Thursday, August 25, 2022

Marriage Still Matters to GOP Vermont: US Senate Race 2022


 Marriage still matters to the Republican base, even in liberal Vermont

‘Ahead-scratcher’: Vermont’s GOP voters nominate a surprising slate of candidates

Even those who won Vermont’s Republican primary elections on Tuesday say they’re baffled by the results.

In the race for U.S. Senate, GOP voters rejected former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, a moderate and institutional favorite, for Gerald Malloy, a Trump-aligned conservative. 

Christina Nolan was an out-lesbian, and she was endorsed by Mitch McConnell. She had two clear strikes against her as far as the Republican base is concerned.

Perhaps the biggest upset of the night was Malloy’s defeat of Nolan, though a July poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center showed him with a slight lead. Malloy, a West Point graduate and 22-year Army veteran who moved to Vermont just two years ago, won close to 40% of the vote. Nolan, who picked up the endorsements of Gov. Phil Scott and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., garnered just 35%.

Vermont Governor Phil Scott is one of the most liberal Republicans in the GOP Governor's Association, probably more liberal than Massachusetts' own Charlie Baker.

Reached Thursday, Malloy struck a unifying tone, saying that moderates like Scott belong in his GOP.

“I see us as one party, and I see us as rallying together for this general election,” Malloy told VTDigger.

But his association with the party’s conservative wing suggests he is not quite a Phil Scott Republican. Which legislators does he admire? Malloy pointed to Rep. Art Peterson, R-Clarendon, and Rep. Vicki Strong, R-Albany, whose endorsement he earned.

“Just great Vermonters, great Americans, just doing the best for Vermont,” Malloy said. (He also cited President Abraham Lincoln, “the first Republican President,” as a favorite.)

The two representatives Malloy mentioned inhabit the outer edge of the GOP. Peterson made the rounds at Thayer’s anti-Critical Race Theory rallies and, in a House committee meeting, questioned whether systemic racism exists. Strong, meanwhile, is among the Legislature’s most outspoken opponents of abortion rights and has said she would not comply with mask and vaccine mandates.

I am surprised that there are Republicans in Vermont who still fight against abortion. I am certainly glad that members of the state legislature oppose Critical Racist Theory, too.

“I certainly seek to emulate how they perform for the state,” Malloy said.

That emulation might explain his success. Malloy cited his experience in business and in the military as key to his victory, but others suggested it was Nolan’s lack of conservative bonafides.

That lack of conservative credentials is the bigger deal. No question about it

“She refused to answer the question of who she voted for (for president),” said H. Brooke Paige, a regular on the Republican ballot who picked up nominations for attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and treasurer on Tuesday. “She started to blow off the debates and forums or whatever we were having.”

For once, an establishment candidate got crushed for ducking debates. That's the kind of thing we hope to see more of in future elections.

Paige said Nolan was notably absent at four events he attended. In the week leading up to the primary, Nolan’s failure to show up to a Vermont Republican Party economic forum in St. Albans drew the ire of fellow Senate candidate Myers Mermel, who picked up 17% of Tuesday’s vote and had throughout the race gone on the offensive against Nolan. His attacks against Nolan left Malloy safe above the fray.

“I was somewhat surprised to see Gerald Malloy beat out Christina Nolan. I attributed a lot of that to the third candidate, Myers Mermel, spending a lot of money and time bashing Christina,” said Benning, the Caledonia County senator who won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. “I think Gerald Malloy took advantage of staying out of that.”

Asked about his decision to target Nolan, Mermel said it was a service to voters. “I believed it was the right thing for me to do to make sure that people knew the truth about the establishment candidate,” he told VTDigger.

But rather than his attacks, Mermel suggested, it was Nolan’s endorsements from McConnell and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that cost her with Vermonters, as did her outspoken willingness to disagree with her potential Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate. “I had heard repeatedly from the people I spoke to that they didn't want to see a Republican like that get elected,” Mermel said.

(The Nolan campaign did not respond to an interview request on Thursday.)

While Malloy took hardline anti-abortion and anti-gun-reform stances, Nolan said she supported Roe v. Wade and red flag laws. She is also lesbian and has spoken in favor of marriage equality. On a night in which women dominated the Democratic ticket, not a single woman won statewide for the Republicans.

And here's the issue I want to focus on: "She ... has spoken in favor of marriage equality." That's a big dud with Republican voters still. In spite of the GOP political establishment's drive to run away from cultural issues, the GOP base wants the party leaders to support the natural family, stand up for natural marriage, and push back on the encroaching, destructive LGBT agenda.

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