VTDigger18%
In Vermont’s Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, leading candidates’ past work takes center stage 55%
By Shaun Robinson61%
7/20/2026, 10:56:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Self-Serving Bias, Anecdotal, and Negativity Bias, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 17.8% saturation with 328 hits. Analysis detected 3,130 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,840 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 53.6% and a BS Rank of 55% (8,503 of 18,799 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 54.80% of the article peer group.
The two leading Democratic candidates for Vermont’s second-highest office don’t disagree much over policy.
But they say there are key differences in the experience they’d bring to the job — and one of them disputes who should get credit for some past successes.
Molly Gray, who’s from Newbury and now lives in Burlington, was the first to announce a bid for lieutenant governor this year.
Gray held the office once before, from 2021 to 2023, and in that time ran unsuccessfully for an open seat in the U.S.
House.
Also seeking the job is Ryan McLaren of Essex Junction.
The highest public office he’s held is a school board seat, but he’s making the case that his most recent job as a top aide for U.S.
Sen.
Peter Welch, D-Vt., shows he has the know-how to make an impact on a statewide level.
For Gray, the pitch to be lieutenant governor is in some ways straightforward.
She’s done the job before.
But that hasn’t stopped McLaren from describing himself as better qualified, sometimes in brash terms.
“Having a title is very different than getting shit done,” he said in an interview.
“And I get shit done.”
A third candidate is also in the race: Esther Charlestin, who lives in South Burlington.
Charlestin is a consultant and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor against Republican Gov.
Phil Scott in 2024.
Scott won that election handily.
The primary for lieutenant governor has drawn in a substantial amount of money so far this year, with Gray and McLaren both having raised more than $275,000 each, according to the latest reports filed with the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office.
Charlestin has raised about $35,000, giving Gray and McLaren a clear advantage with just weeks until voters head to the polls on Tuesday, Aug.
11.
At the same time, Charlestin pointed to a late June poll from the University of New Hampshire which ranked her as likely primary voters’ second choice, with 11% support.
Gray polled highest 39% and McLaren was third with 7% support.
Another 42% of likely voters surveyed were undecided, Charlestin noted — and she thinks her consulting experience “facilitating hard conversations” in schools and nonprofit organizations will sway those people that she’s the best fit to oversee policy debates, too.
‘Hit the ground running’
The lieutenant governor job involves few day-to-day responsibilities beyond presiding over the state Senate — though officeholders use the post to advocate for their favored legislation and call attention to issues of statewide import.
Several senators will be new to the chamber starting next year, Gray noted in an interview, and the body will also have a new president pro tempore in the wake of the retirement of Sen.
Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central.
It makes sense then, she said, to have a parliamentarian who is already familiar with the rules.
“I’m prepared to hit the ground running.
I know how to do the constitutional aspects of the job — and do them really well,” Gray said.
Before serving as lieutenant governor, Gray worked as an assistant Vermont Attorney General and clerked for a federal judge.
In the years before that, she worked abroad on humanitarian missions for the International Committee of the Red Cross and after college was a scheduler for Welch’s office, when Welch was in the U.S.
House.
McLaren has also worked for Welch, though for far longer and most recently as one of his principal aides.
He left the senator’s office to run for lieutenant governor.
Earlier, McLaren worked in constituent services for former Democratic Gov.
Peter Shumlin and was a field organizer for the state chapter of the Democratic Party.
On the campaign trail, McLaren has been vocal about having a disability.
A skiing accident in 2017 at Mad River Glen left him with little to no function below the knees and limited function between his waist and knees.
His condition has improved since then, he has said, though he continues to use a wheelchair to get around.
He said he hopes that serving in a top office with a visible disability would be important for others who are disabled, too, “because there’s not a lot of us in public life as examples of what’s possible.”
Charlestin describes herself as a daughter of immigrant parents who raised her in the U.S. after traveling to the country from Haiti.
That gives her “a deep understanding” of the challenges facing immigrant communities in Vermont that have only grown more pronounced since her last bid for office in 2024, she has said.
“I plan on bringing all of that knowledge that I’ve built on since my last run — to bring that to work as lieutenant governor,” she said in an interview.
In addition to her consulting business, Charlestin chairs the Vermont Commission on Women, which is a state panel that advocates for gender equity.
She previously worked as dean of climate and culture at Middlebury Union Middle School, though resigned after experiencing racism on the job.
She’s also served on the Middlebury Selectboard.
