Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Molly Gray received a boost on Wednesday when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) endorsed her campaign, calling her a bold leader who “understands the challenges facing working families” who would “put people and justice before politics.”

The illustrious endorsement quickly made the rounds on social media and seemed to be yet another signifier of Gray's strong support among prominent Democrats, whose backing has helped cement her as a formidable statewide candidate despite running in her first-ever political campaign.

But the high was somewhat tempered Friday when one of the nation’s other leading progressive politicians, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), sent out an email recapping some of his own home state endorsements. The list named three dozen people, from legislative candidates to every single Democratic or Progressive statewide office seeker — that is, except Gray.

“These races are incredibly important — that's why we've put together a list of progressive, Bernie-endorsed candidates in your area,” read the email Sanders' campaign sent out on Friday morning. “If you can, we hope you'll cast your ballot for them when you vote in Vermont."

To be sure, Gray, who is running against Republican businessman Scott Milne, does not have the same ties to Sanders as she does Vermont's two other federal leaders.

She interned for Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-Vt.) while she was a University of Vermont student and went on to work for Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), first on his 2006 campaign and later in Washington, D.C. Both men have endorsed her campaign.

She also has not tried to portray herself as a Sanders surrogate in the same way some other Vermont candidates have. Though her platform calls for investments in childcare, higher education, broadband expansion and paid family leave, she falls short of some of Sanders' most progressive policies, striking a more moderate tone at times. She even touts support from some former Republican officials, including former U.S. representative Peter Smith, who lost his seat to Sanders in 1990.

And Sanders has lent limited support to Gray's campaign, appearing on a soon-to-be distributed Vermont Democratic Party mailer alongside Leahy that asks voters to support all statewide Democratic candidates — including Gray.

Still, his continued silence on Gray's candidacy, in light of Warren's endorsement, would appear to be a clear snub of a rising Democratic star in his home state. Sanders' press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Regardless of his reasoning, Sanders' decision to leave Gray off his endorsement list has given her political rival ammunition heading into the final weeks of the campaign. Almost immediately after Sanders' email was sent out, Milne campaign manager state Sen. Corey Parent (R-Franklin) forwarded it in an email and asked "Where is Molly?"

“Another prominent Vermont Dem/Prog not endorsing Molly Gray," Parent wrote.
The Milne campaign took the same tack earlier this week when Gray announced that she had been endorsed by 16 Democratic and Progressive state senators.

Some of those senators — including Democratic Majority Leader Becca Balint (D-Windham) — gathered on the Statehouse lawn Monday morning to heap praise onto the nominee. But while Gray's campaign tried to use the event as a show of strength heading into the final weeks of the race, Milne's camp held up a different lens.

“It is revealing that, with less than a month before Election Day and with votes already being cast, Molly Gray still has not consolidated the support of leaders within her own party," Milne's press secretary, Mike Donohue, wrote in a press release on Monday, referring to how the 16 endorsements only represent two-thirds of the non-Republican Senate caucus.

Gray's campaign, meantime, has repeatedly tried to contrast her fundraising tactics with Milne's to show that she maintains broader grassroots support. In a press release last week, Gray's campaign noted that she has received contributions from more than 1,600 people since declaring her candidacy back in January compared to the less than 500 people who have financially supported Milne's campaign.

"I'm so proud to have earned support from every corner of this state and across party lines," Gray said in a statement to Seven Days in response to questions about not securing Sanders' endorsement. "My commitment as we move forward is to continue to work every day to earn the support of my fellow Vermonters."

Correction, October 9, 2020: An earlier version of this story misstated when Molly Gray interned for Sen. Leahy.

This story was updated October 10, 2020.

Molly Gray and Scott Milne continue to squabble over two super PACs supporting their campaigns for lieutenant governor, criticizing one another this week for benefitting from "dark money" outside influence peddlers.

While Gray and Milne have sparred over the topic for several weeks, the latest exchange began on Wednesday when a super PAC supporting Gray filed a mass media report showing it had sunk $30,000 into television advertisements mentioning only Milne.

The expenditure came about two weeks after the same super PAC — the Alliance for a Better Vermont Action Fund — leveled an attack against Milne's voting record that turned out to be partially false.

