U.S. Sen. Peter Welch didn’t vote on the state legislation that sent property taxes up by an average of nearly 14% this year, but he still gets an earful from his constituents.

“I get enormous volume of mail from Vermonters who can’t figure out how to pay their property taxes,” Welch told Vermont Public on election night. “And they write to me even though I’m in Washington and have no ability to affect that whatsoever.”

Affordability, Welch said, is the issue for Vermont voters this year.

“Every day Vermonters are wondering whether they can stay in their home if their property taxes keep going up, and they’re really apprehensive about whether they’ll be able to stay,” he said.

Those fears motivated the electorate on Tuesday in ways that Democrats weren’t fully expecting. Jason Maulucci, the campaign manager for Republican Gov. Phil Scott, said he wasn’t as surprised.

“I mean based on some polling data, conversations everywhere across the state, it was clear to us there was something brewing in the electorate this year,” Maulucci said in an interview Wednesday.

Scott’s team seized the moment. The popular governor bankrolled television, radio and print ads in which he appeared alongside Republican candidates, mostly for state Senate. When internal polling indicated that many House districts were in play as well, the campaign made the decision to invest there, too.

“A few weeks ago we realized, you know, we might have a chance here in the House, too, to make some significant gains, so we started focusing energy and resources to support House candidates as well, and it clearly paid off,” Maulucci said.

The GOP picked up 17 seats in the Vermont House of Representatives and six seats in the state Senate, a bigger net gain than any party has seen in this state in at least three decades.

Scott spent more than $450,000 from his own campaign account to fund the venture. Jim Dandeneau, executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, agrees it was money well spent.

“I mean he’s the most popular governor in the country,” Dandeneau said. “That’s obviously a very significant factor.”

Dandeneau said Republicans also benefited from a powerful tailwind.

“You know, things are not working right in Vermont,” he said. “And a lot of folks blame Democrats in the Legislature.”

Even after Tuesday’s historic losses, Democrats still retain a comfortable majority in the House and a two-seat margin in the Senate. But they no longer enjoy the supermajority that has allowed them to unilaterally override Scott’s vetoes, and enact the sorts of expansive and often expensive policies — such as a payroll tax that funds child care subsidies — that Scott railed so hard against on the campaign trail.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth said it’s on Democrats now to interpret the message that voters have sent.

“There’s a clear result [Tuesday] that was not in our favor, so we need to listen to that,” he said. “We can’t walk away as though that didn’t happen.”

He said Tuesday’s results also up the ante for Scott. The four-term governor has blamed Democratic supermajorities in Legislature for thwarting his affordability agenda. Now that they’re no longer in place, Baruth said it’s on Scott and his fellow Republicans to deliver on their promise to bring down costs on property taxes, health care and housing.

“I think, ironically, it will be harder for them not to come forward with policy solutions given their stronger numbers,” he said.

Maulucci said the governor “is ready to embrace that pressure.”

But he said the financial relief Vermonters are clamoring for won’t arrive unless Democrats heed the mandate voters issued Tuesday, and work with Scott in ways they have not in the past.

When the Legislature reconvenes in January, neither party will be able to move major policy without support from the other, which means progress on the existential issues facing Vermont now rests — or falls — on bipartisan compromise.

This audio story was produced by Peter Engisch.

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