All five Progressive candidates for statewide office have withdrawn their candidacies — and it's not actually surprising news.
Vermont election law prohibits a candidate from running in two different major party primaries — so an individual candidate can't seek both the Democratic and Progressive nominations.
Josh Wronski is executive director of the Vermont Progressive Party. He says by having their candidates withdraw, the party can then support the winning Democratic candidate in a race — allowing them to run as a Democrat/Progressive on the November ballot.
"That's the best way we can kind of engage in this fusion strategy that we found in Vermont at the statewide level," Wronski said. "Again, don't love the laws as they are written, but you know, they are the laws."
Wronski says the Progressive Party will now support the Democratic nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and auditor as so-called "fusion" candidates.
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