A former Middlebury Selectboard member became the first person to announce a run for governor this year.
Esther Charlestin told a small gathering of supporters on the Statehouse steps on Friday that she moved to Vermont to find a better life for her family but now sees that future imperiled by a housing crisis and climate change.
“The Vermont I want to see, I can’t imagine right now,” Charlestin said. “I’m running for the Vermont 20 years from now, and it starts now. It starts today.”
Charlestin, who grew up in Bridgeport, Conn., introduced herself as the daughter of Haitian immigrants, the oldest of five children and the “mother of two beautiful souls.”
“And I am your next governor!” she declared confidently.
Charlestin, 33, moved to Vermont in 2019 with her two young children, seeking a fresh start after separating from her spouse. She took a job as a residence director at Middlebury College and later became the first dean of climate and culture at Middlebury Union Middle School in 2022. She stepped down in September after what she said were episodes of overt racism.
She has since remarried and opened her own consulting firm, she said. She has firsthand experience with the housing crisis, having been forced to leave her post on the Middlebury Selectboard when she couldn’t find housing, she said.
She called that period a “hard lesson” and “scary.”
“It doesn’t matter who you are, it affects all,” she said of the housing crisis.
She said she was grateful for the support she received from many people to help her find new housing in the town.
“For eight weeks, it took a village to help me and my family,” she said.
Charlestin has master’s degrees in communications and teaching and has worked at universities in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Asked what she would say to voters concerned that she doesn’t have any professional experience in state government, Charlestin, after a long pause, returned to her message of community.
“The good news is, being governor, you’re not governor by yourself. It takes a village,” she said.
One of those in her camp is former representative Kiah Morris, who was the only Black woman in the state legislature when she stepped down in 2018, citing racial threats against her family.
Morris called Charlestin “a new option” and “an alternative” and “a path forward to help built a brighter, stronger Vermont,” a path that she said has often been blocked by political “roadblocks.”
Charlestin’s campaign is not a critique of the hardworking people in state government trying to find solutions, she said.
“It’s a recognition that the leadership has been lacking,” Morris said
By any measure, Charlestin faces an uphill battle, both to win the Democratic nomination for governor and to topple Phil Scott, the most popular Republican governor in the nation, should he run for a fifth term.
Other Democrats mentioned as possible challengers include Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, who is not running for reelection and is exploring a run for statewide office.
This article appears in Dec 27, 2023 – Jan 9, 2024.
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