ok he's also hi this is howard wooden this is a sound check for dan if there's any problems he's going to text us so i ok here we go and anya anya to neo in five four three on you thank you so much for joining us here tonight your first candid to see us house of representatives thank you so much for serving as an inspiration for young people today well thank you very much i certainly hope they gathered inspiration from it and your first candidacy your first time running for office were there any  with you guys got to get this this is not good this evening your first can it's a see your first time running for office thank you so much for serving as an operation for young people throughout this thank you i certainly hope they were inspired by it and i have enjoyed the run and i i think that it's important for the younger generation to become involved because eventually we're going to have to be so we might as well get started with your first candidate he were there any surprises to you or for you running in a statewide office like this well definitely something like this is a learning curve but i was well prepared i had a lot of people that talk to me about it ahead of time and pretty much was what i expected it to be so i'm happy with that and some of the issues that you raised are on candidates minds can you talk about the issues that were specific to you and that are of concern for you going forward for the state well definitely what i talked about was a second amendment constitutional rights economy agriculture those are still the issues that i feel the strongest about i started out with those issues and those issues are still pressing to me if i am elected those will be the focus that i have in washington d c and i would hope that if that is not the case that the person that is elected mr wel would have the same focus and would try and work toward towards the betterment of the state in those areas as well the numbers poll numbers unfortunately aren't you know that favorable for you coming out on top tonight should that be the case what's next for o well definitely i'm going to work tomorrow morning and i will still continue in politics i'll have to look at how that looks for me but it's something that i have a passion for and i will continue with us your final thoughts on your race for the twenty eighth u s congress seat here for the state of vermont i have no regrets i did everything that i want to do i said everything that i wanted to say and it's alternately up to the voters that's the american way so i'm looking forward to finding out the result no regrets here in south burlington from on your ten yo candidate for u s house of another candidate so i really want to have a little bit of a discussion with you that i wasn't able to have earlier you ran a rather unconventional campaign in process the i marries by putting your name in for a number of different positions in fact getting the nomination can you speak to about your on orthodox approach well they approach was that we have an unorthodox primary process here in vermont no open primaries where any candidate get on any ballot and in any voter can vote on any ballot and in the past year since two thousand and two the republicans have not owned their own ballot after the primary democrats have kind of snuck over and written their published candidates on the primary ballot for the republicans the republicans from being able to place candidates on the ballot in the general election because the democrats have won the primary and so my plan was might my effort was to try to keep the democrats from doing so a published candidate on the ballot pretty much has a good shot at beating out a writing campaign and even though it didn't this is about one thousand eight hundred democrats did come over and rode in  that i had not intended to run for in the general and so that was my next question why the secretary of state if i may well the whole point of all of this was elections and the secretary of state's office of the ones that run the elections now they don't make all the choices as to the laws but the secretary of state if you see significant changes that need to mean made the secretary of state is the ideal person to go to the legislature and change not only our primary process but also get us voter id and try to rein in the same day registration which we currently have it's crazy that we have same day registration yet we don't provisional ballots somebody comes in signs of says oh i'm qualified to vote and we don't have a process of checking that immediately they then get to fill out a ballot and it gets voted if they're found out later not to be qualified there's no way of reeling that back so there's a lot of different things that are needed some tending to in elections do you think that your approach was affected well we have a full slate of republican candidates and i may not be totally pleased with all the choices that the party made but it wasn't my place to choose the my replacements merely and so in a sense i was a placeholder for all of those offices that i didn't intend to run for in the general so you're often referred to as a perennial candidate what i actually think it's a derogatory term it means to imply that you're not serious is that the case that we're perennial kind of means eternal and we've had other internal candidates here in the state and i certainly don't take it as being an insult to be compared to peter diamond stone or bernie sanders who for years was a perennial candidate never you know always the bridesmaid never the bride you know but chris erickson emily peyton i mean we have a tradition of having independent spirited folks get involved in the process not necessarily to win the election but to get their important messages out there and so at the very least that's what i've been doing and we'll see maybe i become vermont secretary of state here at the end of a very good best of luck to you brooke thank you so much thank you so much for your can and for willing to run it takes a lot thing i'd like to say i don't need luck i need divine intervention god bless and have a good evening brooke paige divine intervention looking for that here tonight at vermont g o p had quarters in south carolina and i'm that kelly reporting live back to you diane in the studio i don't think it's going to happen but our turn on the lighter ok here we go laurence zupan in five four three lawrence thank you so much for joining us here this evening a statewide race for you what's the takeaway from the campaign the take away from the campaign is that bernie sanders momentum and projecting the false ideas of collectivism and socialism and persuading a large amount of americans that that system is this is superior to the system of free enterprise that that era is over and the momentum is shifting whatever win lose or draw tonight is almost secondary of course it's very important but one point is that people have begun to understand that the emperor sanders has no clothes if clothes are defined by ideas that work he's got no clothes on because socialist ideas have failed everywhere they've been tried he spotted to try to throw out the notion that well they've succeeded in scandinavia but i said dear senator sanders scandinavian countries are arch capitalist countries that have gotten all the wealth through private enterprise and private property and because they have a fifty to sixty percent tax rate and minuscule little populations of five to eight million sure they can have a bigger welfare system but we have three hundred twenty six million people besides our free enterprise system and all of the incredible mild medical advances today are going to give us a golden era of health care independence for all of the monsters and all of america was are and i can't wait to to share some more of these ideas with the people of vermont in america was there any surprise for you going around the state and speaking to vermonters was there any surprise on the campaign trail i was surprised that so many people came up to me and said well mr zupan i haven't heard what's going to come out of your mouth yet but i'm so glad that we're finally seeing someone with senatorial aspirations who showing up i mean that was amazing because it was so consistent in every corner of the state because everybody knows at this point that senator sanders missed thirty eight or thirty nine votes in the first quarter of sixteen and missed one hundred fifteen out of a hundred sixty three the rest of the year if you did that with your  particular question that i wanted to ask you was about geography actually your home town is manchester vermont that's a little bit away from the population centers of the state do you think that that presented its unique challenges or speak to about that sure because even several weeks into the campaign the people in the northern part of the state had never heard my name and unlike senator sanders i didn't have an eight million dollar war chest to broadcast my name out but more and more people started giving me money so i was able to get someone of the t v presence and i spent every day reversing the whole state and speaking to groups as small as two and as high as two hundred anybody who wanted to hear my message and speak to them so yes geographically i had a challenge so i apologize of the governor looks like he's about to come in and there's an announcement we'll wrap it up here it's lawrence upend live at g o p headquarters in south carolina tonight on that kelly back to you diane that all of us here be not afraid to be a republican be not afraid to go door to door to your neighbors and friends in talk about our values our values within the party shift a little bit back and forth but we are still the party of moral values we're still the party of doing what's right even when it's difficult to do so it's not a time for us to back down it's not a time for us to water down our image our views our point of view on anything be not afraid be not afraid to go out and speak on life issues be not afraid to go out and speak on the constitution these are values that make us republicans and be not afraid to be who you are let's not look to our neighbors and say they might not agree with us let's convince them that what we're talking about what we're doing is right so f afraid let's talk about tonight we've worked very very hard and i'm going to be introducing dad belittle who is chair of the party and jack moulton her executive director they work very very hard working for everyone in the party and it's real important that we not give up it's really important that we dominate the politics in this state one person at a time so be not afraid