Parties internally reorganize every two years by holding state, county, and town committee elections during odd-numbered off-years.
Two or three state senators are elected per county (except Chittenden which has six, Grand Isle which has one, and Orleans and Essex, which share two).
Vermont's Constitution requires that a gubernatorial or other statewide candidate achieve a majority of the popular vote (i.e. more than 50%) in order to be elected.
Currently^, the Democratic, Progressive, Liberty Union, and Republican parties are qualified to hold primary elections in the state.
Electorally, Republicans predominated for most of the state's history until the 1960s, even when the rest of the country was voting Democratic.
National politicians campaigned in the state in the summer to influence the turnout, including Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.
[10] While the vote was assured for the Republican party at that time, the size of victory was thought by some, before polls, to predict how the national elections might go.
Vermont consecutively had Republican governors for over a century until Democrat Phillip Hoff was elected in 1962.
[11][12] In 1980, Vermont gave independent candidate John B. Anderson 15% of its vote, thereby tipping the state to Republican Ronald Reagan.
[13][clarification needed] Since 1992, Vermont had supported a Democrat for president in every election, and by double-digit margins all but once (in 2000).
Vermont gave John Kerry his fourth-largest margin of victory in 2004, behind the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
[16] In 2008, the Democrats, in charge of the House, appointed Richard Westman, a Republican, to chair the Transportation Committee.
When he resigned in 2009 to accept a post elsewhere, the leadership appointed another Republican, Patrick M. Brennan to that chair.
[17] In 2008, an Associated Press poll found that Vermonters self-described themselves as "liberal" (32%) more often than any other state in the union, behind only the District of Columbia.
In the late 1980s, the Progressive Party was formed, and began electing candidates to local and statewide offices.
With the exception of the more conservative and rural Northeast Kingdom, Rutland County, and Bennington County, the Progressive and Democratic Parties have become the two dominant political forces, with the Republican Party being relegated to third ever since its loss in popularity in the state since the 1980s onward.
Vermont law requires political parties to reorganize in every odd-numbered year by electing members at town caucuses and then sending representatives to county committees, which send representatives to the state committee meeting.
The Vermont Secretary of State maintains a list of designated major and minor parties.
Progressives Peter Clavelle and Bob Kiss were mayors of the largest city, Burlington from 1989–1993, 1995–2006, and 2006–2012, respectively.
It formed as a coalition closely associated with then Burlington mayor Bernie Sanders in the late 1980s and has had official recognition as a major political party by the state government since 1999.