Updated at 6:23 p.m.
Liam Madden, who won the Republican primary for Vermont’s lone U.S. House seat Tuesday, said Wednesday evening that he will accept the nomination after indicating earlier in the day that he wanted to turn it down.
Meanwhile, another Republican candidate, H. Brooke Paige, said he intends to turn down three of the four GOP nominations he won Tuesday — for attorney general, auditor and treasurer — to focus on his bid for secretary of state. That decision would clear the way for the party to name replacement nominees in those races.
With all but one precinct reporting, Madden had 35% of the vote, leading conservatives Ericka Redic with 27% and Anya Tynio with 23%. Becca Balint, president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate, handily won the Democratic primary.
Throughout the campaign, Madden has said that if he won the Republican nomination, he would decline it, instead running in November as an independent. On Wednesday morning, he told VTDigger that his decision depends on whether the Republican Party would run a separate candidate in his place.
“I would happily take the Republican label and keep it a two-person race, because the label means nothing to me,” he said. “The actual chance of winning means a lot more.”
But by Wednesday evening, Madden said he realized he could not appear on the ballot as an independent because he had failed to register in time. He will run as a Republican.
“I didn't understand the rules. So I have learned today that it was really a foregone conclusion,” Madden said Wednesday evening. “Either way, I don't think the Republican Party would keep the ballot open and let me run unchallenged.”
“I'm keeping the ‘R’ and nothing else about me changes,” he added.
Madden, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, later became an anti-war advocate, helping lead the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. Now working in solar energy, he said that some of his progressive viewpoints on war and climate change would help him win over voters.
“(Balint) can't count on those kinds of liberal credentials being all in her court,” Madden said. “I think I stand apart from Becca in that I'm not there to put a kind face on a broken system.”
Early in the day on Wednesday, Madden told VTDigger that he and Vermont Republican Party Chair Paul Dame had spoken after his victory about the Republican general election ticket. Madden called the conversation “open and civil,” and said that Dame told him a decision about leaving the Republican ballot line blank would be made by a committee of party leaders.
Dame could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Typically, the party nominates replacements for ballot lines that a primary winner has rescinded. That’s happened in previous elections with Paige, a perennial candidate for statewide office who won four uncontested primaries Tuesday.
“Open primaries are toxic,” Paige said Wednesday afternoon. By seeking so many offices, he said, his goal is to prevent Democrats from winning empty Republican primaries by writing in their own candidates, effectively preventing a true Republican from running in the general election.
In 2016, Democrats did exactly that. U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., won the Republican party nomination as a write-in and won the Democratic contest by appearing on the ballot. In the general election, his name was listed under both parties.
Having won four primaries, Paige said he now plans to decline three and stay on the ballot for secretary of state. He has 10 days to withdraw the other nominations, at which point the state GOP has seven days to hold a statewide committee meeting to nominate replacements.
Paige has previously sought the Democratic nomination for governor and made an unsuccessful run for the Senate as a Republican, among other electoral efforts. In recent years, he has filed lawsuits challenging the presidential candidacies of Barack Obama, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, all because he claimed they were not natural-born citizens.
If elected secretary of state, Paige said his goals would include ensuring election integrity, reducing the oversight power of the Office of Professional Regulation and rolling back expansions to mail-in voting implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic. But having defended Republican representation on the ballot in four primaries, he’s already achieved part of his platform.
“I’m serious like an undertaker about this,” he said.
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After hesitation, Liam Madden plans to accept GOP nomination for US House; H. Brooke Paige to turn down 3 Republican nominations - vtdigger.org
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