folks we are going to rise if not tonight in two years from now if not in two years because our values are right and we need to do what's right in the face of any adversity so there's much that is expected of us because there's so much that has been given to us and we've been very very fortunate of party to have a leader like  the republican leader in the house don turner and hopefully our lieutenant governor these are men that are not afraid these are men that go out every day and speak the truth speak their values we may not agree one hundred percent with everything but we do agree that these are the best two men running for governor lieutenant governor and statewide positions in this state we've got great people who go on yeah who's making a big difference as a twenty five year know we've got lawrence upend who took down bernie sanders in a debate the future of the future here is great so be not afraid to challenge be not afraid to do what's right and be not afraid to welcome deb village to our wonderful state chair oh and sometimes if you're not afraid well that's a very difficult act to follow i must say and what a fantastic crowd we have here tonight thank you all for coming out tonight and supporting your party i'd like to thank our national committee man and susie m butterfield o national committee woman who's not here tonight she's celebrating in her district and i've had the pleasure of working with both of them over the last year and it's been a real pleasure i'll keep my remarks brief so that we can get back to enjoying the food in the great company that's in the room here tonight i want to start by saying thank you thank you to everyone in the room here and those that are not in the room here tonight that have been supporting your candidates over the last six to ten months you've given so much you've given so much thank you and you all you all deserve a thank you in a congratulations without your help those of us that those of the candidates that will get over the can make it over the finish line probably could have done it without your help so thank you for your time your financial support and anything else that you could do to help the candidates along we also need to think our candidates and i'm sure we have a handful of them in the room right now no matter the outcome tonight you've stepped up to serve for the good of our state in the good of your community you've given your time your personal time your family time time away from probably other things that you could be doing and enjoying and we are so very proud of you and please stay engaged let's give them a hand please thank you so tonight enjoy celebrate get to know your fellow remark republicans that are in the room here i like think i know everyone by name but that's not the case tonight throughout the night as a results come in we will have special g here speaking and of course the highlight will be governor scott and hopefully the lieutenant governor dawn turner thank you patty thank you patty i can always count on you so i wish all of our candidates the best of luck tonight and enjoy the party and we'll be back at you thank you about the house and trying to keep the house so that three party chair for the republican party thank you so much for joining us here this evening in election twenty eighteen give us an overview on behalf of the republicans what are we expecting here tonight well we're watching some  term what do you think about a four year term for the governorship of vermont well i'll be honest with you first of all i believe in term limits prokop it but i think a four year term would actually be a good thing i think i find it very difficult that candidates win a seat and then within a year they're campaigning again they really spent more time too much time campaigning and less time attending t with so i like the idea of a four year governor do you think that that also should kind of apply for less political positions statewide maybe that you know like the treasurer the auditor of accounts or things like that or is it just a governor you think i think for the time being i would support the governor having a four year term and i say that for either party to sing it for the party i say that for either party i'd like to see them have their see a little bit longer than two years before the out there doing this again your final thoughts on twenty eighteen let's go let's do it deb villa do party chair for the vermont republican s wide here in vermont live at south burlington g o p had governors on that kelly back to you in the studio set thank you so much first time candidate and we're so proud to have her and she's from orleans county and on y thank you i appreciate it throughout this campaign i'm famous for our no notes and no plan speeches so tonight's no different first and foremost i want to say this is been a pleasure and an honor for me and i want to thank each and every one of you who has supported me in any way if you put out a yard sign if you talk to your friends if you went out and voted for me if you did all three i appreciate it if you donate and i especially appreciate it it was very helpful and thank you thank you all very much this is one of the most important that we will have in quite a few years we need to be sure to take care of our nation protect our constitution and fight for our rights at every step of the way and that is why i ran and i am proud to say i am a conservative republican even in a blue state i am proud to say that to every single one of the great candidates that have been running on the republican ticket i want to say way to go you all had the guts to stand up for what you believe in and good luck to everyone of you we appreciate it and we thank you for stepping up personally i believe that we have made great strides in the state of vermont over this course of campaigning that we can take with us into two thousand and twenty we can't let the momentum die we have to keep going we have to keep fighting we have to make sure that we continue to have our message spread not just tonight but throughout the next two years leading up to the next election night it's important not to be passive at this point because we've gained ground and we have to keep you don't quit while you're ahead and we're ahead right now whether we win or lose we've all done very well and we've all fought very hard and i am proud to say that i know you and i'm proud to say that the state of vermont is finally showing they have a backbone and are willing to stand up against the socialist agenda that has taken over this state we are disappointed in that and we bought it and we should be very proud of that personally this is the beginning of thank you personally this is the beginning of what i will consider my political career i'm not going to be giving up win or lose tonight because i know that this is what i'm supposed to do to serve my country search lifelong for that opportunity and this is what i'm going to be doing how that looks for me in the future we will see but i want to thank each and every one of you who supported me in this and it's been an honor that's that's all i can say i will thank several people personally at this moment one of them chet greenwood from orleans county the chair of chairs was one of my earliest supporters and he went out on a limb for me and so if this is televised thank you chet sure you're watching somewhere i want to thank the republican party i want to thank the republican party and all of the people and members of it have supported me throughout i want to thank each and every one of you who was a supporter to me i want to thank my family who have really put through it with this they've been they barely know what i look like i've been gone so much so thank you to them for picking up the slack for me and doing what needed to be done at home i appreciate it i love each and every one of you and you know who i'm talking about so i love you guys and i want to thank god right here now in front of everybody because without him i would not be who i am i would not have had the courage to stand up here and do what i did and he has been good to me and i just want to thank him publicly thank you jesus thank you when or lose we made a good show and i appreciate the opportunity that i have living in america to do that many people don't have the freedom to go vote i got to vote today many of the people in other countries don't have the freedom to run for office and try to make a positive difference in their country and i got to do that over the past six months and we are blessed to have a nation and we must preserve it for our future generations we can and we will whether that happens tonight or not we can and will in the future thank you all for coming thank you for your support thank you for your prayers and thank you for being a republican owner in five four three dawn turner thank you so much for joining us here today your first statewide race what's the takeaway for you from this effort it's been a great experience for me honestly i've met a lot of great people around our team has performed very well you know we work in the last four and a half months we've started with nothing and we've got incredible team we raised a lot of money that vermonters were willing to invest in this race i think we've done a lot of good things it's going to be a very close race which we've been predicting for quite a while i just don't know you know it's it's just gut wrenching right now to under not know where it's going to turn now but it's been positive we won towns that we thought we would win and we knew we had to win so that's been  far but overall i want to thank vermonters for coming out to vote we did everything we could to get people to come out to vote and that i saw more of a vote for me than my opponent i got to figure when you get to this point there's such a relief because all the anxiety of all the countless hours of campaigning are over but actually this is probably the most nerve racking because this is when the results actually come in absolutely i mean i've been working hard in the have that not been distracted by any reports or any polls or anything like that so it's good but right now  we're going to know you know so it's good it's good was there anything that you heard on the campaign trail that maybe isn't getting a lot of press that isn't being heard out there in the public yeah i think a lot of it is you know people i think that there is an affordability crisis i've heard it over and over whenever i went so i think that we got to focus on that whether i win or not and i'm i'm positive i'm very hopeful that the governor wins which looks like it will be a when so you