Montpelier, Vermont

Vermont Governor Phil Scott, a Republican and one of the most popular governors in the country over the past decade, is facing an unexpectedly competitive reelection fight against Democratic challenger Amanda Janoo, a political newcomer and economic policy adviser. Recent polls show Scott's lead narrowed to single digits or erased entirely, with fewer than half of Vermonters approving of his job performance for the first time in his tenure.

Janoo, 39, won the Democratic nomination by running an unapologetically progressive campaign, emphasizing affordability, health care access, and opposition to AI data centers, contrasting her platform with what she calls Scott's "managed decline" of the state. She has also outraised Scott in campaign donations. Scott, 68, has countered by questioning her lack of legislative experience and the cost of her proposals, including universal primary and preventive health care funded by new taxes on high earners.

The Republican Governors Association recently made its first investment in the race, signaling national attention to a contest that could test whether even moderate, anti-Trump Republicans are vulnerable amid broader anti-incumbent sentiment. No Vermont incumbent governor has lost reelection since 1962.

Vermont election officials removed roughly 900 people from the state's voter rolls after an audit found they had been mistakenly registered through the state's "motor voter" program, which automatically registers people to vote when applying for a driver's license. Officials said the errors, attributed to human mistakes during procedure changes and IT upgrades over 25 years, mistakenly sent about 20,000 names to the secretary of state's office despite those people having opted out. Most had registered elsewhere and remained on the rolls; about 900 had not and were removed. None of the affected individuals had ever cast a ballot, officials said, so no past elections were affected.

Democratic Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas and Republican Governor Phil Scott jointly disclosed the issue, framing their transparency as a model amid national scrutiny of election administration. The cleanup, prompted partly by a similar scandal in New Jersey involving noncitizen registrations, comes as courts weigh President Trump's push to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms. It remains unclear how many of the removed registrants were ineligible due to citizenship status. Officials defended Vermont's mail balloting system as secure despite the disclosed errors.