Amanda Janoo, a political outsider whose progressive platform captured the imagination of primary voters, is Vermont’s Democratic nominee for governor.
Janoo, a 38-year-old economist who previously worked internationally for the United Nations, entered the race in March with virtually no name recognition. Her pledge to deliver “free healthcare” by taxing high earners, and to restructure Vermont’s political and economic systems, mobilized a groundswell that propelled her to victory over Aly Richards, her lone competitor in Tuesday’s primary.
At her election night party at a mixed-used art space in Burlington, Janoo told an ebullient crowd that “as an economist, I know that money is power, but as a Vermonter, I know that money is not the only kind of power.”
“Knowledge is power, trust is power, democracy is power, and community is power. And you should never underestimate the power of a group of Vermonters who decide to do something together,” she said.
Janoo now sets to the task of unseating Republican Gov. Phil Scott, a five-term incumbent who won more than 70% of the general election vote in 2024. Outside the Montpelier City Hall polling station Tuesday morning, Capital City resident Eli Robinson called Janoo “the most refreshing activist we’ve had run for political office since Bernie.”
“We need to start becoming a state that represents true innovation and cutting-edge logic for small communities,” Robinson said. “And I think she really speaks well of that.”
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With 97% of the vote tallied Tuesday night, Janoo held a 2.7 percentage point lead over Richards. Richards departed her election night watch party in Montpelier without giving a speech, but sent a written statement shortly after 11:30 p.m. congratulating Janoo on her victory.
“Amanda and I share many of the same goals for this state and her people, and I will do everything I can to ensure that she is elected our next governor,” Richards said. “It’s time for new leadership.”
Richards, the former CEO of Let’s Grow Kids, said her “big tent” campaign was designed to appeal to the centrist Democrats and independents that have fueled Scott’s electoral success over the past decade.
“If you listen to my message, it’s a message of unity,” Richards said outside a polling station in Essex Junction. “It’s a message of coming across our differences in Vermont and problem solving together.”
Richards outraised and outspent Janoo by a three-to-two margin. And she received outside support from a super PAC that poured more than $200,000 into pro-Richards advertisements in the waning days of the primary.
Richards also won endorsements from prominent incumbent legislators, business leaders and former Gov. Howard Dean. Still, she wasn’t able to overcome the grassroots enthusiasm that carried Janoo.
Russell Berger, a 28-year-old Burlington resident, held a bright yellow “Amanda Janoo for governor” sign on a sidewalk in Burlington’s Old North End.
“Even now, 10 years into my career, I’m pinching pennies and having to now pick up a second job just to be able to stay in Burlington, where my home and my family and my friends are,” Berger said.
Berger said Janoo is the only candidate promising the structural economic reforms that he thinks are needed to solve the affordability crisis for working class Vermonters.
“I feel like, especially with our current administration, we’ve been stuck in that classic 80s Reaganism of, make sure that the top 1%, top 5% want to stay here and keep their money in Vermont, and then eventually that money will work its way down,” Berger said.
Vermont is now the latest state to see Democratic primary voters embrace an anti-establishment outsider pledging to guide the party in a more progressive direction.
Janoo’s platform includes publicly funded universal primary care, which she estimates will cost the state more than $300 million annually. She said she’ll fund the program with a surcharge on household income exceeding $250,000. Janoo has also called for steep tax hikes on second homes and short-term rentals.
Paul Dame, chair of the Vermont GOP, said the campaign promises that were an asset for Janoo in the primary will be a liability in the general election. While Vermont voters have a history of sending progressive firebrands to Congress, Dame said, they want statewide offices occupied by candidates with “common sense fiscal responsibility.”
Dame said Democrats’ historic losses in the House and Senate in 2024 were because candidates had moved “too far left.”
“I don’t think that that was a one-time thing,” he said. “If anything, I think that there are just as many, if not more, independents and Democrats who really want to see the progressive influence on leadership of the Democratic Party pushed back.”
Janoo has acknowledged that Vermont’s two most recent Democratic governors, Peter Shumlin and Howard Dean, both governed as fiscal moderates.
She said Republicans and Democrats, at both the state and federal level, have generally followed the same “dominant economic development logic” over the past 40 years — “that the best thing a government can do is to just focus on liberalization, privatization, deregulation … leave it to the private sector, nonprofits, et cetera, and that that should allow for the competition to ensure the most efficient outcomes,” she told Vermont Public last month.
Janoo said that approach has resulted in an economy “where a majority of people are just financing their existence through debt to cover their basic needs.”
“We can keep trying the same thing, you know?” she said. “But I do think it’s worth maybe trying a different economic approach that might keep more wealth circulating here … that might actually ensure that the basic things that we need are being produced here and are provided in a way that is affordable and secure for everyone.”