Federal focus
After leaving the lieutenant governor post, Gray became a mother — making “crystal clear” the high costs of raising children that are burdening Vermont families, she said — and served as the first executive director of the Vermont Afghan Alliance, a Burlington-based nonprofit that supports Afghan refugees who are resettling in Vermont.
By working with the Afghan community, Gray said she knows how to stand up for people in the state against harmful policy changes by the Trump administration.
The Afghan Alliance was one of the organizations that pushed to restart access to federal food benefits last year for certain visa holders after Vermont curtailed access to those benefits in line with the state’s interpretation of a federal policy change.
The organization’s other work includes translation assistance, driving lessons geared toward women who were banned from driving in Afghanistan and legal aid.
Her leadership of the organization distinguishes her from the other candidates in the primary, she said.
“They haven’t seen — in the way that I have — the deep cruelty and inhumanity of this administration up close,” Gray said.
“I believe I have the experience to help us stand strong against the Trump administration.
To hold the line.”
Some of Gray’s accomplishments at the Afghan Alliance have been questioned by McLaren, both in recent candidate forums and in an interview.
McLaren commends the organization’s driving program, but has said it only exists in the form it does because of a 2013 Vermont law that allows non-U.S. citizens to obtain state driver’s licenses.
After the law was passed, according to McLaren, he played a key part in rolling out its provisions as the top advisor to the head of the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
Credit for the Afghan Alliance’s driving program is due just as much to him as to Gray, he said.
“The fact that those 60 Afghan women could get driver’s licenses is because I was the No. 2 at the DMV,” McLaren said in a candidate forum in Montpelier earlier this year, referring to a number of drivers Gray referenced earlier in the discussion.
Gray pushed back against McLaren’s characterization in an interview, saying that, “Vermonters deserve a lieutenant governor who cares more about getting results and lifting people up than taking credit.”
She added, “I welcome the work of anyone who wants to support our new neighbors and start their lives here.”
McLaren has continued to make the case he’s the one with the strongest track record of results from the decade he worked in Welch’s office.
He’s argued he has made a more direct impact on federal policy than Gray because he worked closely with a member of Congress.
The difference between himself and the other candidates is “receipts,” he said, pointing to “a laundry list” of federally-funded projects he worked on for Welch’s office over the past decade.
From the most recent round of congressionally directed spending, also known as earmarks, McLaren’s campaign highlighted a $5.2 million award to help build 21 affordable apartments in Middlebury, $1 million to expand childcare slots in Craftsbury and just shy of $1 million for the University of Vermont to bolster staffing of a program that provides healthcare services to farmworkers, among others.
“Everywhere I go, there’s a project I got to work on that made an impact,” he said.
A launching pad?
All three candidates said in interviews that the lieutenant governor’s job has historically been "underutilized,” though offered varying explanations for how they’d use it differently if elected this fall.
McLaren said he wants to use the job similarly to the role of “public advocate” that exists in New York City and other governments around the country.
In New York, the office provides oversight of city agencies and investigates citizens’ complaints.
He said he also wants to use the office to call out ethical violations by members of the Legislature, should they commit them.
The lieutenant governor’s post “is not some great launching pad for political ambition.
It hasn’t proven to be in recent history,” he said, noting the exception of Gov.
Scott, who went from No. 2 to governor in 2016.
“Everyone else in this race has run for some other office, lost, and has fallen backward into running for lieutenant governor in 2026,” he continued, referring to Gray’s bid for Congress and Charlestin’s bid for governor.
“I just think we can do better than politicians from the past.”
Charlestin said she would model the approach that the lieutenant governor of Illinois, Juliana Stratton, took in recent years to address the disparity in maternal mortality rates facing Black women in that state.
Stratton convened a group of Black women birth workers for a forum that later informed a state budget proposal — something Charlestin said she wants to do with issues that are prevalent in Vermont, such as a lack of access to affordable housing.
Gray described a somewhat less adversarial approach than McLaren, saying she would be eager to “give both the Legislature and other statewide electeds support and cover” if they are at odds with federal policy changes or steps taken by Scott.
She pointed to how Lt.
Gov.
John Rodgers, who’s a Republican, has been closely aligned with Scott since taking office in 2024.
Scott endorsed Rodgers’ reelection campaign earlier this week.
Gray said she is not interested in running for governor or for Congress again, as she did in 2022.
She pointed as an example of her political priorities to solving the rural-urban divide that defined debates this year over Vermont’s land use laws, making a case that she is well positioned to navigate that dynamic because she was born in a small town.
“When I think about access to healthcare in a rural community, or what it would mean to have a school close or what are the needs of rural communities in building housing, I get that,” Gray said.
“I’ve lived it.”
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.