Two Reporters Scramble to Cover Historic Burlington Election
Dec 26, 2024
This "backstory" is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2024. I'm not in the business of predicting elections, but for Burlington's mayoral race on Town Meeting Day, it was a job requirement. I had to choose which candidate was most likely to win so I could capture the moment when the city elected its first-ever woman mayor. It would be either Democrat Joan Shannon or Progressive Emma Mulvaney-Stanak. After weeks of covering the campaigns, I thought Shannon had the edge. In a race defined by concerns about public safety, she had an endorsement from the police union, whereas Progs were still being lambasted for leading the 2020 vote to scale back the size of the force. Mulvaney-Stanak wasn't on the council then, but even she had acknowledged that her party's label could harm her at the polls. [content-1] I strode into Team Joan's gathering at Halvorson's Upstreet Café that night feeling fairly confident in my calculus. But as the night wore on, it became clear that I'd picked the wrong party. Shannon hadn't yet arrived by the time polls closed at 7 p.m., but her supporters were starting to pack the place. Bartenders were serving up specialty drinks such as All Hands on Deck, a gin and tonic rebranded with Shannon's campaign slogan. People were laughing and visiting with their neighbors. Vibes were good. Just past 7:30, the first results came from Ward 6, showing Shannon with 1,019 votes to Mulvaney-Stanak's 825. It was a lead, but not as strong a showing as I'd expected in a Dem-controlled district. Ward 4 was next, with Shannon notching about 600 more votes than Mulvaney-Stanak. That's when I got the first prickle of doubt: In the last mayoral contest, Ward 4 voters gave Democrat incumbent Miro Weinberger just over 900 more votes than his Progressive competitor, Max Tracy. Shannon would need to make up some ground, but she didn't: The next three wards reporting — 1, 2 and 8 — all went to Mulvaney-Stanak. Our office's election night Slack channel was blowing up. "Emma's going to win," one of my colleagues wrote. From my perch at a counter, I could see Shannon supporters coming to the same conclusion. Animated discussions had turned to quiet confabs, and Shannon remained conspicuously absent. Bartenders were…