"I have just been notified that an outside group associated with Molly Gray’s campaign is preparing to run negative ads against me — the first attack ads in this race," Milne wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday afternoon. "Too bad this is where the Gray people had to take it, especially after all her dishonest posturing about how she is committed to a positive campaign and falsely attacking me for being a negative campaigner when all I have run are positive ads."

Milne's comments were rich, because while it may be technically true that he has not run any negative television ads, his campaign has seemed quite at home in the trenches ever since the primary ended.
It has repeatedly attacked Gray over her lackluster voting record and has posted a handful of videos on its YouTube page with titles such as "Molly Gray Won't Tell Us How She'll Pay" and "Molly Gray Repeatedly Evades Reporter's Question About Campaigning On The Taxpayers' Dime." (Gray actually told the reporter — who asked her on Monday about tweets sent during what would typically be working hours for the assistant attorney general — that her campaign staff has access to her Twitter account.)

Still, the more substantive part of Milne's tweet — an allegation that Gray was somehow affiliated with the PAC — was notable, since it is against the law for political candidates to coordinate with such groups.

Gray has dismissed this claim, saying that she doesn't know anything about the PAC. And the fund's director, Ashley Moore, recently tweeted that she had never even met the candidate.

Yet the Milne campaign doubled down on the comments Thursday, noting in a press release that several people associated with the super PAC have either donated to Gray’s campaign, endorsed her or, as with Burlington attorney Jacob Perkinson, given her legal advice.

Perkinson, the former chair of the Vermont Democratic Party, authored a legal opinion that Gray's campaign has given to media outlets to answer questions about whether her 15 months living in Switzerland in 2017 and 2018 disqualified her from holding the office of lieutenant governor.

Perkinson filed paperwork to incorporate the Alliance for a Better Vermont 501c4 in 2018 but told Seven Days on Friday that he informed the organization shortly afterward that it would need to find other legal counsel and that he does not "have anything to do with them at this point."

He said he made that decision because he wanted to have the flexibility to work directly with campaigns and avoid the types of accusations now coming from the Milne campaign.

“Any allegation that I participated in any coordination between the Alliance for a Better Vermont super PAC and the Molly Gray campaign is unequivocally and absolutely false, and any suggestion to the contrary is reckless,” Perkinson said.

It is common for donors or supporters of a candidate to run super PACs benefiting that candidate's campaign. But Milne again pressed the issue when the two debated Thursday on NBC5, asking Gray whether she would request that the super PAC reveal where its money is coming from.

That has turned out to be a difficult question to answer. Though the super PAC filed campaign finance disclosure forms with the Secretary of State’s Office on October 1, it only listed two donors: a separate Democratic super PAC and the 501c4 nonprofit Alliance for a Better Vermont. When asked by Seven Days whose money was being funneled through the nonprofit to help make the advertisements possible, Moore would not say.
Gray responded to Milne's request by saying that not only can she not control what outside organizations do, but that she did not even know which PAC he was talking about.

When Gray wasn't on the defensive, she was attacking Milne for his own super PAC support, noting that the Republican State Leadership Committee recently dumped more than $200,000 into television advertisements supporting his campaign.

Gray has criticized Milne for welcoming the “special interest, dark money,” though only half of that is true. Unlike the super PAC supporting her, the RSLC makes its donors public. They include cigarette giant Altria Group, Koch Industries and the Judicial Crisis Network, which is currently spending millions to convince Republican lawmakers to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The same supporters that support Donald Trump are moving money into the state right now to defeat me, a 36-year-old Vermonter,” Gray said.

Milne said at a previous debate that he is happy to have the RSLC's support since its backers "only do this for people that they think are going to win." He appeared equally unbothered by Gray's line of attack on Thursday, pointing out that the PAC is only running positive ads supporting his own campaign. (The RSLC hasn't always stayed above the fray; two years ago, it spent $186,000 on ads attacking left-leaning Vermont candidates).

Gray sought to end the back-and-forth by asking Milne to pledge with her then and there to cease all negative attacks for the final three weeks of the campaign. "No more nasty tweets. No more nasty press releases. No more nasty emails,” she said as the broadcast cut to a split-screen shot of the two candidates. “Nothing but the issues for Vermonters facing our state. Join me?"

Milne declined the olive branch. "A convenient request since you've got your friends launching a negative attack through a super PAC that you claim not to control — even though you have people on the board of the PAC doing endorsements for you on your website,” Milne shot back.

“I'm looking forward to a robust dialogue about facts,” he said, adding, “you know, sometimes the truth hurts.”

The volleys continued after the debate as the two campaigns sent out dueling press statements.

“In their final debate, Milne avoided answering basic policy questions on issues of police reform, systemic racism, and climate action, instead, echoing partisan charges against his opponent or deferring to his campaign website,” Gray’s campaign wrote. It then attributed a quote to Gray that said her opponent and the GOP “clearly have not learned that blank checks and tired, old partisan attacks are not the way to earn the support of Vermonters.”

Milne’s camp had a different takeaway. In a two-paragraph statement, campaign manager Sen. Corey Parent (R-Franklin) wrote that Milne won the debate because he continues to offer “real, affordable and achievable solutions, and honest answers, not bumper sticker sloganeering and political-speak."

"Tonight, Molly Gray refused to call for the disclosure of donors to the Super PAC run by her friends,” Parent wrote. “Her dodgy response and thin excuses ring hollow. There is nothing stopping her from calling for full disclosure except an unwillingness to be honest and transparent with Vermonters, which has become the hallmark of her candidacy.”

Updated at 10:20 p.m.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) has no coronavirus symptoms after attending a 90-minute hearing on Thursday with a Republican colleague who later tested positive, a spokesperson said Friday.

And amid a worsening COVID-19 outbreak on Capitol Hill, Leahy supports top Democratic leaders who are calling for a delay to the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, according to the senator's spokesperson, David Carle.

Among those with confirmed cases are President Donald Trump, one of his top aides and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee with Leahy. The two senators sat several seats away from each other during Thursday's hearing, the same day Lee came down with "symptoms consistent with longtime allergies." Lee, Leahy and a handful of other senators did not wear masks as they spoke at the hearing.

Carle said in an email that the 80-year-old senator has not been tested for the virus since Lee's diagnosis. Carle said that Leahy would follow the guidance of the Capitol physician, who suggested that the senator potentially be tested next week as a "precaution." Health experts say it usually takes a few days after exposure to produce a positive COVID-19 test result.

Gov. Phil Scott had his best fundraising month of this election cycle. Republican lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Scott Milne injected $100,000 of his personal wealth into his own campaign.

Scott's opponent, Progressive/Democratic Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, and Milne's, Democratic nominee Molly Gray, each continue to find broad financial support. And all four candidates have ramped up spending ahead of the campaign's homestretch, posting more than $415,000 in combined receipts over the last month.

Those were some of the key takeaways from the most recent campaign finance reports submitted to the Secretary of State's Office ahead of the October 1 filing deadline, weeks before the November 3 election.

Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman's spouse on Tuesday night lashed out against the woman running to replace him, writing on social media that Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Molly Gray was “slimy” and “manipulative.”

In a Facebook post Tuesday night, Rachel Nevitt shared a photograph of her husband being sworn in as lieutenant governor and wrote that he had presided over the state Senate for the final time last week.

Zuckerman, a Progressive/Democrat who has held the LG’s office for the last four years, is running against Gov. Phil Scott.

“It is phenomenally sad to think that all of his hard work and dedication to the people of Vermont over the last 20+ years could be ‘replaced’ by a lying, manipulative, self-serving power-hungry individual who has only ever bothered to vote in ONE election,” Nevitt wrote. "And no, that was not the critical election of Hilary [sic] Clinton vs Donald Trump."

Nevitt's initial post did not name Gray, who has actually voted in more than one election. But given that Gray's failure to vote in the four general elections between 2008 and 2018 has become a central issue in her race against Republican businessman Scott Milne, it was obvious who Nevitt meant.

Nevitt stomped out any doubt soon after when she asked one of the post's commenters whether they had listened to Tuesday's Vermont Public Radio debate, which featured Milne and Gray.

"Holy Shit, she’s slimy!” Nevitt wrote, adding that this unnamed female candidate had called Zuckerman earlier in the day and lied to him about what she said in the debate, "then hung up on him in a hissy fit.”