know very proud of what the governor's done so far and i'm proud of this campaign you know so don if things don't go your way here tonight what's next for john turner well you know i've got a great job in milton and you know i plan to go back and focus my efforts on my man your job  milton we're going to do a lot of we have a lot of exciting things planned for milton so i'm going to go back and do that which is what i was planning on anyway it's you know i'm all from going to win and i think it's close it's going to come down to be a late night i think but at the end of the day i'm very proud proud of what we've accomplished as a team proud of my family for the support they've given me and proud of everything that we've put into this to show my daughters that at a real choice for lieutenant governor and that will be a positive takeaway for me for having a lot of pride here tonight and that's the takeaway from the g o p election headquarters in south burlington with john turner i met kelly back to you in the studio ten nine eight seven six five four three two one two three four five six seven eight nine ten nine eight seven six five four three two one live from republican election night headquarters in south burlington i met kelly in the juniper room up the doubletree hotel election twenty eight to me it's a great night here and lots of people milling about awaiting the arrival of the governor check one to check their feet is down ten naing eight seven six five four three two one two three four five six seven eight nine ten test test test lawrence has ran against bernie sanders and did a fantastic job i might say and i'm going to allow his son to introduce and thank you thank you it has been an honor and a privilege to travel vermont with my father bennington to newport watching vermonters get to know him as i've had the privilege to do all my life i watch my father in times of ease in times of hardship and through both his sterling character has shown through the good times have not made him weak and the times of adversity have not destroyed him he has the strength because he does not depend upon his own he relies on the strength of his creator and that remains crucial because this is not the final battle what lies in our power ladies and gentlemen what lies in our power is not the results of our actions it is our actions themselves over which we have control there is nobody who will address you tonight victorious or not who has achieved heroic results but there are men who have exerted themselves heroically in service to the people of vermont who saw an opportunity to stand for the principles that have set america apart from the nations and took it and fought for those principles to their utmost my father is such a man and it is an honor a man become worthy of such an introduction i don't know that i am but thank you zachary thank you very much a few minutes ago i spoke with senator sanders and i thanked him for the campaign and i will budge that the numbers seem to be in his favor and i wished him a long peaceful happy and healthy life and he thanked me for a campaign well run but first and foremost to pick up on what my son zachary said tonight i thank my god in my heavenly father for bringing me to this time and place in my face to face debate last week with bernie sanders moderator jane lindholm asked me what do you see as the biggest challenge facing america today i was almost astounded at the question do you know you have a play softball and one is logged right down the middle and it's slow and easy and the ball looks ten times the size and you know when you bring the bat around you're going to hit it out of the park just because it was the exact same exact question i needed to say what needed to be said i said the answer is simply this the reason why i entered the race for the u s senate against bernie sanders and the answer to your question are exactly the same the biggest challenge facing america today i said while looking at senator sanders is the success that he has had in persuading millions of americans that america is not the greatest country in the history of the world that is what impelled me to stand up to race against him my friends i have taken as my personal mission in running against bernie sanders win lose or draw to reinvigorate restate reaffirm what most of us from my generation have always known the united states of america it is was and likely will remain the greatest country in the history of the world and by inference by standing on our principles and revving the same engines of success which have brought us this far i've got good news for you our greatest days are still ahead as i am so fond of saying and as i reminded bernie sanders face to face the united states of america and its free enterprise system has fed housed and closed with freedom more people in the shortest time than any other country or system in the history of the world so happy to see and conversely senator sanders stale and tired system of socialism has caused more  lack suffering despair stifling of the human spirit and death in the shortest amount of time then any other misbegotten system in the history of the world so what are we going to choose so the rest of the reason is simply this why i got in the race it was time that somebody said stood up and said wait a minute like that child in the story emperor sanders is not wearing any clothes if with all due respect if by clothes one means ideas that work he was not being any clothes of ideas that work he's wearing ideas that have failed every place that they have been tried in our debate senator sanders when he was sputtering out of a response to what i said then which was very much what i just said now and when i compared his ideas to the suffering of venezuela where people were dumpster diving for dinner he said why do you can compare it to compare my ideas to venezuela well it's because of the same ideas bernie but why don't you compare him to the scandinavian system and i don't know why i know what the politician because he said that so many times why no other politician has responded to that before it's been cowed into silence by the scandinavian response but it was my pleasure privilege and honor to say benatar sanders the scandinavian countries are arch capitalist systems that have accumulated the wealth for their welfare state to the extent they have won by capitalist private property free enterprise principles the same ones which for their tiny little five million person countries have made our three hundred twenty six million person country the greatest and most successful living enterprise on planet tonight my friends there are no i don't have the honor of standing before you as your senator elect my head is unbowed knowing that i have performed my mission to declare that which has always been so obvious to me while it was being denigrated by bernie sanders you know i also asked bernie sanders you might enjoy hearing this again if you didn't hear the debate i asked him in our debate what advice he would have now that he is a millionaire selling his books on amazon what advice he would have to young folks who would also like to be millionaires like him i think the irony might have been lost on him as he proceeded to give on v millionaire advice i listened after all this is the man who has made a career by railing against the billionaires and the billionaires of american society so there he was and i felt this was sort of a precious moment in my life that i'll always cherish even those in the heat of the moment in the debate and i was intent and i was in the field of battle of ideas i said oh yeah i can't wait to have great grandchildren to tell this one because what came next he said he took the opportunity in answer to my question about how to be a millionaire to talk about his book our revolution now who would have known that bernie sanders could have a career in capitalist marketing and hawking his book on you can't make this stuff up on v p or no less you know that bastion of free enterprise and v p r he's talking about how to he's hawking his book is selling his book i said well he's you know he's being a free marketeer for this moment you can't write a script like that one anyway here is the message i gave him that day which i would like to share with you all again now when he was talking about his book our revolution i asked all of those who had bought his book while that while they were in the middle of reading things to go back and read something else the founding principles of our two documents the declaration of independence and the united states constitution which were birth out of the first revolution you know the american one i inform bernie that contained in that history in those documents is everything we needed then and we needed now and everything we will ever need to retain our status as the greatest country in the history of the world sorry if he is the key point these documents and shrine the right of the individual above the government revolutionary never before in history in the age of monarchy in the age of feudalism and the age of serf in the age of slavery now all of a sudden the rights of individuals above their government they could be protected from their government this is the heart of the revolution and this is the heart and the very german the essence of what has given rise to the greatness of our country the freedom we have because we don't have to live under the thumb of an uncontrolled government and the reason we don't is because of the brilliance of the founders who codify had it in the united states constitution any teachers here who teach civics have you taught that to your students lately so i further stated that senator sanders appropriation of the word revolution was actually a regression to a program primitive form of feudal government which steals liberty and stifles life and livelihood i believe that my campaign was the first major pushback against the extreme socialist trend and says to for a month that the socialist emperor sanders indeed has no clothes if clothes are defined as ideas that work my experience in running for office is also a great reaffirmation that win or lose one must stand firm on one's principles respecting the constitution as the law of the land protecting our national sovereignty promoting and protecting the rights of the individual from the incursions  big government local control as much as possible more money left in the pockets of those who earn it the primacy of human life the family as the primary building block of our whole civilization and revering american exceptionalism as a proven reality if we were to capitulate to the forces of moral relativism