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"It's a real privilege," Shumlin said. "It's humbling to get the kind of results we did last night."

Surrounded by dozens of workers on break, Shumlin said he chose to bring his victory tour to Dynapower Corp., because it's just the sort of growing business he believes it's his job to support.

"I really came to say thank you to Vermonters," he said.

Shumlin's remarks followed a big night for a governor whose last two electoral victories — in the 2010 primary and general elections — were nail-biters to the end. This time, he routed Sen. Randy Brock (R-Franklin), winning 58 percent to Brock's 37.

Despite his formidable cash advantage — much of which he ended up keeping in the bank — Shumlin characterized Tuesday's results as a win for truth over money and "grassroots citizens' democracy" over "outside political consultants."

The media spotlight last night focused on the statewide races and that Obama guy, but there were some spirited races on the local level, as well. The big wins Democrats showed at the top of the ticket trickled down to the Legislature; as it stands Democrats added two seats for a "supermajority" of 96 seats in the House of Representatives, while Progressives picked up a couple seats and Republicans lost three. The 22-8 split in the state Senate in favor of the Democrats appears it will hold, although each party holds a seat, for now, that could still change.

For the most complete results page, head over to Vermont Public Radio's elections page. The Secretary of State's unofficial results site once again lagged behind local media outlets on election night, and currently shows only about 75 percent of precincts reporting results.

With the caveat that results are still unofficial, here's how some of Vermont's other interesting races shook out.

Vermont Democrats went wild as newly-elected State Treasurer Beth Pearce took to the stage late Tuesday night in a crowded ballroom at the Burlington Hilton.

As Pearce settled into her victory speech, the crowd went even wilder. But it wasn’t just for her. To the side of the stage, a television tuned to CNN was flashing some pretty big news. “I think I just heard that Obama won Ohio,” Pearce said. “Boy, I hope I got that right.”

She did.

This was a night of euphoria for Vermont Dems — up and down the ballot. Within minutes of the polls closing, the AP called it for their top officeholders: Gov. Peter Shumlin, Sen. Bernie Sanders (an independent who caucueses with Democrats) and Congressman Peter Welch. And Vermont once again sent Obama his first three votes in the Electoral College.

In the race Vermont Democrats focused on the most, Pearce handily defeated Rutland’s Republican city treasurer, Wendy Wilton, by a 52 to 41 percent margin.

But the biggest surprise of the night came when Burlington’s own Doug Hoffer (pictured above), a Democrat and Progressive, defeated 32-year Republican state Sen. Vince Illuzzi 51 to 45 to become Vermont’s next state auditor.

In a speech as low-key as his win was unexpected, Hoffer — a self-employed policy analyst running in his second race for state auditor — concluded by saying, simply, “I’m going to get to work.”

Happy election day, Vermonters! While waiting for polls to close and the real news of the day — we'll be live-blogging results starting at 7 p.m. — I'm on an election day road trip visiting polling stations up and down a 50-mile stretch of Route 7. I'll be updating all day with notes from the road and opinions from voters.

5 p.m., Charlotte

My respect for the campaigners has gone up significantly since the sun went down. The cold weather wasn’t scaring away the small gaggle of dogged pols outside of the Charlotte Central School. Ed Stone, a Charlotte selectman and incumbent Mike Yantachka are vying for a seat in the House, but just as in Brandon, the mood here was congenial.

“It’s been a great day,” Stone told me. “We’ve all been getting along really great.”

But the real star of the little campaign huddle was Robin Reid, who called out to me, “This is the race of the day, Katie.” Bundled up in a puffy down jacket, Reid was toting a large sign encouraging voters to write in Robin Reid for Justice of the Peace. Reid’s served as a JP in Charlotte for six years — but this year the independent botched her paperwork. “I have to admit, I didn’t get my paperwork in on time,” she said. She was going to throw in the towel, but a few friends encouraged her to give a write-in candidacy a shot.

But it’s a tough race. For years the Republican and Democratic parties in Charlotte put forth six candidates each for the race, and the justices ran uncontested. But today there are 17 names on the ballot for 12 spots.

Apparently, Reid likes serving as a justice of the peace well enough to spend 12 hours outside on a brisk November day. She was hustling, calling out to voters as they streamed past by name to remind them to pencil her in. "It’s a nice way to serve your community,” she told me. She’s done a few weddings — those she described as “fun” — but Reid’s real joy is property valuations and tax abatements. To each her own! 

The voting was taking place in the multi-purpose room at the school. Eighth graders stationed just outside the room were peddling the last of their bake sale wares to fund a class trip; by 5 p.m. they’d made $1000 selling cupcakes alone. Meanwhile, voters came and went at a steady clip. I spoke with Pamela Burton-Macauley on her way out. “I’m wearing my colors,” she told me, unzipping her sweatshirt to flash an “Obama Mama” t-shirt. She’s nervous about the tight race. Her family is moving to England for six months in January; if Romney wins, she’s telling people she’s “leaving the country,” but if it’s Obama, she’s “taking a vacation.”

As for races closer to home — “It’s really boring this year,” Burton-Macauley told me. “I hate saying that!” But in the end, she’s been so transfixed by the presidential election that battles in her home state seem “inconsequential” in comparison.

In other news from Charlotte, it was here that I spotted my first exit pollster! A tall, clipboard-totin’ guy chased down every fifth voter out the door and proffered an anonymous survey. So far, he told me, he’d collected somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 surveys over the course of the day. He would be closing up shop at 6 p.m., an hour before the polls closed, to get the data back to his research firm, which supplies the Associated Press with its numbers.

That, incidentally, was when I threw in the towel — to type up this final dispatch, scarf down a quick dinner, and jet north to Burlington to watch the returns trickle in. Don't forget to join us for our live blog! 

And now for something completely different!

While you're waiting in line to get your vote on, here's a quickie music video from local songstress, Nuda Veritas. The video is for her song, "Never," and finds the experimental pop auteur taking aim at Mitt Romney's lady binders, an iron-pumping Paul Ryan and a physiologically confused Todd Akin. Enjoy!  

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It's Election Day — and that means we here at Seven Days are getting ready for a night of hitting 'refresh' on our laptops.

It also means we'll be firing up the venerable Seven Days election night live blog just as soon as the polls close at 7 p.m. We'll be joined by our co-host, Channel 17/CCTV, as well as by reporters from the Stowe Reporter, Waterbury Record, Addison County Independent, Bennington Banner, Windham County's The Commons and hopefully more!

Seven Days' Tyler Machado and Cathy Resmer will be anchoring the live blog. Andy Bromage will be reporting from the Republican gathering at Montpelier's Capitol Plaza, Kevin J. Kelley will be with the Progressives at Burlington's Magnolia Bistro, and I'll be with the Democrats at the Burlington Hilton. Ken Picard will anchor live election coverage on Channel 17/CCTV, which will be streamed alongside our live blog, and Kathryn Flagg will be covering everything else there is to cover in the state.

Please join us at sevendaysvt.com at 7 p.m. and share with us what's happening in your neck of the woods. And remember, if you're out and about today and tonight, be sure to tweet election-related content with hashtag #vtpoli so we can pull it into the blog.

Photo credit: Cathy Resmer (Pictured: Voting in Winooski)

If you're jamming out to WCAX's election night coverage Tuesday, you might find yourself watching this 60-second ad from Vermont's favorite lefty super PAC, Priorities PAC:

According to Priorities PAC consultant Todd Bailey, the group paid roughly $3000 to produce the ad and another $1500 to air it — just once — on election night. He said they may re-purpose it down the road to support the super PAC's advocacy work in the Statehouse.

What kind of advocacy work, you ask? To put super PACs out of business, of course!

Well, not exactly.

It took all campaign season, but we finally got a photo of Lenore Broughton, the Burlington heiress who's bankrolling the conservative super PAC Vermonters First to the tune of $1 million this election. 

Despite her outsize influence on state elections this year, Broughton keeps a low public profile. She declines every interview request she gets and has turned away numerous reporters looking for quotes from her front door this fall.

Prior to a recent Seven Days story and others that followed, there wasn't much known about her background or the source of her sizable fortune. And there don't appear to be any photos of her on the web.

Our last attempt to photograph the elusive Broughton didn't go so well. She walked away from a public meeting rather than be photographed. So we had to get a little more aggressive on the second try.

Seven Days hired freelance photographer Andy Duback to photograph Broughton at a public meeting of a board on which she serves. On Monday, Duback snapped this photo at Burlington City Hall as Broughton was getting on an elevator following the meeting. Along with being a member of the Burlington Telecom Cable Advisory Council, Broughton serves on the Burlington Board for Registration of Voters. That's the volunteer panel charged with maintaining Burlington's voter lists.

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In total, they invested $532,000 in television, radio and newspaper advertising, and in direct mail. A little less than half of that money went toward Vermont's gubernatorial race. The two candidates — Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin and Republican challenger Randy Brock, a Franklin County state senator — have spent $240,000 on television advertising alone during the past month.

Of course, with the advent of Vermont-based super PACs, candidate spending only tells half the story.

For instance, the two leading candidates for state treasurer — appointed incumbent Democrat Beth Pearce and Rutland's Republican city treasurer, Wendy Wilton — have spent $119,000 on mass media in the past month. But independent groups — primarily the conservative super PAC Vermonters First, which has heavily backed Wilton — spent another $220,000 exclusively on that race during the same period.

Factoring in all reported candidate spending during the two-year election cycle coming to a close this Tuesday, Brock has vastly outspent the others. He has spent at least $706,000 since launching his gubernatorial campaign last winter. Behind him are Shumlin ($285,000), Pearce ($194,000) and the Republican candidate for attorney general, Jack McMullen ($191,000).

Last week, we brought you a list of the biggest-spending independent groups in the 2012 election (please note, that list is now a few days out of date). Below is a list of the biggest-spending candidates:

Last week, we brought you a somewhat comprehensive tally of newspaper endorsements in Vermont's statewide races. Well, a few more rolled in over the weekend, so we're updating it below.

The new additions? The Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus endorsed Gov. Peter Shumlin and Lite Gov. Phil Scott. The Valley News backed Shumlin. And the Vermont Standard endorsed all the incumbents, with the exception of Democratic State Treasurer Beth Pearce; instead, they backed her Republican challenger, Rutland City treasurer Wendy Wilton. The Standard also went for Sen. Vince Illuzzi in the open race for state auditor.

Notably, in a Saturday editorial the Brattleboro Reformer announced it will no longer endorse political candidates, writing:

Readers of our editorial page don't need us to tell them we have a certain ideological standpoint when it comes to politics, and it probably would come as no surprise as to who we would endorse if we were to continue to do so.

But it's not for that self-evident reason we are discontinuing our participation in this hallowed practice.

This shouldn't be a surprise to regular readers. Over the past several years, we've begun to pull back on regular endorsements, first at the local level (selectboards), and then expanding that process to more high-profile candidates.

Simply put, the editorial board believes our job here at the Reformer is to profile the candidates and present their stances on various issues and let readers make their own decisions.