Sen. Bernie Sanders coasts to reelection

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, pictured with his spouse, Jane O’Meara Sanders, speaks to members of the press after casting his ballot in Burlington on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. Photo by Klara Bauters/VTDigger

Updated at 8:22 p.m.

Vermonters handily reelected Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Tuesday.

The Associated Press called the race for Sanders the moment the polls closed in Vermont at 7 p.m.

Sanders, 83, served as mayor of Burlington in the 1980s and first won election to the U.S. House in 1990. He joined the Senate in 2007 and was vying for a fourth six-year term in the chamber. Though he is formally an independent, Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party.

The incumbent defeated Republican Senate nominee Gerald Malloy, a U.S. Army veteran and government contractor who criticized Sanders for what he called a record of inaction in Congress. Malloy previously ran for Senate in 2022, a race he lost to U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt.

Other candidates in the Senate race included independent Steve Berry, Epic Party nominee Mark Stewart Greenstein, Libertarian Party nominee Matt Hill and Peace and Justice Party nominee Justin Schoville.

With about one-quarter of municipalities reporting results by 8:20 p.m., Sanders was leading Malloy 58% to 35%. None of the other candidates were on track to pick up more than 3% of the vote.

Though Sanders had been widely expected to win his reelection bid, the results of Senate races throughout the country may challenge his ability to work effectively in Washington D.C., during his next term.

Sanders, whose influence in the Senate has only grown since his two presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020, took the helm of the Senate Budget Committee after the latter election. In that position he worked with President Joe Biden to craft the American Rescue Plan Act, which was designed to bolster the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic but which was also blamed by Republicans for contributing to inflation.

In 2023, Sanders became chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, a position he has used to chip away at his lifelong goal of reforming the country’s health-care system.

Leading up to Tuesday’s elections, Democrats’ pathway to retaining a majority in the Senate appeared slim. Without the majority, Sanders would lose his chairmanship of the HELP committee.

After voting Tuesday morning in Burlington, Sanders said he did not want to speculate on how his Democratic colleagues would fare that day.

“I think it’s absolutely true that Democrats … have some seats we have to defend and we’ll see what happens, but I’ve been very proud of the record that I’ve established as chairman of the health, education, labor committee,” Sanders said outside the Robert Miller Community and Recreation Center in the city’s New North End.

The senator forged a close relationship with Biden throughout the last four years, hosting events and penning op-eds with the president. While Sanders has shared some skepticism about Vice President Kamala Harris’s policies — particularly in terms of whether she matches Biden’s progressive record — the senator traveled the country campaigning on her behalf and appealing for Americans to reject a Donald Trump presidency.

“Today is the most consequential election I think in the modern history of this country,” Sanders said Tuesday morning in Burlington. “If you believe that women have the constitutional right to control their own bodies the choice is clear. If you think climate change is real and not a hoax the choice is clear.”

Klara Bauters contributed reporting.

This story will be updated.

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