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Vermont presidential candidates included Sanders, Dean, Coolidge

Vermont presidential candidates included Sanders, Dean, Coolidge

Matte Jr06 mins

In one of the few times in the 21st century, no one from Vermont mounted a serious campaign for U.S. president this election cycle.

When you consider that Vermont’s entire population is about the same size as the city of Boston, it’s a little surprising that the state would field any presidential candidates at all. However, Vermont has had some attention-grabbing candidates since the early 2000s, and in recent centuries native sons have also aspired to the White House. Two Vermonters have even reached the highest position in the country.

With Election Day approaching, November 5th, the time is right to look back at the major parties’ past presidential campaigns with a Vermont twist, starting with the most recent (Did you feel Bern?) and going back to the days of Honest Abe .

Bernie Sanders, 2016 and 2020

For a while in 2016, it looked like the U.S. senator and former Burlington mayor might be the Democratic nominee for president. His surprise victory in March in the Michigan primary generated momentum that propelled Sanders’ campaign for the following months. Regardless of who ran under the auspices of the Democrats, Sanders fell a little short of the nomination, falling just percentage points behind Hillary Clinton. Sanders took another shot at the presidency in 2020, but lost the Democratic candidacy more easily to eventual nominee and President Joe Biden.

Howard Dean, 2004

The former Vermont governor made a serious charge for the Democratic nomination to oppose President George W. Bush. The polling and fundraising turned Dean into a surprisingly strong candidate heading into the primary. The famous “Dean scream” that reportedly occurred in his campaign came after a third-place showing at the Iowa caucus, which had likely already cemented his defeat to eventual nominee John Kerry. Dean’s presidential victory came four years later, as head of the Democratic National Committee that helped elect President Barack Obama.

Calvin Coolidge, 1920 and 1924

The Plymouth Notch native ran successfully for vice president in 1920 on the Republican ticket with Warren G. Harding. The president died of a heart attack in 1923, elevating Coolidge to the role after he was sworn in by his father in the glow of lamplight at the family’s Vermont estate. Known for his fiscal conservatism, the taciturn man nicknamed “Silent Cal” would be elected to a full term 100 years ago in 1924, making him the only Vermonter to win election to the U.S. presidency. His wife, First Lady Grace Goodhue Coolidge, grew up in Burlington and graduated from the University of Vermont.

Chester A. Arthur, 1880

Coolidge would be the second Vermonter to ascend to the presidency following the death of the main incumbent. More than four decades earlier, Chester A. Arthur succeeded James A. Garfield after the president was shot at a Washington, D.C., train station and died two and a half months later. Arthur, a native of Franklin County, was initially unpopular because of his support for the political patronage system, but gained respect for adhering to Garfield’s desire to pursue civil service reform. Republicans unhappy with his change in policy snubbed him for the 1884 nomination for president.

Stephen A. Douglas, 1860

Although he debated Abraham Lincoln in a U.S. Senate race in Illinois in 1858, Douglas was a native of Vermont. Douglas, born and raised in Brandon, won the Senate race as a Democrat as opposed to Lincoln, a Republican. Douglas would run for president two years later, but fractures in the pre-Civil War Democratic Party led to a bifurcated nomination between him and the incumbent vice president, John C. Breckinridge. This division helped hand the presidency to his Republican counterpart – Abraham Lincoln.

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at [email protected].

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