(Host) In the past month, two incumbent U.S. senators and a congressman have been turned out of office by voters, and other establishment candidates have been rebuked.
VPR’s Bob Kinzel examines whether that wave of anti-incumbent sentiment could affect Vermont races.
(Kinzel) If you look at primaries in Utah, Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, it’s clear that this is a tough year to be an incumbent U.S. senator seeking re-election.
Will this trend be a factor in Vermont’s U.S. Senate race – a contest where incumbent Democrat Pat Leahy is seeking his seventh term in office?
Republican candidate Len Britton hopes the answer is, "Yes."
(Britton) "I’ve talked to the Tea Party folks a lot. I think that they share some of the frustrations that I do with what’s been coming out of Washington recently."
(Kinzel) Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Dan Freilich is criticizing Leahy from the other direction. Freilich supports a single payer health care system and he’s upset that Leahy voted for a more moderate bill.
(Freilich) "It puts back true reform dramatically. So I don’t think in the long term it is to our advantage to pass this bill."
(Kinzel) Middlebury College political science professor emeritus Eric Davis says Vermont isn’t immune from the anti-incumbent movement. But:
(Davis) "Patrick Leahy has been in office for 36 years now. He has very high name recognition, very high amounts of money in his campaign war chest. So the question for me about the U.S. Senate race is not whether or not Senator Leahy will be re-elected – I’m quite confident that he will be – but what his percentage will be."
(Kinzel) Davis says the anti-incumbent trend could play a role in the gubernatorial election. In the Democratic primary, he notes that Matt Dunne is the one candidate who isn’t part of what Davis calls "the Montpelier establishment."
(Davis) "If you look at his Web site and some of the other materials that his campaign has been putting out, he’s trying to portray himself as having the most diverse mix of both public and private sector experience of any of the candidates."
(Kinzel) Davis says the anti-incumbent trend could also pose some challenges for Republican candidate Brian Dubie.
(Davis) "So if the sentiment of the voters is for change this year, Dubie represents continuity more than change. So he has to figure out a way in which he can present himself as sort of a steady set of hands at the leadership of state government but at the same time something other than the fifth term of the Douglas administration."
(Kinzel) Davis says it’s possible that the trend could also affect the races for lieutenant governor and secretary of state.
For VPR News, I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier