A new poll released on Thursday found that Democrat Amanda Janoo has a narrow lead over Vermont Gov. Phil Scott with just more than five weeks to go before Election Day. In the Green Mountain State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, 49 percent of likely general-elec tion voters backed Janoo, compared with 43 for Scott. Another 6 percent were undecided and 2 percent favored a different candidate. The survey’s margin of error is 3.4 percent. Because the result is within the margin of error, the pollsters wrote, Janoo’s advantage “is therefore considered a statistical tie.” The poll of 835 people, conducted online between September 17 and 21, noted that Janoo, who has never held elected office, “has increased her support significantly” since winning the Democratic primary in August. In that contest, she edged out former Let’s Grow Kids executive director Aly Richards by 2.6 percentage points. Thursday’s poll also showed Democrat Molly Gray leading incumbent Lt. Gov. John Rodgers by a margin of 54-35 percent, with 11 percent undecided. Gov. Phil Scott in 2025. FILE: JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR The results earned a sharp rebuke from Scott’s campaign manager, Dustin Degree, who called the poll a misleading “outlier” that was akin to “statistical malpractice.” More specifically, Degree criticized the poll’s methodology for the overwhelming number of Democrats included in the survey. Of those who participated, 508 were Democrats, 258 were Republicans and 78 were independent, Degree noted. Among Republican voters surveyed, Scott garnered 89 percent, while 53 percent of independent voters also favored the governor. Janoo, meanwhile, captured 73 percent of Democratic voters. But Bert Johnson, a political science professor at Middlebury College, told Seven Days that the poll appears to have been “honestly conducted.” “It is not malpractice to have a poll with fewer Republicans than Democrats in a state where there are fewer Republicans than Democrats,” Johnson wrote in an email on Friday. “Previous surveys — not to mention election results — indicate that Vermont is a heavily Democratic state, so a representative sample of Vermonters would be expected to have a lot of Democrats in it.” Furthermore, Johnson said, the breakdown of Democrats, Republicans and independents in the poll appears to accurately reflect the party affiliations of Vermonters. Degree, the governor’s campaign manager, also noted that the UNH survey center missed the mark in Vermont’s two previous gubernatorial races. In 2022, for example, it predicted the governor would win by a 17 percent margin, Degree said. But Scott ultimately bested Democrat Brenda Siegel by 47 percent. In 2024, the survey projected a 39 percent winning margin for Scott — but he ended up beating his opponent, Esther Charlestin, by more than 50 percent. Andrew Smith, executive director of the UNH Survey Center, pushed back on the Scott campaign’s criticism while also acknowledging that the center’s 2024 poll “slightly underestimated” the results. Its final poll of that matchup showed Scott defeating Charlestin 65-26 percent, with 3 percent undecided and “a smattering going to minor candidates,” Smith wrote. The actual result was 73 percent for Scott, 22 percent for Charlestin and 5 percent for minor candidates. Smith said the survey center’s methodology — known as “probability panels” — is the same as what is used by more high-profile polling outfits, including Gallup, CNN and Pew Research Center. “We have accurately predicted elections in Maine, New Hampshire and other New England states using this methodology since we started using it in 2020,” Smith wrote. He noted that one of the center’s recent polls predicted Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee would lose badly in the Democratic primary — and he did. While Janoo, an economist from Strafford, may share the title of political newcomer with the last two Democratic gubernatorial candidates, she is widely seen as a more formidable challenger. Her campaign released a message of its own after the UNH poll came out. “This poll reflects what we’ve been hearing on the ground every day, but we know we still have a long way to go until November 3rd,” her team wrote. “A good poll is a good start. But plenty of Vermonters still haven’t made up their minds. This race is far from over.” Earlier this week, Janoo announced a Town Hall tour of Johnson, Barre, Bethel, Brattleboro and Grand Isle. Gov. Scott, meanwhile, has not yet held any public campaign events. The post New Poll Shows Janoo With Narrow Lead Over Incumbent Gov. Scott appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less