where there's no such thing as right or wrong and no standard for right or wrong or allow the boundaries of right iraq to blur how we then different from those whom we oppose and why would we deserve the support of our fellow republicans or anyone else had i been elected i thought you might like to know what i would be doing tomorrow morning i'm going to tell you i would be laying the groundwork for our initiatives for the people of vermont wide pipe broadband internet for the whole state health care breakthroughs digital economy pathways for vermont including for education education funding ideas which would actually listen to this and make sure you're not a loose and hating education funding ideas which would lower taxes if you're curious send me an e mail meeting with the many great companies who would have wanted to move forward and businesses here coordinating with the governor's office to see how we can work together for the people  but instead i will reflect upon how i can use the experience and the knowledge i've gained to be a further service to the people of vermont i still believe that with inspired leadership a golden era of renaissance will come to vermont we will need to make a long term investment in developing center right candidates cultivating competent campaign management developing a bench of candidates to move our ideas for for my friends my heart is filled with gratitude excitement and exuberance gratitude for the high honor i've had of being the republican standard bearer for the republican month republican party for the us senate thank you for this opportunity excitement because by study and dialogue with so many vermonters i have new ideas about how our state and country can move forward exuberance because i've made so many new friends who have placed their trust and confidence in me with their vote and their support allow me to thank some of the many people who have given this effort so much my beloved wife sherry jay shepard my campaign chairman and great adviser and friend and the rest of these people may not be here so i'll just read the names quickly make hansen a vermonters for health care freedom rick morton campaign treasurer chris mcdonald scheduling coordinator  my many fellow republican candidates with whom i've had the pleasure to campaign particularly the rising star whom you heard from a little earlier a rising star in the vermont g o p and you imperium and the thousands of and i do mean thousands the thousands of donors supporters and friends and all the many people who have stood in prayer for me so all i say with an overflowing heart along with a thank you to my god and heavenly father thank you my heart is overflowing god bless vermont and god bless america thank you it's never a good thing when they give me the mike trust me when i tell you this hi i'm brooke paige come on we can do better than that let's right when we're going hi i'm brooke and i'm a recovering democrat it's been oh my gosh nearly thirty months since i went to a democratic state convention and it's in two thousand and sixteen and some of you may be aware i was running for governor attorney general to make the same point that i was making this time around that we have a broken election system especially as it relates to the primary but it was interesting i got to go one night to the republican convention they had invited me to come and the next day i went to the democratic convention and they weren't quite so happy to see me there but to go to both within twenty four hours say the stink contrast i came to the republican convention we had american flag and the state flag we had in vocation we had the pledge of allegiance we had the national anthem and went to the democratic convention no flags no national anthem no invocation no pledge of allegiance back while i'm mentioning that we seem to have neglected that the same thing so i'm hoping you'll join me in saying the pledge of allegiance to the united states i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i'm ran for secretary of state in the end as you know i ran for six offices and somehow won them all which was part of the plan i guess and gave five of them back for other worthy republicans to take on the various challengers and kept the secretary of state's office and everybody said why on earth would you give away u s senate u s house and all these important offices because secretary of state's office is what the election problems are and while i'm not quite sure i've got this see evening i promise if you if i don't you may consider this my announcement i'll be running again for secretary of state and twenty twenty jim condos needs to be retired and i hope  gets to do it actually you know jim would be really happy if he lost his time because then you'd be able to pursue his heart's desire which is to become governor of the state of vermont god forbid if so i'm not going to take up a lot of time here i do want to thank all of my the folks who have supported me so strongly specially my wife my financier my campaign manager my cook my laundress and we were kind of a two person show here and that's all well and good i'm kind of a self financing person and have a real heart going out to people for money so i don't do that and so we did pretty good tonight i think we'll do better next time if we don't win it this time  and i thank the g o p plan for giving me the opportunity to run to be able to run for a full slate hopefully we'll have a full slate of candidates without my having to kind of work things massage things along  but anyway thank you ever so much and god bless the great state of vermont and god bless america thank you hello we're back again i'd like to take a moment and introduce our current sitting soon to be reelected from franklin county our friend everyone knows him randy bro well thank you very much and thank all of you for coming out to this great event the seating in which we hope to celebrate victory after victory going forward but you know i'm not here to talk about tonight i just want you to remember that if you think that while you are out standing in the rain waving at cars today that that was the end it's not you know you can be out there tomorrow waving a car's true because we're thinking forward right now and believe it or not the next election cycle starts tomorrow morning and as of right now there's only seven hundred twenty eight days till the next election so this is a continuing act by all of us and for that to work for us to make progress as a party all of you are the key elements and we really want to face each and every one of you who participated who helped in waving signs who helped in going door to door who helped in in crafting messages and who did all of the things that make what we do as candidates makes it work and thank you again we very much appreciate all of you thanks ok here we go paul de mint five four three haldane thank you so much for joining us here tonight you're running for state senate in chipping county it's a rather interesting situation you the area and kind of expand out beyond us expansion and it's been a really great opportunity to to see really how big the county is and you know i had a really good time connecting with folks at you know i didn't you don't usually talk to always great to get into burlington talk to some of the folks at the n p a is over there and go out to you know community suppers out on bolton and gave me a greater appreciation too for how large the county is there any surprises for you running for countywide office were there any things that you heard on the campaign trail that were a surprise to you well i think probably the the most remarkable thing that happens i went to one of these brunton p s and i got up as the rip publican kind of in enemy territory there and it talked about what was important to me and what my focus would be if elected to the senate about about focusing on the economy jobs how we can help our small businesses and once that the event was over in the can of form was over i was talking to one of the organizers of thanking them for inviting me in a member of the n p a came up and said you know talking to the organizer i'm really disappointed tonight  what will wise us like because because i came here thinking they were for sure somebody i could cross off my list and i saw there was a republican i thought for sure i can get rid of this guy and then he turned to me and he said but you know a lot of things that you said made a lot of sense and a nd i'm really going to be thinking about voting for you and i think that's what we can do as as republicans running in shit in the county is is get out there in and be able to to be spokesmen and messengers for the ideas that we have about how we can grow vermont's economy i'm a small business owner just hired my first employee so i have a little bit of of inside knowledge on how to grow grow a company in a way that the incumbent democrats don't and so the campaign for he was trying to get out there and i found that a lot of people were responsive to that message even if they don't usually vote for republicans so if you're on successful tonight and we don't know yet what the results will be what's next for paul named oh well it's go be spend a lot of time with my wife and my three kids a home they've you know they've they've really been missing daddy recently and so we've tried to incorporate all we can they helped us out with a sinewave last night but it's going to be lots of wind in the living room floor and picking my kids up a lot and crawl on me for a little while so all right going back to a family man if he's on successful tonight we don't yet know that we're waiting for results here or g o p headquarters in south burlington paul thank you for your commitment to vermont and your willingness to serve our guy state we're live here in south carolina and i'm not kelly for channel seventeen back to you in the studio on and we have three fantastic senatorial candidates this political cycle and i'd like to introduce them to one of the time in no particular order by the  way the first one up i'd like to introduce his campaign manager first and that would be jeff bartley jeff currently as many of you know was the executive director for the state of vermont g o p party for a few years and he has been running alex's campaign into any fabulous job  thank you thank you madam chairwoman it's great to be in front of you guys again wish we were here for a much more festive occasion but i think we have a lot to be proud of as republicans its bench and i'm here to tell you i think that's false we have a fabulous candidate in alex feral and i want to have a couple highlights of what