Editing Vermont (section)

====Federal politics====

{{See also|United States presidential elections in Vermont}}
[[File:March Visits Throughout Vermont 07.jpg|thumb|Senators [[Bernie Sanders]] and [[Patrick Leahy]] and Representative [[Peter Welch]] greet supporters in 2017.|alt=Three older men on a stage next to an American flag.]]

Historically, Vermont was considered one of the most reliably [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] states in the country in terms of national elections. From [[1856 United States presidential election in Vermont|1856]] to [[1988 United States presidential election in Vermont|1988]], Vermont voted [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] only once, in [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]'s [[1964 United States presidential election in Vermont|landslide victory]] of 1964 against [[Barry M. Goldwater]]. It was also one of only two states—[[As Maine goes, so goes the nation|Maine is the other]]—where [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] was completely shut out in all four of his presidential bids. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Republican presidential candidates frequently won the state with over 70% of the vote.

In the 1960s and 1970s, many people moved in from out of state.<ref name="vermonthistory1940">{{cite web |title=Modern Vermont 1940-today: Flatlanders vs. Woodchucks |url=http://vermonthistory.org/freedom_and_unity/vt_transition/flat_wood.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130113005219/http://vermonthistory.org/freedom_and_unity/vt_transition/flat_wood.html |archive-date=January 13, 2013 |access-date=December 5, 2012 |publisher=Vermont Historical Society}}</ref><ref name="cohen">{{cite news|last=Cohen|first=Micah|title='New' Vermont Is Liberal, but 'Old' Vermont Is Still There|url=http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/new-vermont-is-liberal-but-old-vermont-is-still-there/?_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0|access-date=February 23, 2015|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=October 1, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Capen|first=David|title=A Planning Tool for Conservationists: Spatial Modeling of Past and Future Land Use in Vermont Towns|url=https://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/sal/lumodel/stateof.html|publisher=University of Vermont|access-date=December 5, 2012|archive-date=November 3, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121103062540/http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/sal/lumodel/stateof.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> Much of this immigration included the arrival of more liberal political influences of the urban areas of [[New York (state)|New York]] and the rest of [[New England]] in Vermont.<ref name="cohen"/> The brand of Republicanism in Vermont has historically been a moderate one, and combined with the newcomers from out of state, this made Vermont friendlier to Democrats as the national GOP moved to the right. As evidence of this, in 1990 [[Bernie Sanders]], a self-described [[Democratic socialism|democratic socialist]], was elected to Vermont's [[Vermont's At-large congressional district|lone seat in the House]] as an independent. Sanders became the state's junior Senator in 2007. However, for his entire career in the House and Senate, Sanders has caucused with the Democrats and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments and voting for party leadership.<ref>{{cite news |last=Powell |first=Michael |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/04/AR2006110401124.html |title=Exceedingly Social, But Doesn't Like Parties |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=November 5, 2006 |access-date=July 28, 2021 }}</ref>

After narrowly supporting [[George H. W. Bush]] in [[1988 United States presidential election in Vermont|1988]], it gave Democrat [[Bill Clinton]] a 16-point margin in [[1992 United States presidential election in Vermont|1992]]—the first time the state had gone Democratic since 1964. Vermont has voted Democratic in every presidential election since.

Since [[2004 United States presidential election in Vermont|2004]], Vermont has been one of the Democrats' most loyal states. It gave [[John Kerry]] his fourth-largest margin of victory in the presidential campaign against [[George W. Bush]]; he won the state's popular vote by 20 percentage points, taking almost 59% of the vote. (Kerry, from neighboring [[Massachusetts]], also became the first Northern Democrat ever to carry Vermont; Johnson was from [[Texas]], Clinton from [[Arkansas]] and [[Al Gore]], triumphant in Vermont in 2000, from [[Tennessee]].) [[Essex County, Vermont|Essex County]] in the state's northeastern section was the only county to vote for Bush. Vermont is the only state that did not receive a visit from George W. Bush during his tenure as [[President of the United States]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Hallenbeck|first=Terri|title=President Obama tells Vermont crowd there's 'more work to do'|url=http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20120330/NEWS03/120330011/President-Obama-addresses-crowd-at-UVM-in-Burlington|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130118133756/http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20120330/NEWS03/120330011/President-Obama-addresses-crowd-at-UVM-in-Burlington|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 18, 2013|website=[[The Burlington Free Press]]|publisher=[[Gannett Company]]|access-date=December 12, 2012|date=March 31, 2012}}</ref> Indeed, George W. Bush and [[Donald Trump]] are the only Republicans to win the [[White House]] without carrying Vermont.
In [[United States presidential election in Vermont, 2008|2008]], Vermont gave [[Barack Obama]] his third-largest margin of victory (37 percentage points) and third-largest vote share in the nation by his winning the state 68% to 31%. Only Obama's birth state of [[Hawaii]] and [[Washington, D.C.]] were stronger Democratic victories. The same held true in [[United States presidential election in Vermont, 2012|2012]], when Obama carried Vermont 67% of the vote to 31% for [[Mitt Romney]], and in [[United States presidential election in Vermont, 2016|2016]], when [[Hillary Clinton]] won with 57% of the vote to 30% for Donald Trump.

Vermont's two senators are independent [[Bernie Sanders]] and Democrat [[Peter Welch]]. The state is represented by an at-large member of the House, Democrat [[Becca Balint]], who succeeded Welch in 2023.