Two new September surveys show differing results for Gov. Phil Scott’s re-election bid, with one giving challenger Amanda Janoo a six-point lead and another showing Scott with a nine-point advantage. Both polls have Scott garnering almost exactly the same percentage of the vote, with UNH showing him at 42% and Vermont Public at 43%. The difference between the two polls appears among Janoo voters and those who remain undecided. UNH’s poll showed 6% of voters were undecided, while Vermont Public’s showed 20%.
Harvard University government professor and polling expert Chase Harrison called the polls “very good” and “comparable.” The Vermont Public poll seems more typical of a late-September survey, Harrison said, as voters have six weeks to make their decision.
Scott has a history of finishing considerably stronger than his autumn polling suggests. Since Scott first ran for governor in 2016, pre-election polls examined by VTDigger have placed his support at an average of about 14 percentage points below the share of the votes he ultimately received. His opponents, by comparison, have finished much closer to their polling numbers.
Scott’s campaign spokesperson Emma Shouldice wrote in a statement last week that polling has “always undervalued” support for the Governor. There is evidence for that argument, although the size of the gap has varied considerably from election to election. The pattern dates to Scott’s first run for governor. An October 2016 Vermont Public poll showed Scott leading Democrat Sue Minter by just one point, with 14% of voters undecided. Scott won by nearly nine points, an eight-point wider margin than the poll suggested.
The gap was negligible two years later, when Vermont Public had Scott 14 points ahead of Democrat Christine Hallquist and he won by nearly 15. It widened considerably after that. In 2020, Scott’s 32-point lead over David Zuckerman became a 41-point victory. Two years after that, UNH had Scott 17 points ahead of Democrat Brenda Siegel in September. He won by 47, a 30-point difference.
The pattern continued in the last gubernatorial election in 2024. UNH’s late-October poll that year had Scott 39 points ahead of Progressive Esther Charlestin. He won by nearly 52 points, about 13 more than the poll indicated.
Past polling misses do not necessarily tell us what will happen this year. Pollsters say surveys measure voter opinion at a particular moment. They do not predict how undecided voters will break, who will turn out or how the electorate may change before election day. UNH Survey Center director Andrew Smith and Vermont Public pollster Richard Clark told VTDigger in separate interviews that they were confident in the results of their polls.