he's been able to do as a twenty six year old first time candidate out of burlington and chin in county six pack he's assembled a team of non political with the exception of myself of course we had jack farrington jeff badger angela welch a strong ryan natalie names that a majority view in this room probably are not familiar with they came to the table and said alex i believe in you i believe in your message you're a good friend we think you can do well so we're going to come to the table alex farrell as a twenty six year old first time candidate republican out of burlington raised fifty five thousand dollars on his i have to double check the finance reports but i'm fairly confident that is the most raise and of any legislative candidate in the state of vermont to talk about building a bench and with that he sent over thirty thousand direct mail pieces we made over one hundred fifty thousand phone calls and we visited every single town in chinon county some of them more than once we had two of the absolute best web ads in my opinion this cycle that reached over fifty thousand people in chinon county alone gotta say i'm just absolutely proud of alex's has been the most fun campaign i've been involved in before i invite alex up here to speak i want to give a big shout out in a round of applause to really my partner  crime in this campaign and alex's better half genevieve anthony where are you february i had just left the party and i thought i was going to take a little break for a while and he says jeff i have a really really stupid idea i've already made my decision and you can't talk me out of it but i'm going to run for the state senate and i said all right let's do it let's have a good time and let me tell you alex it's been a great time you have a great future in front of you you have some fabulous ideas you've proven what it takes to run an aggressive spirited thought provoking campaign and i'm just really excited to see what you bring for us forward so listen gentlem well tonight we we've we've seen a lot of mixed results and i think i think it's safe to say we still have a lot to celebrate here in vermont we talk about building the bench and jeff talks me up a lot and i appreciate that this state that are looking great and you know what we're carrying this message all over and not only that but once again in the state of bernie sanders we have a republican governor again a republican governor we could be very proud of and that has continued to work for people like me and candidates all over the state and has taught us how to carry this message forward and so as these young people like me like dana like paul continue to campaign and try and try again we're learning every time we're learning what the voters of vermont want to hear what they care about and we're learning we're listening and we're doing everything we can to deliver for those voters so i can tell you right now these guys are going to stop coming to the voters i'm not go stop coming to these voters no matter what it takes i will come back and back again to do what's right for the state of vermont and i'm i'm thankful that everybody in this room everyone in this party has embraced me it has been overwhelming jeff talks about what this campaign was able to raise that wasn't just me that the people around talking me telling people about my ideas and people believing in me and that's that's absolutely amazing that that this community this party people and other parties have embraced this campaign in our ideas so what that tells me is we have a bright future and this is just the start of a very bright future thank you everybody thank you alex and you know i've i've known alex for perhaps a year now jeff i've known for several years and if you ever need a campaign manager jeff i'm signing you up for the people right now he's fantastic thank you paul is a friend of mine ran for the house in fourteen very good job at that and i have known him for several years now and i'm honored to be part of anything that he's part of paul please  i well it's funny i did not imagine myself being here even four months ago as a lot of you know i wasn't even on the primary ballot i thought after after my and sixteen you know i was going to take some time off and it was the support in the encouragement of a number of good people and sometimes you have to be careful what you say to encourage others because they're going to turn it back on you and i remember being at the essex town republican committee getting ready for the primary and i was telling folks you know there's a lot of empty spots on the ballot here and i want everyone to take a minute and think about who it is that you have in mind that you think would be a great candidate and just write him in somewhere write him in for you know high bailiff or assistant judge or or any of the statewide offices right somebody in because if be at that meeting you said ok paul i'm going to write you in for state senate so i kind of laughed at that oh yeah that's that's funny and and the more i thought about it the more i thought about it  thought this this this might not be a bad idea not necessarily because i thought hey i'm so great i have a great chance of winning but i saw a really good team in place i saw alex aside dana  people that were out there working hard and and i know that so often republicans get discouraged by the fact we don't have enough people on the ballot and you never know what's going to happen in an election unless you don't put a candidate on the ballot then you know you're going to lose nobody had any idea what was going to happen with you know with the with with bernie sanders race no nobody knew that word zippin was going to come out of nowhere do a fantastic debate performance that could have changed things it might not have but you never know unless you run and that's why i had decided to run so i came to the game a little bit late  but i really appreciate shortly after the primary i had a chance to meet with alex to meet with dana and we really worked well together as a team and we were all our own individual candidates and i can say of of all the races i've run wherever i've had run in multi seat districts before this is been a lot of fun we have we've done a good job of kind of charting our own course recruiting our own supporters and then pulling them together and even today i had a great opportunity to go back to the village of essex junction where which was my home district when i served in the house and got to stand next to alex and dana and find people that i had knocked on their doors two and four and six years ago and people come out to me and said to vote for you and to say hey don't forget you can vote for these two guys too and i think that's what we need to do as republicans so often it can be easy to get concerned about man you know we lost this race we lost that race but there's a lot we can do even when we lose there's a lot we can still accomplish i think to me one of the  talked about what my ideas were to improve the economy to help business owners in as as a young person and as a business owner i might have a couple ideas about how to keep young people in business owners here and when the  a finished i went up to the organizer and said you know thanks so much for the opportunity and while i was talking to or a member had come up to speak to the organ said you know i'm really disappointed in tonight and she kind of look but i came here tonight to make sure that i could cross somebody off my list and i said well here's a republican for sure i can cross this guy off my list and then he turned to me and said but but you made a lot of sense your idea about growing the economy and helping small businesses that that might actually work i might actually end up voting for you or another person i talked to in shelburne after the hollow parade shook his hand gave him one of my cards he followed up with an e mail and we had an exchange and he said you know i usually vote vote for democrats most of the time but but i'm going to vote for you and  having someone else who told me back in my home district of essex junction because they had a chance to meet me and hear me out so you know you're the only republican i'm voting for on the even voting for phil scott but i'm going to vote for you because i met you and you make sense whether we win or we lose the more people we have out there is candidates in the house in the senate in statewide races that are out there shaking hands smiling meeting people and showing people that never have met a republican before that have no friends who are republicans or conservatives show them that were real people that we care about for minors and the state of our state we have some different ideas about how to make it better but but we care and we want a lot of the same goals and we're not as terrible and scary they've made us out to be and the more that we do that whether we win those races lose those races me and dan and alex and so many other of you in this room whether you are a candidate whether you are volunteering whether you are knocking on doors for someone every single person in this room either did or has the ability to next year go out and show the rest of vermont the republicans have good ideas that even if you've never voted for republican before if you if you meet one you might actually like him so are encourage or are regardless of whatever the results are tonight don't be discouraged i mean as as alex said we've we've got a young  bench i'm the old man in the republican senate group at thirty six and i'm ten years younger than the youngest democrat people don't realize that but we have an opportunity to go out there movies and t v shows i grew up with and i remember the first time watching the film rocky and we get to the end and everybody knows that at the end of the movie is supposed to be a happy ending right you're hero supposed to win but rocky loses but why do we still love that movie because he put up a fight and regardless of the odds being stacked against him and coming very very close he put up a good fight and he came back again and every single one of us can continue to move forward with whatever we're doing as a candidate helping another candidate or just working within the party even if we lose this fight we've got another one coming so so take some time take a break after today let's stay together let's stay unified and building that vision for vermont a more affordable vermont and let's keep trying thank you very much thank you paul i can't see anything more than an thank you thank you for all that you've done and win lose or draw we have not seen the last of these candidates they are so like to