Incumbent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and incumbent Rep. Becca Balint both easily won reelection Tuesday evening.
The Associated Press called the race for Sanders, an independent from Burlington, shortly after the polls closed at 7 p.m. As of 10 p.m. on Tuesday evening, Sanders won 64.2% of the vote, compared to Republican challenger Gerald Malloy’s 31.1%.
Balint, a Democrat, received 63.4% of the vote, while Republican Mark Coester got 29%, as of 10 p.m. Tuesday evening.
Sanders did little campaigning for his reelection, spending far more time traveling the country in support of the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Let us hope that Kamala wins tonight,” Sander said on Tuesday night at the Vermont Democratic watch party in South Burlington. “But whether she wins or not, our job is to bring people together around an agenda that works for all and not just the few.”
Balint, who spoke by video from her home in Brattleboro, acknowledged many people were feeling anxious about the presidential election.
“They’re feeling this sense of heaviness, but what I’m feeling is incredible optimism,” Balint said on Tuesday night. “I’m feeling an incredible sense of urgency that we have work to do, regardless of what happens in the presidential election — the work is the same.”
Sanders, 83, previously served eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and was the mayor of Burlington in the 1980s. He’s also a two-time presidential candidate, running for the Democratic nomination in 2016 and 2020.
Malloy, 62, is a U.S. Army veteran and government contractor and has billed himself as a conservative Republican. He previously ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022.
The two candidates disagreed on nearly every topic during the campaign, including tackling climate change, addressing immigration, and how to lower health care costs. Sanders sharply criticized Malloy’s support of former President Donald Trump, while Malloy portrayed Sanders as an ineffective politician who’s had little legislative success during his decades in office.
Balint’s first election in 2022 was the first time that Vermont voters ever sent a woman and an openly gay person to represent them in Congress. Previously Balint represented Windham County in the Vermont Senate and served as Senate president pro tem, and before getting into politics she was a middle school teacher.
Coester, who lives in Westminster, is a small-business owner with a background in fishing, logging and sugaring.
Coester, a political newcomer, and Balint disagreed on nearly every issueranging from the existence of climate change to the role of the federal government in addressing health care costs and housing shortages.
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