The details are behind a paywall, but according to Morning Consult, Vermont Governor Phil Scott has an 81 percent approval rating. Did they poll people who don’t live in Vermont, or, more likely, he’s seen sympathetically as an abused spouse? Scott is a victim, like them, of the immovable object that is Vermont’s current veto-proof Democrat legislature. It knows better. It listens to no one else. Perhaps voters commiserate as prisoners on the same barge.
Chris Sununu (for my New Hampshire readers) had a net approval of 30 (Scott’s was 70). scrolling across New England, we see Janet Mills with a net rating of 10, Maura Healey a surprising 29, Ned Lamont in CT with a 30, and from the Island of Rhode, Dan McKee is at -1. For those keeping score at home, Tim Walz got a net 13, the worst popularity score among Kamala’s top three finalists for the 2024 election show (Casino and Laundromat). But – according to reports – they got along the best (it was probably the depth and breadth of their shared Marxism). And, if Kamala learned anything from being Biden’s number two, the best pick is someone they might like less than you or who might be worse than you (if that’s even possible).
As for Scott, he appears to be a political victim of circumstance. Vermont’s got issues. The taxes are brutal, some of the worst in the nation. The green meanies in the legislature are wrangling an environmental legislation tax storm that will batter them further. Crime is a growing problem, as are overdose deaths, and as a sanctuary state, the influx of illegals is creating tension (they don’t all like each other) and straining resources. School spending is out of control and in direct opposition to results unless the goal is to teach kids how not to read and do the math – befuddles and underskilled future employees in a business climate the State government appears to hate. Oh, and they hate farmers.
The only possible answer for Scott’s apparent success, given how blue the state has become, is Democrats. They either love him because he’s not much of a Republican, which he isn’t, or because he’s harmless. Maybe a bit of both, and he has no motivation to change. His re-election seems guaranteed, but if the Democrats who like him don’t elect more Republicans in the legislature, he’ll be back in Montpellier for two more years where he ought, I think, to learn to play the violin so his adoring peasants can listen to music while the Democrats burn the state down around them.