thank you all for coming out again and showing your support again as we continue to watch the the results of today's election roll through when i first thought to run for senate i didn't know what to expect i had absolutely no experience i had no idea if an average no name guy with absolutely zero campaign experience garner enough support to cause even a ripple in the election after all we were told to expect a blue wave after weeks of quietly debating it myself i talked to my wife amy about you know the idea of running for senate and i expected her to ask five gone off my rocker but she was supportive right right from the first conversation so with her encouragement and support from my family i made my decision that i was going to do this i announced it first on facebook and without me even approaching him at all jamie when over here good friend of mine for a long time stepped up and he started trying to get my message out so i chose him to to be my campaign manager he had absolutely no campaign experience either but isn't foozie as i'm for my campaign is is why i chose him so we had a candidate with a team just me jamie amy jamie's wife casey but we had no direction so we met with deb fairly early on or  and that's when she delivered the first first few reality checks she gave us a rough idea of what it would cost to run a strong campaign and i almost fell out of my chair when she told me that number  explained what role the party had in the campaign process and explained what resources the campaign would make available to us and i'd be lying if i said that i didn't have my doubts about whether or not this campaign to work but we kept focused and we pushed out soon after that i met with dawn turner and he gave us the candidates perspective on running a campaign and his perspective as a sitting legislator as the climate of the state house one thing that stuck with me from that conversation was don's message of teamwork he explained that he had great teamwork within the caucus but that there were all too often not enough team members to accomplish their goals this message of teamwork would be a continuing theme throughout this campaign season as paul mentioned previously don had a huge task ahead of him statewide campaign he made his campaign office available to all of those candidates a night for the primary and i drove by myself to every single polling location in the county to put up my yard signs when dawn heard that i had been out until almost two o'clock in the morning doing that he told me there's no need for you to have to do that yourself we can team up to do that and lighten the load for everyone later dawn alex myself and our crews teamed up to do a bunch of drops primarily throughout essex and milton and then when paul won his write in campaign as he said he also joined the team we all kept in close contact with each other in regards to events and campaign tasks know that's kind of a long lead in but it sets the stage for my campaign where we are tonight wouldn't be possible without teamwork without all of your support i'm grateful for don alex paul and their teams for working with me and my team and for giving us guidance when we didn't know what to do next that also would have been possible without the support and encouragement from deb jac michael donoghue who has disappeared again and every single one of the town chairs and everybody on the town committees every single donation every single post share on facebook every conversation that you had with a fit only member every conversation i had with one of the residents in the county it all helps to bring this campaign to word is right now now for some volunteers volunteers are absolutely invaluable they helped lighten the load they allowed me to do other campaign tasks while they took care of things and background they helped out with the drop in milton and they completed the packets that they had way faster than we had expected them to and came back for more we had to meet them halfway through the day and give them colby colby got a hold of me pretty early this morning and he wanted to come around to all of the polling locations with me and he held one of my signs pretty much the entire day and sherry gorgeous mother to us she's hiding say these two also also helped with various different  events and sine waves and and what not and i don't think that kristen hall stop was here tonight but that kristen is she still count yeah that makes that makes sense so kristen for those that don't know is ron hubert's granddaughter she lives in milton and she stepped up to the plate and volunteered to do absentee ballot chasers for every single can and milt and the list was sent a p d f format so she couldn't even copy cut and paste the addresses into anything she had to manually enter every single address in my mother lisa maxfield who is not here because she dislikes large crowds more than i do after a little bit of twisting her arm i convinced her to take care of the campaign financing task and and she has done a fantastic job with that there's been so much support it's impossible to name every single person but it was all of you who believed in average no name guy without any campaign experience you all helped me get my message out you helped get my name out there in the county now people i don't even know see me in public recognize me and wish me luck i'm humbled by all of the support deeply thankful to all of you and i would be honored to be a part of the team down in montpelier despite all of the challenges and bumps in the road i feel like a winner it was a good campaign we were able to identify things that worked and things that didn't work i now have some decent name recognition throughout the county and i now know that i have a very strong support base i feel that establishing those three things is the hardest part of the campaign and you have given me a solid foundation to build on as paul has said as alex has said as deb has said this isn't over regardless of how things go tonight win or lose i will run next time we'll try it again thank you dana thank you so much i want to point out one particular person in the room that has worked tirelessly alongside and i've worked alongside with him for the past ten months or so and that's jack moulton joc he is our executive director at the state level as some of you know he came over from whens falls new york earlier this year from the  least a phonic campaign that he had worked for several years and he has taken on the task of executive director for the state of vermont and jack thank you very much for all that you do and all that you've done and  e certainly made my job a little bit easier thank you very much so at this point we're waiting for the governor's results in the lieutenant governor's results to come in and as soon as those are available to us we'll have them as your guest speakers so in the meantime talk enjoy your each other's company and we'll be back with you thank you general what were your thoughts what's a big race you know the chin in counties a lot of ground to cover and there are some really experienced people in there right now so i was up against that and learning to be a candidate so doing that all at once is certainly made it a real learning experience but i've loved it i've loved every bit of it and this this weekend we got to visit all sixteen towns and that was quite an experience it's something that i'd absolutely do again what is the take away from you running as challenge is making sure you're heard across party lines i think i did a good job of that but there's always room to grow and get the name out there moving forward what's next for alex farrell hard to say i'm going to watch results roll in tonight see what happens he's still got a little margin to go to to make up after this i can guarantee i'll be running for office again your campaign manager really spoke about the bench republicans young republicans in fact yourself  etc can you speak about the upcoming talent in the republican party for the state of vermont yeah it's interesting i don't think we are consciously trying to curb the narrative but absolutely we ended up seeing a lot of young candidates on our side of things and and it was it was almost halfway through the campaign that we all looked around or like whoa we're all young and you know it in our race in particular the oldest republican running was ten years younger than the youngest democrat running which you know is just a funny thing and i think it's something we can all look at a look at  and say wow we've got years to build on this and keep coming back together and i got to figure in a sense it's got to give her manners some hope that there it is a upcoming level of candidates certainly on the republican side that we're seeing that are standing in the wings to take over the reins of power for the state of vermont yeah and you know i don't want to just focus on republicans there's a lot of young folks on the other side lizzie haskell ran a great campaign in burlington there's a lot of folks getting an involved at the college level asked barbash on a lot of people that are just i don't know what party i'm in but i want to get involved i want to help out and so that's been cool to see as a young candidate and as we learn the system we learn the ropes we can all come up together and maybe do things in a more civil way and i think that's what you've seen out of this out of this new generation your final thoughts on the twenty eighteen midterm elections i'm glad people came out to vote turnout was big and i hope we can continue that trend very good alex ferrer alive here at the g o p election night headquarters in south carolina and i'm back alley reporting live back to you in the studio with your local public access to  ok here we go randy brock in five four three joins us from monsignor statesman i don't mean that in terms of your age but actually in terms of your disposition you really just have such a stately quality about you and we heard that on the the podium here the thank you it was a joyful you know this campaign is over as i mentioned on the podium election two thousand and eighteen is now history we're on two thousand and twenty and we've only got seven hundred  twenty eight days to go the countdown all of this again the countdown is under way a little bit much fun going out waving at cars i'm just going to keep going on yes so if you see randi on the side of the road and you know october there you are a night for republicans that we've seen so some of the things that i've seen from some really good people here unfortunately didn't win but we're building a stronger bench and we'll be back i really want to talk