In the leadup to Vermont’s 2026 gubernatorial election, which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Nov. 3, economist and Strafford native Amanda Janoo has thrown her hat into the race for governor, seeking to unseat Republican incumbent Phil Scott. Janoo, who announced her Democratic campaign in her hometown of Strafford, embarked on a 14 county campaign tour which included a stop at Brattleboro’s Brooks Memorial Library on Saturday, March 21.
The bid for governor marks Janoo’s first venture into the electoral arena, despite hailing from a lengthy career which focused on developing economic strategies and progress goals for governments and communities both domestically and abroad.
Janoo graduated from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., before becoming a Fulbright Researcher, and studying development economics at Cambridge University. She cites her educational opportunities as a driving factor behind her perspective on economics, and the relationship between economies and community wellbeing.
For Janoo, transitioning away from a trickle-down economic approach toward a structure that centers the goals and wellness of local communities is at the heart of her vision for the state.
“I received a really great education that I think prepared me for a lot in my life, and was blessed with the chance to study with world renowned economists. To me, the standard way of thinking about the economy is kind of absurd,” said Janoo.
“A lot of it is this idea that the economy is governed by its own natural laws, not by us, and we should just trust that if the government takes a hands-off approach and leaves the economy to its own devices, that big corporations and investors will generate wealth that will trickle down to everyone’s benefit. I did not think that was a good idea, and more of a recipe for concentrated power,” added Janoo.
Janoo soon found herself working internationally with the United Nations (U.N.) on industrial policy, which she said is “old school developmental policy, which focuses on the idea that a government is supposed to protect and promote their own domestic industries, or specific sectors in order to transform their economies in line with their development goals.”
Over the course of her U.N. career, Janoo assisted governments and communities with defining socioeconomic goals.
“It was things like employment generation, inequality reduction, more equity and diversification and resilience. Some of that passion was also supporting countries to break out of colonial trading patterns, where they were stuck in really low value-added, like agricultural or minerals, and help them to make more of their own things,” said Janoo.
“Through that process, I learned that in order to understand which types of economic activities you want to protect and promote, you have to know what the goal is. That really matters because, as an example if it is Myanmar, and their goal is rural inequality reduction, they really wanted to focus on rural, small cooperatives, informal firms and support with more broad based equitable development. On the other hand, if the goal is resiliency, it is more about how to use the resources you have in order to create more domestically embedded firms,” added Janoo.
In 2018, during the first Trump Administration, Janoo felt a calling to return to Vermont, having been inspired by a drive to serve the state that built her, and inspiration from the lyrics of a Graham Nash song.
“At the time, I was living in Thailand and had this wonderful quality of life. There was this lyric in a Graham Nash song about being where you want to be, but not where you belong,” said Janoo.
“Coming back, one of the things that was really clear to me was that both in Vermont and nationally, so much of this trickle-down economic logic had led to extreme inequality and concentrations of power. The way that it is manifesting in Vermont is this cost-of-living crisis, including the rising cost of healthcare, as well as housing, where I believe it’s about 92 percent of Vermonters who are not even eligible for a loan for the average house price,” said Janoo.
“So much of what I love about Vermont, our communities and small businesses, are being hollowed out and stretched to the maximum,” she added.
After returning to Vermont, Janoo co-founded a Vermont affiliate of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, where she continued to work with communities and governments to foster socially-conscious economic systems, in addition to serving on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Vermont.
Establishing strategic goals and a vision for Vermont’s future is part of Janoo’s economic plan, including a process to increase the influence of the state’s town meetings, and encouraging local governmental influence over how defined goals are achieved. Part of Janoo’s plan for goal-oriented accountability would require major investment and policy proposals to prove that they contribute to key goals established through the democratic process.
In order to encourage affordable housing in Vermont, Janoo plans to discourage rising housing costs by limiting speculative investment and corporate ownership, and taxing high-value, vacant, and speculative properties at a higher rate. She intends to stabilize housing costs by distributing added revenue for these properties into a statewide affordable housing trust fund.
“If we start with the orientation point of community, it is really important that we prioritize the people who are going to be living here all of the time, not just people who are using this place as a vacation home. You can generate a lot of revenue for the state by increasing taxes on these properties that are not primary residences,” she.
“The idea is to create a new fund that would support through taxation of vacant homes and these high-value second homes, and we would have a lot of revenue to create a statewide housing trust, so that more houses are permanently affordable to help make it easier for things like cooperative buying,” said Janoo.
She said her housing plan could encourage home construction in the state.
“I know that we need more houses, especially smaller homes that can suit older folks who want to transition into smaller units, as well as single folks who do not need a huge home. Being able to provide building loans and support for actual Vermonters, as opposed to large contractors who are going to build homes and sell them back to us at market rate,” said Janoo.
If elected as governor, Janoo would disrupt an incumbency existing for nearly a decade. Gov. Phil Scott, who was first elected in 2016 and has held a stronghold over the office, consistently ranks as the most popular governor in all 50 states, according to approval surveys from Morning Consult.
Excluding his debut 2016 gubernatorial campaign, where his Democratic opponent Sue Minter received 44.17 percent of the vote, and his following 2018 reelection campaign, where challenger Christine Hallquist received 40.25 percent of the vote, no challenger has risen above 28 percent against Scott’s voteshare.
Janoo said that Vermont’s future relies on moving past policies that prioritize out-of-state investment under current leadership.
“We have had a governor for almost 10 years that follows a standard economic strategy of attracting more people to come in from the outside and how do we get more outside investment. The search for outside sources of our development and prosperity, as opposed to starting with what we have here, and a focus on what we can foster and nurture to build broad-based prosperity,” said Janoo.
“That is so important right now, with so much federal craziness, that we ensure that every Vermonter feels safe and secure, so that we can get to the really hard work of protecting democracy,” she added.
Janoo said that she recognizes the challenging road to election day, but wishes to embrace the challenges in order to deliver the change that she feels is necessary.
“My dad, who used to work for the United States Army Corps of Engineers, taught me this saying from World War II, about the difficult we do now, the impossible will take some time. I know that this is going to be a difficult race, and I think that this is the moment where we need to be doing difficult things. I am feeling called, and know that this is something I can do for my community and give back,” said Janoo.
“People are feeling this managed decline, with things getting stagnant, not getting better, and a lot of feelings of hopelessness. Being on the statewide tour that I have been on, there has been such an enthusiasm because people are feeling like there is something to be proactive about, instead of just reactive. There is a way where we can build concrete, actual solutions to the day-to-day problems our state is facing, and ways for us to not only navigate this time, but also come out the other side better,” added Janoo.
More information about Amanda Janoo’s gubernatorial campaign can be found on her official campaign website at https://www.janooforvt.com/.
This candidate spotlight is not intended to imply endorsement of any public official or candidate from The Brattleboro Reformer, or Vermont News and Media, LLC.