Candidate for governor Amanda Janoo speaks during a Democratic Party unity rally in Burlington on Wednesday, August 12, 2026. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Amanda Janoo seemed to have none of the typical advantages on her side going into Tuesday’s Democratic primary for governor of Vermont. She had both raised and spent less campaign money than her opponent, Aly Richards. She had fewer endorsements from current and former lawmakers. And compared with Richards — the former head of a prominent childcare lobbying organization — she’d spent far less time in the Statehouse and rubbing shoulders with political insiders. But Janoo, an economist who until this year had never run for office, eked out a win that even she acknowledged Tuesday was “a long shot.” As of Wednesday afternoon, she had 49.1% of the vote to Richards’ 46.5%, according to unofficial results, setting her up to face Republican Gov. Phil Scott in the general election this fall.  So, how did she do it? By her own telling, Tuesday’s win was a result of talking to voters in no uncertain terms about the biggest challenges facing the state and the country. Democrats were hungry for a candidate who spoke plainly about economic inequality and criticized the power of big technology companies, she said, refrains that featured heavily in her campaign. At the same time, Janoo said she was the only candidate who offered solutions that would make the kind of structural changes many voters wanted. Those include proposals to enact new taxes on wealthy households and on tech firms to pay for universal primary care and other initiatives, as well as reducing the state’s reliance on federal funding, she said. “When we try to advocate for just maintaining, tinkering, stabilizing these existing systems, people aren’t going to be excited. They’re not going to mobilize, and they’re going to be, sort of, frustrated,” she said in an interview Wednesday morning.  “It was really about, like, how do we expand the political imagination? How do we bring people together?” she said of her campaign. “How do we make it irresistible to want to be part of a movement for justice, together?” Matthew Dickinson, a professor of political science at Middlebury College, agreed that Janoo’s success was due to how she met voters where they were. Democrats across the country are eager for change after a year and a half of a second Trump administration they don’t like, he said — and Janoo did a better job reflecting their concerns. “She represented a more authentic version of change, to enough voters, to give her the victory,” Dickinson said. Aly Roberts left, chats with Amanda Janoo at a Democratic Party unity rally in Burlington on Wednesday, August 12, 2026. Janoo defeated Roberts in Tuesday’s primary to become the party’s candidate for governor. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Richards also described herself as the “change” candidate, said Chris Graff, a former longtime Vermont political reporter. But while she drew a contrast between herself and Scott, he said, Janoo came off more clearly as a change from politics as usual. That led to Richards getting cast as the “establishment” candidate in the race. Richards had arguably stronger credentials to lean on, Graff said — she also worked in former Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin’s administration — but Janoo “was just pushing change, change, change.” That was the right strategy to build support in a primary, which typically draws the most ideology-motivated voters to the polls, he said.  “She really did retail politics well. She carried crowds and got them excited,” Graff said. “And she really, effectively, reached the smaller universe of voters that were most likely to participate.” In addition to her campaigning, Janoo was able to extract some advantage, near the finish line, from an infusion of money into the race by a pro-Richards political action committee.  The PAC blanketed the internet with more than $200,000 worth of ads urging people to vote for Richards in the final weeks of the race. The organization was not affiliated with her campaign but was supported by donors that had ties to Let’s Grow Kids, the childcare lobbying and advocacy group Richards led for a decade. Most of the PAC’s money came from people or sources outside the state, according to financial disclosures filed with the Vermont secretary of state’s office.  Some voters may have been put off by this infusion of out-of-state PAC money into the race, especially because Richards had publicly disavowed PAC money, Dickinson said. But the funding also gave Janoo a chance to reinforce the distinctions she was already trying to make, he said, even as the ads it paid for likely boosted Richards’ name recognition. “That contributes to the perception that you’re the candidate of the establishment. You’re not the candidate of change,” he said, referring to Richards. “It allowed Janoo to argue that she was more authentically a grassroots candidate mobilizing Vermont voters.” Richards herself raised about $440,000 ahead of election day and spent more than $375,000, according to the latest campaign finance reports. Janoo, in comparison, raised about $305,000 and spent about $260,000, filings show. That means pro-Richards spending, including from her campaign and the unaffiliated PAC, was double the pro-Janoo spending in the race. Looking at the town-by-town results of the race, it’s difficult to find broad geographic patterns that explain Janoo’s win, according to Graff. Those results were still unofficial as of Wednesday afternoon but included all but two towns. Janoo’s win does not cut clearly across urban and rural divides, he said, noting both she and Richards had different pockets of strength across the state that nearly balanced each other out. The tipping point, though, may have been in some of the deepest-blue pockets of Chittenden County. In the state Senate district that spans much of Burlington, all of Winooski and Essex Junction, part of Essex Town and a sliver of Colchester, Janoo bested Richards by about 2,000 votes. That’s roughly her overall margin of victory in the race, Graff noted.  Janoo bested Richards by 16 percentage points in Burlington and by 40 percentage points in Winooski, unofficial results show. “The election was close everywhere else in the state, but she built up this huge margin in Burlington and Winooski, and that saved the day for her,” Graff said. Janoo’s grassroots-focused campaign worked well for a primary election, where there are a relatively small number of voters to reach, Graff and Dickinson said. At least 88,500 people voted in Tuesday’s election, according to data Wednesday afternoon from the secretary of state’s office. That’s more than the 52,000 who voted in the 2024 Democratic primary for governor, though it pales in comparison to the 373,000 who cast a vote for governor in the 2024 general election, data shows. Amanda Janoo, who won Tuesday’s Democratic primary for governor of Vermont, speaks to fellow Democratic nominees and party officials at a celebration in Burlington Wednesday morning. Video by Shaun Robinson/VTDigger It remains to be seen whether Janoo can replicate her success on that larger scale — and against a popular incumbent in Scott, they said. The governor’s job approval rating has slipped in recent months, according to polling from the University of New Hampshire, though he continues to have the approval of many Democrats. And according to polling from the firm Morning Consult, he remains the most popular governor in the country. “Most Vermonters have, for a number of election cycles, voted for Phil Scott. Now, you have to persuade them that they were wrong to do that — or that they’re wrong to do it today,” Graff said. “And that’s a really big sell. That’s a hard sell.” Read the story on VTDigger here: How Amanda Janoo, a progressive political outsider, won Vermont’s Democratic primary for governor. ...read more read less