MONTPELIER, Vermont — Republican Governor Phil Scott has won a historic sixth term as governor of Vermont, defeating Democratic challenger Amanda Janoo in the November 3 election. The Associated Press called the race for Scott, and Janoo conceded shortly before 11 p.m. on election night, with Scott leading by about 7 points, 52 to 45 percent, at the time. In a state that votes overwhelmingly Democratic in federal elections, Scott was the only Republican to win a statewide race on Tuesday.
Source: Seven Days
The full count underlines both the win and its limits. Decision Desk HQ's snapshot at 1:52 a.m. Eastern on November 4 put Scott at 160,814 votes, or 52.48 percent, against 140,665 votes, or 45.91 percent, for Janoo, with independent Brian Judd at 2,582 votes, or 0.84 percent — a total of 306,421 votes, a winning margin of 20,149 votes, or about 6.6 points. The AP's later running count listed Scott at 163,169 votes, with 282 of Vermont's 283 precincts reporting, or 99.65 percent, and an estimated 99 percent of the vote counted. These are unofficial counts; the official result follows state certification.
Source: Decision Desk HQ
His closest race by far
The result was far closer than Scott's three most recent re-election campaigns, as Seven Days reported. In 2024 he won more than 73 percent of the vote against Esther Charlestin; in 2022 he received 71 percent against Brenda Siegel; and in 2020 he took 68.5 percent against David Zuckerman, who was then lieutenant governor. Against Janoo, an economist running on the Democratic line with Progressive alliance support, his share fell to about 52.5 percent — a majority, and enough for a sixth term, but no longer the cross-party landslide that made him one of the most personally popular governors in America.
The tightness showed even in the capital. In Montpelier itself, voters chose Janoo over Scott by about 3 to 1 — 3,359 votes to 1,299 — according to The Bridge's report of the city's results, even as Scott was winning the state as a whole. Below the governor's race, the night ran strongly against his party: Paul Dame, chair of the Vermont Republican Party, said as votes were tallied that Republicans were on track to lose about half a dozen seats in the state House and up to five in the state Senate, and Seven Days reported that Democrats made huge gains in the Statehouse that could restore their supermajority in one or both chambers. In the lieutenant governor's race, Democrat Molly Gray was leading incumbent Republican John Rodgers 63 to 37 percent with 93 percent of the vote counted, according to local reporting of the statewide returns.
Source: Seven Days
Background: governor since 2017, two-year terms
Scott, who has been governor since 2017, was seeking a sixth two-year term — Vermont, like New Hampshire, elects its governor every two years, the shortest cycle in the country. The primaries were held on August 11, 2026: Scott won the Republican primary almost unopposed with 21,466 votes, or 98.5 percent, while Janoo won a genuinely contested Democratic primary, taking 39,614 votes, or 49.1 percent, against Aly Richards' 37,570 votes, or 46.6 percent. Vermont's U.S. Representative Becca Balint, a Democrat, was declared the winner of her race an hour after the polls closed — part of the same split-ticket pattern that has defined Vermont politics throughout Scott's tenure: heavily Democratic in federal and legislative voting, yet willing to keep a moderate Republican in the governor's office.
Source: 2026 Vermont gubernatorial election
Vermont's governorship is a standing test of whether a personally trusted incumbent can still beat the national party tide — on a night when Democrats won Congress nationally, Vermont voters kept their Republican governor while moving their legislature the other way. The result sets up two years of divided government in Montpelier, where the balance between the governor's veto and a possible Democratic supermajority will decide state policy.
What happens next
Scott will be sworn in for his sixth two-year term, but he returns to Montpelier in a weaker position than after any of his previous wins: a personal mandate trimmed to about 52.5 percent, and a legislature in which Democrats may again hold the two-thirds strength needed to override his vetoes in one or both chambers, as Seven Days reported. The final totals remain unofficial until certification. For Janoo and the Democrats, coming within about 6.6 points of a five-term incumbent — after winning even the capital city by 3 to 1 — turns the next two-year cycle, never far away in Vermont, into a live contest rather than a formality.