By KATY SAVAGE
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WESTMINSTER and BROWNSVILLE, Vt. — Two local residents are challenging Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. at large, of Norwich, in the primary election.
Ben Mitchell of Westminster and Dan Freilich of Brownsville have both announced their candidacy.
Mitchell, 50, is an educator who heads IMPACCT Academy in Keene, N.H., a program that helps students with learning disabilities transition out of high school.
Mitchell has run previous campaigns. He “ran in protest,” as an anti-war socialist in 2004, he said. In 2010, he ran for governor as a Liberty Union candidate against former Gov. Peter Shumlin.
Mitchell is now running as a Democrat, explaining he was inspired by presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., a Democrat Socialist.
“Bernie Sanders is showing that it’s possible,” he said.
This is the first time Mitchell has had a committee and raised money.
Mitchell calls himself a “long shot, nontraditional candidate.”
He’s raised about $2,000 so far, which is far less than Welch’s $2.1 million campaign fund and less than Freilich’s $43,000.
Mitchell compared his campaign to mud season in Vermont.
“We get spark of life and then it dies back down a little bit,” said Mitchell, who supports carbon tax and a number of policies that challenge the status quo.
Freilich, 53, has lived in Vermont since 1992 and moved to Brownsville in the fall of 2016. He ran for U.S. Senate in 2010. Freilich is a captain in the Navy Reserve who works as a doctor at the White River Junction VA Medical Center.
Both Freilich and Mitchell were critical of the size of Welch’s campaign fund.
“Politicians in America are allowed to be corrupt and to be dishonest,” Freilich said. “They don’t have a fiduciary responsibility to the people. (It is the only profession) where it is legal to have a conflict of interest in your work.”
Freilich is no stranger to federal government. His wife works for a government think tank within the Department of Homeland Security arena in Washington, D.C. Freilich said he’s run multimillion-dollar programs for the Navy and is often in Washington, D.C. for his reserve duties.
“We’ve both been in the Federal Government for many years,” said Freilich.
Vermont’s primary election is Aug. 14 and the general election is Nov. 6. May 31 is the filing deadline for candidates.
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