“All this from a candidate that claims she will be the great unifier,” Nevitt wrote.

A screenshot of Nevitt’s post, which appears to have been only visible to her Facebook friends, was shared with Seven Days late Tuesday night. It was unclear whether the post was still online on Wednesday; in a phone interview Wednesday evening, Nevitt said that she had not deleted it but did not know whether the post was still live.
Nevitt’s comments came hours after Gray appeared reluctant to throw her support behind Zuckerman during Tuesday's debate.

Gray did not initially answer a question from Milne about whom she planned to vote for in the governor's race, instead using her time to push back on one of Milne's comments about her voting record. Pressed for a response, she said she would be voting “for the Democratic ticket, and that starts with the top of the ticket, with Joe Biden, and putting a Democrat in the White House.”

She then tried to turn the tables on Milne, asking whether he would be voting for Biden.

“I appreciate your tenacity, Molly,” Milne responded. “But I get to ask a question. You’re not telling us whether you’re voting for Phil Scott or David Zuckerman?”

Gray continued to ask Milne about who he was supporting for president, and eventually, the debate moved on without Gray ever saying who she planned to vote for.

But VPR moderator Bob Kinzel gave it one last shot before the debate ended, asking Gray again whether she would vote for Zuckerman.

“I’ll be supporting the Democratic ticket this year,” she repeated. “Here in Vermont, and in the White House.”

“So you’re voting David Zuckerman?” Milne asked.

“Yes,” she said.

Zuckerman told Seven Days on Wednesday afternoon that he did not remember exactly what Nevitt wrote in the post but that she could "speak for herself."

"As a strong feminist, I’m not going to speak for her or what her intentions were," he said, encouraging this reporter to reach out to Nevitt directly.

For her part, Nevitt said that her comments had "nothing to do" with the issues impacting the most vulnerable Vermonters, which is what the media should be focused on.

"What this has to do with is reporters assuming that women are somehow objects of their husband’s possession, and what they say somehow equals what he thinks," she said.

She went on to say that people make comments on Facebook about political candidates "all the time" and that the story should be more about how there are people "creeping around on my private Facebook posts and making them public."

Nevitt did not believe her post should become public because of her husband's position. "I am not a candidate. I am not running for office," she said.

"People have been turned off to politics because, in part, the media likes to gossip about politics and try and cleave apart what’s real and important and make it about dirty trashy stories," she said. "I think that the media should be held to a higher standard and help people want to get involved in politics."

Seven Days asked whether she saw any contradiction with that sentiment and her disparaging comments about a first-time political candidate.

"You are gross and heebie-jeebie," Nevitt replied. "Don’t turn your crap around on me — your lack of your ability to tell the real stories that people want to hear."

Later, when asked whether she had any final thoughts, Nevitt said that she found it interesting no woman had called her about her post.

"I am sorry that males feel the need to ...," she said, before trailing off. She then told this reporter, "I’m sorry you didn’t get the job you wanted in life."

What job?

"Writing about the news," she said.

Zuckerman confirmed that he had indeed spoken with Gray on the phone on Tuesday, noting that they had "regularly" discussed approaches to reaching voters "throughout" the campaign.

He said the debate came up in their conversation but that he was not sure Nevitt could actually hear Gray on the other line because the phone was up to his ear.

"[Gray] said she would support me and, more or less, that's what she said [at the debate]," Zuckerman said.

He said Gray did not hang up on him as Nevitt claimed. "We both had places to go and it was a brief call," he said.
If Zuckerman harbors any hard feelings about Gray's support for his campaign, he didn't show it on Wednesday. Gray has "said what she needs to do to try to get elected," Zuckerman said. And while it would "always be great" for them to work together "as much as possible," there are times "we each do that better or worse," he said.

Asked whether he agreed with his spouse's comments, Zuckerman said, "Well, I've only known Molly for a short while, and I've had a lot of good interactions with her. Not everyone's gonna agree on everything, but I look forward to her being lieutenant governor."

"In general, we're both supporting the Democrats up and down the ticket," he later said, adding that his goal, if elected, would be to work with Gray "as cooperatively and as productively" as possible.

