Forty-three percent of Vermonters approve of first-term Republican Gov. Phil Scott's job performance, according to a new public opinion poll, while 28 percent disapprove. Scott's Democratic and Republican rivals, meanwhile, are struggling to gain traction ahead of the state's August 14 primary election — and remain largely unknown to those surveyed.

The poll, commissioned by Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS, is the first conducted by in-state media organizations since the 2016 election. For that reason, according to Castleton University professor Rich Clark, it's difficult to determine how and why Scott's popularity has waxed and waned during his first term.

“This is what we miss by not having some regular polling in the state,” said Clark, who ran the Castleton Polling Institute until the university shut it down in March.

The public media poll surveyed 603 Vermonters on landlines and cell phones between July 6 and July 16. Its margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent, though the margin is greater for sub-groups of data, such as political party affiliation. VPR and Vermont PBS hired Clark to craft the questions and analyze the data; New Jersey-based Braun Research made the calls.

The poll suggests that Scott has little to fear in the August primary. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed had never heard of his sole Republican opponent, Springfield grocer Keith Stern. Among Republican voters, 10 percent said they had a favorable opinion of Stern, while 2 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion.

The four Democratic gubernatorial candidates on the ballot are also largely unknown. Fifty-nine percent said they had never heard of former Vermont Electric Cooperative CEO Christine Hallquist. More than 70 percent were unfamiliar with her primary-election rivals: Southern Vermont Dance Festival director Brenda Siegel, Lake Champlain International executive director James Ehlers and 14-year-old Ethan Sonneborn of Bristol.

Updated at 12:20 p.m.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has formally announced that he is running for reelection this fall.

In a press release announcing the decision Monday, the two-term U.S. senator said he would seek another six years in Congress to continue fighting wealth inequality in the country.

“Our struggle to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent — a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice — must continue,” Sanders said. “And that is why I’m running for reelection.”

The candidate said he would formally launch his campaign in June with rallies across Vermont.

According to campaign spokesperson Arianna Jones, Sanders plans to seek the Democratic nomination in Vermont’s August primary. If he wins, she said, he would “respectfully” decline the nomination and run as an independent in the general election. Sanders would, however, accept the endorsement of the Vermont Democratic Party.

Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) reelection campaign brought in more than $1.26 million in the first three months of 2018, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission.

That's more than five times what the senator raised during the same period last year, but it's less than the $1.29 million he collected in the second quarter of 2017 and the $1.95 million he raised in the third quarter of that year.

Sanders, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 1990 and the Senate in 2006, has not said whether he will seek reelection this November. No other contenders had filed reports with the FEC as of Monday afternoon.

The vast majority of Sanders' donations this year came from individual contributors, though the campaign accepted $10,000 from labor and environmental political action committees, such as the Climate Champions PAC and the National Nurses United PAC.

During the same three-month period, Sanders spent nearly $533,000. That left him, at the end of March, with nearly $6.9 million in his Senate reelection fund. But Sanders, who has declined to say whether he would mount a second presidential campaign in 2020, isn't using the money simply to stump in Vermont.