UNH Poll Showing Janoo Up 6 Cuts Scott's Governor Odds 12 Points

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Phil Scott's Lead in the Vermont Governor Race Is Slipping. Here's Why.

Phil Scott's chances of winning a sixth term as Vermont governor are falling. A late-September University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll shows Democratic nominee Amanda Janoo leading the Republican incumbent 49% to 43% among likely voters on the Vermont Governor winner? market, a six-point deficit that has forced prediction markets to reprice a race many assumed was settled.

On Kalshi and PredictIt, Scott's implied probability of winning has fallen from 82% to 71% over three days, a 12-percentage-point slide that is the steepest repricing of his political career. Kalshi currently prices him at 75%, while PredictIt sits at 67%, an eight-point spread that reflects genuine disagreement between platforms about how much weight to assign a single poll.

The timing aligns with the UNH poll's release on September 25 and the subsequent wave of media coverage. What is clear is that traders who had priced Scott as a near-certainty are now asking whether the most durable Republican in America's bluest state can survive a cycle where his own approval rating has dropped to a four-year low of 47%.

The poll is the spark, but the market drop only makes sense once you understand how unusual Scott's political durability has been, and why this moment feels different.

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How Phil Scott Built an "Unbeatable" Reputation in Deep-Blue Vermont

Vermont is a state Joe Biden carried by 35 points in 2020. Democrats hold veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. By every measure of partisan alignment, a Republican should not be able to win statewide office here, let alone do it repeatedly by large margins.

Phil Scott has defied that logic five consecutive times. He won his first gubernatorial race in 2016 by eight points, then expanded his margins: 15 points in 2018, 41 points in 2020, 47 points in 2022. Even in 2024, running during a presidential cycle with elevated Democratic turnout, Scott won by a margin exceeding 50 points, according to his campaign's own characterization of the results.

That record explains why prediction markets kept Scott above 80% well into September 2026 despite Vermont's partisan composition. Traders were not betting on the Republican brand. They were betting on Scott's personal brand: a moderate, pro-choice governor who vetoed assault-weapons legislation, split tickets with Democratic voters, and maintained approval ratings that routinely exceeded 60%.

The erosion of that personal brand is what makes the current repricing rational. Scott's net favorability has narrowed to just +4 in the UNH poll, down from levels that once made him the most popular governor in the country. His 47% approval is the lowest recorded for his tenure. The cross-partisan appeal that powered those landslide margins is weakening at precisely the moment he faces his most credible challenger.

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Are There Polls Showing Amanda Janoo Beating Phil Scott?

Yes. The UNH Survey Center poll released in late September 2026 is the primary, and apparently only, public poll of the general election matchup. It shows Janoo leading Scott 49% to 43% among likely voters. The margin falls within the poll's error range, but the topline result, an incumbent trailing by six points, is what is driving the market adjustment.

UNH's track record in Vermont gubernatorial races is, to put it charitably, poor when it comes to Scott specifically. His campaign manager, Dustin Degree, pointed out that in 2022, UNH predicted a 17-point Scott margin; he won by 47. In 2024, UNH estimated margins of 28 and 39 points in successive polls; Scott won by more than 50. That pattern of underestimating Scott by double digits is the single strongest counterargument to treating this poll as predictive.

Yet the market's reaction is not irrational. Even if you apply UNH's historical bias of 11-plus points in Scott's favor, you get a race that is roughly a toss-up rather than the blowout wins of prior cycles. The underlying conditions are also different this time. Scott's approval sits at 47%, not above 60%. Janoo's net favorability sits at +22, suggesting she enters the race with a warmer reception than previous challengers received. The poll sampled 882 respondents, with a partisan composition (508 Democrats, 258 Republicans, 78 Independents) that Scott's team calls skewed but that roughly mirrors Vermont's voter registration.

The gap between a six-point polling deficit and a 71% market probability is wide. It reflects the market's judgment that one poll from a historically inaccurate pollster in this specific race is not sufficient to override a five-election track record. But the 12-point drop from 82% shows that judgment is no longer unanimous.

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The Case Against Scott: What Would Make the Market Wrong?

For Scott to actually lose, several conditions would need to hold simultaneously, and none of them is implausible.

First, the erosion of his cross-partisan appeal would need to be real, not a polling artifact. If his approval truly sits near 47%, he can no longer rely on the 20-30% of Democrats who voted for him in prior cycles. Vermont's electorate is roughly 47% Democratic, 27% Republican, and 22% Independent, according to state registration data. Scott has always needed a substantial share of Democratic voters to win. If polarization has caught up to Vermont's governorship the way it has consumed every other level of American politics, his margin for error is thin.

Second, Janoo would need to sustain her favorability and mobilize the Democratic base. She won the August 11 primary with 51.4% of the vote against Aly Richards, giving her a clear mandate as the party's standard-bearer. As an economist, she brings a policy-credibility argument that prior Scott challengers lacked. Her +22 net favorability in the UNH poll suggests Vermont voters are open to the alternative.

Third, the national environment would need to remain favorable for Democrats. Vermont is insulated from many national trends, but turnout patterns in a midterm year with an unpopular national Republican brand could further compress Scott's crossover vote.

Scott's campaign is not treating this as a comfortable race. His September 30 announcement of a $31.7 million disaster assistance program for agriculture and timber carries the hallmarks of an incumbent shoring up his rural base heading into the final stretch.

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What Traders Should Watch Before November 3

Live market odds

3 venues

Vermont Governor winner?

Each outcome's chance, from what traders are paying right now on Kalshi, PredictIt and Predict.fun.

Phil Scott (R)In this story

76%

KalshiBest price1.33x75¢Predict.fun1.32x76¢PredictIt1.22x82¢

Amanda Janoo (D)

25%

Predict.funBest price4.00x25¢Kalshi3.85x26¢PredictIt3.85x26¢

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The Vermont Governor winner? market resolves on November 3, 2026, leaving 30 days of trading. The eight-point spread between Kalshi (75%) and PredictIt (67%) signals the market has not settled on a consensus interpretation of this poll. That spread is itself tradeable: if you believe UNH's historical bias applies, Scott is underpriced on PredictIt. If you believe 2026 is structurally different from prior cycles, he may be overpriced on Kalshi.

The next data point matters. A second poll confirming Janoo's lead would likely push Scott below 65%. The absence of additional polling, by contrast, would allow the market to drift back toward historical priors. Scott's campaign is clearly betting on the latter scenario, dismissing the UNH methodology as "statistical malpractice."

The core question this market is pricing is whether Phil Scott's personal brand can still override Vermont's partisan gravity. For five elections, the answer was an emphatic yes. For the first time, prediction markets are assigning a nearly one-in-three chance that the answer is no.