about that there really is a pretty strong bench coming up the ranks in the in the republican party that we heard here about tonight from the campaign manager for alex farrelly was really speaking about that i really want your viewpoint as you know the senior statesman for vermont republicans about the upcoming bench is a classic example of what i was in the corporate world one of the first things that i did with a new job as i hired by replacement now the other person who i believe will be elected to the senate in franklin county started working for me when he was thirteen years old and he's now served to serve in the house of representatives from st aubyn city he ran for the senate with me for the second son all been the second seat in franklin county and it looks like he's going to be a winner absolutely and then you speak about on you to neo as an example i mean a very young republican really putting her hat in the uring for national office that's got to be really inspiring for the up and coming republican well she's a she's a star you heard her speak tonight she's extremely articulate her thoughts are  are solid but she's a good person and one of the things about republicans is we do have a large tent we have different views and different perspectives on on many issues but we do have a commonality on a number of things such as  a belief in the constitution a smaller government government that works for people that puts more money in taxpayers pockets those are the some of the kinds of issues that tend to unite us even though we may disagree with other issues wonderful your final thoughts on the twenty hundred midterm elections what you've seen and what you are looking in the weeks months ahead well one of the things that that i think we're seeing is that vermonters don't vote on a so on a strict party line basis people vote for the candidate they will move across party lines and that's why you see governor doug governor scott being as successful as as he was in this election and governor douglas and in prior years being successful from owners don't stick with labels they stick with people and what they do and that i think is a very a very good thing that's what moen of things that makes us different than washington very good randy brock thank you so much for your service to our state and the service to the republican party a great story here as we await governor scott coming to the podium here at g o p election night headquarters in south carolina and it's back kelly live back to you in the studio very good generic in five four three two  five four five four three diana very quiet moment here at election headquarters in south burlington we've heard bill a do introduce speaker after speaker and yet we are awaiting word from the governor and for the lieutenant governor on their acceptance and concession speeches but of course the numbers have yet to come in from the secretary of state so still a nail biter here at g o p election night headquarters as we await the governor and the lieutenant governor for their speeches here in south burlington i'm ed kelly reporting live back to you dion in the studio ok here we go curt right in five four three joins us state representative republican from china county six dash one i believe disappointing night for you in fact this is the first time i think that we talk disappointing i did kind of sense that this could happen i've been telling people that i was a lot of new voters in the new north and that's not a bad thing but they don't know you know they don't know me for the voters in new me that i still would have won but you know there's changes then and demographics have changed and you know but the message to me is that time for my time in politics to be up so i mean that is my next question i mean what is next for her right do you think you'll run again or is this pretty much it for the and i'm not going to seek another term on the city council it's been a hell of a run i would join us for the honor of a lifetime but i think there comes a point time we have to realize that it's it's your time is up and i think that my time is up right i want to thank you so much so that was no no bitterness i mean i'm disappointed i can't deny that but others know better and as i just i think that it's clear that my time's up i want to thank you so much for your service to the state of vermont appreciate it an end of an era here with her right suffering a defeat here as he seeks reelection to chignon county six dash one and he has announced here tonight that he will not seek reelection to the burlington city council when that term ends news being made here at vermont g o p election night headquarters in south carolina and live on that kelly back to you in the studio diane erica and rachel and to introduce our governor my s well thank you very much for being here tonight first of all i want to thank my family especially my wife and my daughters erica and rachael my mom came all the way from florida to see this event tonight and many other families around the room  family members who have given their love and support to me and there i would be standing here today without them so thank you very much for being  you know throughout my life whether it be in business or racing or politics i've been able to bring people together who have the right attitude the right chemistry in order to be successful so i'd like to thank my my team right now both my campaign team who worked the long days it became even longer nights and if they could just step out here for a minute i'd like to thank britney amount of  what's really amazing is this is our core this is the four they brought it home you know that the average age of these four is about twenty five and three out of the four are either going to use v m or graduating from v m so we have a lot to be proud of as well on the official side i want to thank my cabinet in the staff who stuck with me through thick and thin i'm blessed with an incredibly talented team so loyal and so bright who spent the last two years working to make the vision that we share for vermont a reality now i look can i know we've taken tonight off will do that but i look forward to continuing our work so for all of you we're going back to work tomorrow and we'll start again the next two years so tonight one hundred eighty for miners who are elected to serve as their legislature for the next two years i want to personally can gradually each and every one of them i look forward to working with you in the coming months and work being the key word because there's so much to do there are few higher honors than being elected by your neighbors for them to have enough faith and trust  peru represent them and their interests and be the person they're counting on to work on the issues that are most important to them in our communities and there's no greater responsibility than working every day to understand how to solve the problems we face as a state for those newly elected like i was eighteen years ago you may still think everything is black or white yes or no but i would warn you there's a lot of gray in between typically there are no easy answers no corners to cut only hard work ahead to do all we can do to create a stronger more vibrant future for all of us electing a governor of one party and a legislature by another the message for moms have sent to us tonight is clear work together saying they want us to work for them not against each other they're saying we need to listen to one another and prove to the rest of the nation that in vermont we can and will rise above partisan politics we must come together for the future of our state in order to strengthen our economy make vermont more affordable and protect the most vulnerable in all two hundred fifty one communities across the state whether you're from brighton or brandon albany or or are all berg we all want the same thing we want the kids in every community to get a great education learn a trade pursue the career of their dreams buy a home start a family and retire right here in this state this is the challenge we face together in tonight i humbly accept that challenge once again i also want to thank my opponent christine hall quest for stepping up and running in energizing historic campaign well we may not have agreed on many issues we do did agree from the start that this race would be about things we felt mattered to most of the people of vermont while across the nation other races in other states turned negative in uncivil in vermont we rose above  news out of vermont this election was clear we can disagree we can debate and we can do it with passion but in this state we can do it respectfully it wasn't perfect and at times we were reminded that we're not immune to the hate and bigotry that all or all too present across the country but by and large the campaign was marked by the type of civility vermonters and americans for that matter deserve in the public process there was probably no better example of this exact mail in lucy rogers of cambridge two candidates ending a debate last month by sitting together to perform a musical duet for this and for stepping up and putting yourself out there i'd like to thank all the kennedys tonight win or lose from the top of the ticket all the way down it's not easy to just tell about their so i thank you for your contribution to the conversation and commitment to making vermont a better place i'd also like to note that the issues that have been raised in the campaign due to christine's historic candidacy are front and center i want to you to know that as long as i'm governor i'll continue to make sure our state state lives up to our motto of freedom and unity as well as our reputation of tolerance and compassion by being the most welcoming state in the nation while defending all vermonters from hate and bigotry this w remain one of my ministrations top priorities no exceptions today vermont i spoke loud and clear so tonight reaffirm my commitment to the three principles on which my administration bas every decision that we make on a daily basis first of all we must continue to make from up more affordable i travel the state every day i see the struggles our neighbors face and i know that the high costs of living and doing business energy health care education and taxes are forcing too many to elsewhere for opportunity we should all find that unacceptable so as i've done for the last eighteen years i'll spend the next two working to reverse these trends second if we're going to grow our economy we must bring it into the we must bring the workforce in and we must attract more people in order to do that we need more kids in our schools more workers for