As for whether he thought his spouse's comments might make that a difficult proposition, Zuckerman replied, "That's up to Molly." 

Gray's campaign manager, Samantha Sheehan, said that her candidate would be unavailable for interviews on Wednesday afternoon as she was focused on her eighth and final community forum.

Her campaign instead sent a two-sentence statement attributed to her that read, "I have enormous respect for our Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman and appreciation for his long career of service to Vermont. I look forward to continuing to work with him to elevate the issues most urgently facing Vermonters."

Gray's hesitancy to position herself too closely to Zuckerman comes as the two find themselves in vastly different positions heading into the final weeks of the campaign.

Gray is in a dead heat with Milne, who has run for statewide office two other times; a recent VPR poll places Gray with a 35 to 31 percent advantage, within the 4 percent margin of error. Zuckerman, meantime, trails Gov. Scott by more than 30 points.
Still, Gray's arm's-length embrace of Zuckerman is in stark contrast to their Republican counterparts, who appear to be starring in their own buddy film.

Indeed, Milne has sought to capitalize on Scott's popularity throughout the campaign, often noting that they went to the same high school and have maintained a congenial relationship over the years. One of Milne's main pitches to voters is that unlike the adversarial relationship Scott has maintained with Zuckerman, he would instead serve as an ally to the governor.

Scott has reciprocated by throwing his full support behind Milne, endorsing him shortly after the primary and appearing in a digital ad praising his business chops.
Zuckerman and Gray, meantime, have had a more one-sided dynamic, as demonstrated by their individual victory speeches at a Vermont Democratic Party press conference two days after the August primary.

Gray spoke for nearly four minutes at that event but never mentioned Zuckerman, saying only that she looked forward to working with the Democratic ticket. Zuckerman, one the other hand, offered Gray a “huge congratulations” on her victory, joking as she moved out of the sun into a shady area on the Statehouse lawn that she was “already showing her leadership and intelligence.”

“I look forward to running with you all across this state,” Zuckerman said, “and both of us being first across the finish line.”

Four state House candidates have declined endorsements from the Vermont State Employees' Association, citing "harmful inconsistencies" in the union's support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

In an open letter published Monday, the candidates expressed particular concern about what they saw as the union leadership's lack of willingness to address state government's "status quo culture" surrounding racial justice.

"We are living through too important a racial awakening for organizations not to be called on to reflect on their internal actions and external positions," reads the letter. It was signed by first-time state office seekers Taylor Small and Emma Mulvaney-Stanak — who are running as Progressive/Democrats in Winooski and Burlington, respectively — as well as incumbent Reps. Mari Cordes (D/P-Lincoln) and Selene Colburn (P-Burlington).

Portions of this story were updated on Monday, September 28, 2020, to reflect new details on Scott Milne's voting record provided by the Pomfret town clerk. The revelations call into question a line of attack levied by a super PAC supporting Molly Gray.

The most contentious issue in the race for Vermont's No. 2 office has nothing to do with an actual policy or proposal.

Rather, for Democrat Molly Gray, Republican Scott Milne, their campaigns and supporters, the lieutenant gubernatorial race has become a tit-for-tat dispute over voting records — one that seems likely to persist right up through the election.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott and his Progressive/Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, may be vying to lead the state through the coronavirus crisis, but their first one-on-one debate on Thursday hardly touched on the pandemic.

Instead, the two gubernatorial candidates largely focused on hot-button social issues — such as gun rights, abortion rights and criminal justice reform — as well as their respective approaches to addressing climate change. The hourlong debate was cosponsored by Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS.

Days after the legislature overrode Scott's veto of the Global Warming Solutions Act, the governor again criticized the new law as unconstitutional and ineffective. "From my perspective, this just felt political, in order to check the box," Scott said. "It's like the 'easy button' from Staples. You know, you just press it. 'We've finished ... We solved climate change here, and let's move on.'"

But Zuckerman defended the law, which requires the state to reduce its carbon emissions and sets up a panel charged with doing so. "The climate crisis is real," he said, pointing to droughts across the state and a recent forest fire in Killington. "This issue has been mounting for years, and there has been inaction at the governor's level."

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