christopher Neddo of Barre Town with 9,935, and Peter Schmeeckle of Stowe with 8,821 votes. The Secretary of State’s tally for this race also notes 16,811 blanks where voters did not mark choices on their ballots.
Despite early voting via ballots mailed to registered voters, Election Day saw a steady stream of voters at the polls. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
Turnout
Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
According to the Secretary of State’s unofficial results, 310,747 of Vermont’s 506,404 registered voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s election, which comes to a turnout of 61%. That’s up slightly from the last midterm election in 2022, which was just shy of 60% statewide.
Local turnout was higher than the average.
Waterbury’s 3,156 voters who cast ballots represented turnout of 67%. Moretown and Duxbury each logged 69%.
With a local bond question on the ballot, Waitsfield’s turnout was higher at 74%. Voters overwhelmingly approved a request for $5.975 million to build a new town garage. It passed with 73% of the vote, 577-207.
Scenes from drive through voting in Duxbury
Special thanks to Shawnee Perry, Lynne Cardozo and Jodi Lavanway for sharing their Election Day photos from Duxbury.
Local House districts
Rep. Theresa Wood, D-Waterbury, and now Representative-elect Katarina Lisaius, D-Bolton, outside Brookside Primary School on Tuesday before the polls closed. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
With just two candidates for two seats each, voters had no contests to decide for the two local Vermont House districts.
In Washington-Chittenden, representing Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington and Buel’s Gore, Rep. Theresa Wood, a Waterbury Democrat, received 3,739 votes, and first-time Democratic candidate Katarina Lisaius, from Bolton, received 3,495 votes.
This will be Wood’s sixth full term in the House, where she chairs the Human Services Committee. Wood has said she is not planning to run for re-election in 2028. The veteran lawmaker said she views the election results as keeping with Vermonters’ typical preference to seek balance in their government.
“I believe that Vermonters did what they normally do — if they are compelled to elect senators and representatives as they did in the wave of Democratic wins and upsets yesterday, then they will elect a different party to be governor,” she said. “This is the voters’ way to sometimes choose to provide balance.”
Likewise, Wood said voters’ strong support for Janoo also carries a message. “I also believe it was a message for the governor that they are not happy with some of his actions on education, data centers, health care, homelessness and affordability. We all want to see the ‘real plans’ that were advertised,” she said.
Ultimately, the voters elected both a Republican governor and a predominantly Democratic legislature going into 2027. “We need to work together to address Vermont’s issues,” Wood said.
As a new House member, Lisaius will be assigned to a committee once the new session convenes in January. In a message on social media on Wednesday, she thanked supporters, volunteers and voters and acknowledged being elected during what was a historic midterm election nationally that will shift political power in Congress.
Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
“We are better when we stand up for each other, come together, and work for a future we can believe in,” Lisaius wrote. “Only together can we be the change we want to see. And I am taking that message to heart as I prepare in the next two months and beyond. The center of my campaign has been the strength of community – and it will continue to be how I lead in the state house. There’s important work ahead to celebrate Vermonters and Vermont.”
In the Washington-2 House district, both incumbent Democratic state Reps. Dara Torre, from Moretown, and Candice White, from Waitsfield, were unopposed for re-election. White received 3,459 votes; Torre won 3,431. This will be Torre’s third term and White’s second.
Assistant Judge
Washington County had one other contested race besides the Senate delegation: Four candidates were on the ballot for two assistant judge positions. Voters re-elected incumbent Leah Murphy Johes of Montpelier with 16,617 votes. First-time candidate Anne Dielensnyder of Berlin won the other seat with 16,242 votes. The other contenders were Republican Ture Nelson of Berlin, who received 8,725 votes, and Independent Daniel Gates of Montpelier, who got 5,575 votes.
Other uncontested offices
Uncontested offices on the ballot included Anrea Gallitano of Berlin for Probate Judge; she received 22,7878 votes; Washington State’s Attorney Michelle Donnelly was unopposed for re-election and received 23,391 votes. Washington County Sheriff Marc Poulin was unopposed and received 23,084 votes. High Bailiff Shawn McManis was re-elected with 22,606 votes.
Career Center vote
A second ballot for voters in Washington County on Tuesday was for the $54.9 million bond for the Central Vermont Career Center to build a new, second center at U-32 High School. Those ballots will be combined and tallied on Thursday, Nov. 5, in Barre. The results are expected to be announced that day.
More coverage
For full Vermont General Election results, visit the Vermont Secretary of State’s Election Results website here. A detailed breakdown on the constitutional amendments is on a separate page on the site here.
Other statewide news outlets have assembled detailed coverage on Tuesday’s election, including VTDigger, the Times Argus, and Vermont Public.