businesses more proud first time home owners right here in vermont we need a bigger labor force to support the public investments that we care about because if we don't if we can't grow our economy then we're faced with two options raise taxes or make cuts to programs which could harm the most vulnerable neither of which is acceptable that's why i asked legislators in fact all legit officials to work with me on a plan to grow our workforce to increase our working age population because our future literally depends on it third we're going to protect our neighbors we'll continue to address address our opioid crisis those suffering from mental health issues and find ways to make sure all vermonters have access to affordable health care will take care of the elderly in our veterans who have given us so much our children and those who need us most when they need us most because it's what we do in vermont and finally if we're going to accomplish any of this we must continue to rise above the partisanship and politics of hate and division our time to make a difference for those who have elected us this far too short we can allows ourselves to fall victim to pettiness political games and angry rhetoric now more than ever we must be better role models because our children are watching and they want to be just like us we must be better kinder and more respectful to each other and take time to listen this is the challenge ahead this is my vision for our future is a great honor of my life to have the t good evening good evening first thing i want to do is i want to have everybody that helped in this campaign come up here in the front and i'm serious every single person ok well you know everybody come up here in the front this is a team effort  i want to make sure we talk about the team so everybody come up here  we don't have the same average age as the governor's team just if you want to say this is started but anyway i want to thank you very much and thank you all for being here tonight i want to start off by congratulating governor scott  on his tremendous reelection this evening the overwhelming support for the governor tonight shows that vermonters are serious about their desire for a focus on affordability and economic growth i'm uphill your governor steve got has done a tremendous job of steering the ship of the state government over these past two years and i'm proud to have been part of that i know you will continue to be a strong leader for all vermonters so please join me once again in giving our governor  another round of applause i also want to think the vermont republican party for hosting us this evening and for everyone who's here from candidates and party officials to supporters and members of the media i want to congratulate those members of our caucus that have been reelected the senators senator baucus he stand in the air i want to congratulate you on your work you have a big job ahead of you and i want to congratulate you it's been an honor to be part of that team so thank you all and congratulations i just got off the phone with lieutenant governor argument and i congratulate him on his victory this evening and while i know this isn't the outcome we wanted i'm very proud that we were able to run a civil positive campaign that was free of the bitterness we see all too frequently in washington these days it's been a great honor to serve in this to run this campaign and i appreciate the go the ten a governor's willingness to keep a positive campaign during this campaign i had the opportunity opportunity to see the parts see parts of the state i've never seen before from sine waves to meet and greets to potluck dinners i met with thousands of a modern who told me personal stories of their trials and challenges today i'm riding on the bus and i had a gentleman call me who can't find housing he gets paid one thousand dollars an hour but he can't make it so we've got a lot of work to do in vermont and i know the governor will lead us that way those conversations gave me a better understanding of how so many vermonters are struggling with a growing cost of living and they have and how they feel montpelier seems to have forgotten then hopefully they will not be forgotten in the future that was an important take away from me and i hope it is significant wake up call for the many that will return to montpellier despite the outcome tonight i'm grateful to have had the opportunity to meet with these countless vermonters and all fourteen counties of our great state the experiences i've had during this campaign have made me a better public servant for me my family and our community and even though we didn't make it across the finish line like we had anticipated i'm glad i had the opportunity to represent our party on the statewide ticket i want to close by recognizing those who have helped me this campaign because i would have made it this far without any of them first and foremost this i would have been able to do this without them it wasn't always easy but they've helped me through the toughest parts of the election i don't know what i would've done without them and i'm thankful every day to have such a supportive family next i want to thank my entire campaign team for the late nights the many long drives the tough decisions and the commitment to vermonters that they have shown over the past several months they were the energizer bunn behind me who kept me going kept me laughing even when we didn't want to laugh but we did laugh it's truly was a team effort and i wouldn't be where i am today without the strong team behind me i also want to dollars that were in this campaign thank you governor scott and his team for their support and help along the way because none of us had one had ever run as a white campaign we didn't know where to start we didn't know what we're doing but at the end of the day i think we did the job and i'm extremely proud of that their advice their system over the assistance over these fast past few months and i'm proud of the partnership we created during this campaign serve this state wide campaign didn't forget the house members we didn't forget the senators everywhere we went they were part of the team i've been a team player i will continue to be a team player and i will support the people have been elected but vermonters have spoken and i respect that i'm thrilled to see that many were successful in their efforts this evening finally i'm extremely humbled by the thousands of them honors who entrusted me with their votes today and i thank them from the bottom my heart for their support this journey was an incredible experience one that i will be grateful for the rest of my life and i'm honored to have been the able to have earned the trust of so many once again you everyone here for your support and for all you do for vermont thank you very much tell him we're doing a generic howard tell him we're doing a generic oh yes ok great generic and father for three well it was a message of freedom and unity from the governor and a message of gratitude from john turner as we wrap up the events here at the g o p election headquarters in south burlington the go on are coming up with tremendous gratitude sankey in his family as well as his team a very young campaign team in their mid twent s but also saying that there's have spoken very clearly with divided government republican governor returning to the state house with a democratic legislature in the message he heard loud and clear from that was that they both must work together that's it from us here adverse g o p election night headquarters in south burlington for all of us a channel seventy nine that kelly thank you for watching and good night we go governor scott in five four three going to scott thank you so much for joining us are you returning to the state house for two more years is it sweeter the second time around well it's bittersweet tonight in some respects i'm very grateful to vermonters first for selecting me to to represent them over the next two years but we lost a lot of good legislators tonight as well and that's the better part but but again like the democrats have a super majority which may override any veto how if that is the case how is that going to potentially change the way you and your administration govern continue with my pledge to grow protect the most vulnerable and i'll put forth my my arguments for doing so and i'll try and do whatever i can find common ground with those legislators because i believe  there is believe our our workforce we have some challenges there we have fewer people working today than two thousand and nine thirty thousand fewer students in our k through twelve education system than we did twenty years ago so there are many opportunities we ha slight population decline last year there are more deaths than bursts for the first time ever so we have our challenges so there are all our challenges so i'm looking for ways to turn that reverse those trends and i believe that my my friends on the other side of the aisle would i would say the same i want to just shift here and wrap up during the primaries vermont state senate president  that if he were turns to the state house he's going to bring to the floor an amendment to the vermont state constitution for a four year term for the governor what do you think about a four year governor term yeah i was in the senate for  years and we actually passed that provision through the senate then it didn't make it through the house so long before i had any ideas about running for governor i thought it was a good idea it's we're one of only two states forty eight other states have four year terms i think it's time for us to join the rest of the nation do you think that that belief or feeling you get is shared in other non nicole or less political offices do you think like the secretary of state or the treasurer should also have four year terms or what would know what i would do you know i will obviously leave it to the legislators to figure out but but from my perspective i think i believe the constitutional offices should all have four year terms and your final thoughts on election twenty eighteen well again you know i'm proud of the campaign that i ran a very very civil campaign respectful and i think that's what vermonters asked for we gave him that and that we could be a model for the rest of the nation in that regard very good congratulations on another two years we'll look forward to hearing more from you in the weeks and months ahead governor phil scott with a message of unity here at the g o p election night headquarters in south carolina ten i met kelly for all of us a channel seventeen thanks again for watching and good night