By Jim Sabataso
Staff Writer
Molly Gray wants to keep a Democrat in the lieutenant governor’s seat.
In her first run for public office, Gray, 36, has gained considerable momentum among Democratic voters heading into November.
Gray dominated her primary challengers last month taking almost 44% of the vote, besting a field that included Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, former gubernatorial candidate Brenda Siegel and Sen. Debbie Ingram, D-Chittenden.
Heading into a general election contest against Republican candidate Scott Milne, she seems to be keeping that momentum. According to campaign finance disclosures filed Oct. 1 with the secretary of state’s office, Gray has, to date, received more than $350,000 in contributions and spent more than $260,000. By comparison, Milne has received roughly $216,000 in contributions and spent a little more than $200,000 to date.
But despite her sizable war chest, Milne is nipping at Gray’s heels among potential voters. A recent Vermont Public Radio/Vermont PBS poll shows Gray leading with 35% to Milne’s 31% with 24% of saying they are undecided.
Born and raised in Newbury, Gray traveled far from the family farm before returning to Vermont where she now works as assistant attorney general in the criminal division.
Following college, Gray worked as a congressional aide for Rep. Peter Welch before taking a job with the Red Cross where she worked on humanitarian issues around the globe.
After graduating from Vermont Law School, she clerked for Judge Peter W. Hall in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
She then went to work for a Swiss-based international human rights nonprofit that oversaw private security contractors in East Africa, Nigeria and Iraq until she returned to Vermont to work in the attorney general’s office in 2018.
Gray said her global experience combined with her rural Vermont roots suit her well for the job of lieutenant governor.
“I feel like I have the diversity of experience both as a lifelong Vermonter and as someone who’s worked in crisis, who’s worked to promote the safety and well being of our communities,” she said in a recent interview.
During the primary, Gray was dogged by questions about her eligibility to run for office based on state residency requirements.
Beginning in early 2017, Gray lived in Switzerland for about 15 months while she worked for a human rights nonprofit.
According to the Vermont Constitution, “No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor or Lieutenant-Governor until the person shall have resided in this State four years next preceding the day of election.”
Throughout the primary, Gray maintained that she was still a state resident during this period, explaining that her time abroad was temporary, and she retained a Vermont driver’s license, home address, bank account and phone number the entire time.
“As I said during the primary, and I’ll say it again, I wouldn’t be running if I wasn’t eligible,” she said.
Gray’s voting record has been another point of contention for critics. She did not vote in four elections between 2008 and 2018.
“With regards my voting history, I think I made some mistakes in my 20s, and I’m not proud of the fact that I didn’t consistently vote,” she said. “But in this moment moving forward and since 2016, I have been a regular voter and promoting access to voting in Vermont today.”
But with the race tightening and both campaigns trading barbs in the media and on the debate stage in recent weeks, Gray’s voting record remains a topic of discussion.
In a recent debate, Milne pressed Gray on her spotty voting record. While she once again owned her past mistakes, she went on to say that she voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, which contradicted her previous statements. A subsequent fact check by VTDigger revealed Gray did attempt to vote via absentee ballot in 2016, but was unsuccessful.
Looking at the issues, Gray cited the state’s demographic woes as a major reason she chose to run.
She said Vermont is currently at a crossroads, a fact that the coronavirus pandemic has only helped to underscore by laying bare inequities and structural flaws that have gone unaddressed.
“I see this as a crossroads of solving our demographic crisis, a crossroads in recovering stronger from COVID-19,” Gray said. “And in our response, making really strategic investments that set us up for a more resilient, equitable, economically viable and sustainable future.”
“We have a majority of counties in Vermont facing more deaths than births and a real inability to keep a generation here or, in my case, draw a generation back,” she said referring to Vermonters in their 20s, 30s and 40s who have left the state for better opportunities.
If elected, Gray said she would use the office of lieutenant governor to address “the constellation of challenges and opportunities that will make it possible for a generation to live here.”
“This generation wants to come home to have their children in the communities where they grew up, and at this point, what we continue to see is that that generation struggles to figure out how to make it work,” Gray said, citing the lack of affordable child care, access to reliable broadband and paid family and medical leave.
Gray said in addition to drawing people back, the state should focus on growing opportunities for the generation currently graduating high school.
“We have the highest high school graduation rate in the country yet 41% of our graduates don’t go on to any additional training,” she said, noting state’s job recruitment and retention challenges.
She said the state needs to create a talent pipeline that focuses on training and skill development so employers have a talent pool to recruit from.
Gray called racial equity “the other crossroads” Vermont is facing.
“There’s justifiable social unrest nationally. There’s justifiable social unrest right here in Vermont, in our communities,” she said, explaining that she believes the office of the lieutenant governor office can be a “bully pulpit” in this moment.
“Use the office to help create avenues of further accountability, be it through criminal justice reform or accountability in cases where we see discrimination occurring and access to housing, access to education, access to health care, access to employment,” she said.
Further, she wants to make sure the right people are at the table as the state begins to figure out how to reform social support structures and address systemic racism.
“I think if we have the same continue to have the same voices, we’re going to continue to see the same outcomes,” she said, adding that, “as a human rights lawyer and assistant attorney general, I feel well equipped to be part of that push.”
“We’re at a reflection point. We have to listen, we have to learn but most importantly, we have to act as a state,” she said.
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