Ledbetter, 62, a Winooski resident for the past 30 years, is running as a Democrat. He said his decades on camera will make him useful to a body that is losing several members to retirement this year. He retired from “Vermont This Week” last year and NBC5 in January.
“I have a lot of institutional memory from my career that I think will be helpful in the Senate, particularly with so many new lawmakers coming to the Statehouse,” he said on Friday after announcing his run. He added that he thinks he can bring consensus to the political process, where a democratic supermajority is now in a position to regularly override gubernatorial vetoes.
“Journalists like to listen more than talk, and we’re not afraid of competing ideas,” Ledbetter said. “That will make me adept at trying to be a consensus builder.”
“There is no perfect time to run,” Stewart said of campaigning against three incumbents instead of waiting for a seat to open up. Working journalists generally can’t run for office due to professional conflicts of interest. Now retired, Ledbetter finally has an opportunity and time to run, he said.
“I’m very concerned about the continuing housing crisis, which I think threatens to displace a generation of young Vermonters and lower-income people,” he said.
He described himself as a “pragmatic Democrat” who is liberal on issues such as civil rights, women’s rights and LGBTQ matters.
Stewart’s family was living in Bronxville, N.Y., when he was born and moved to Vermont when he was 8. He attended high school at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, then graduated from the University of Vermont before joining NBC5 in 1984.
He lives with his partner of 20 years, who recently retired from an administration job at Dartmouth College.
“He said to me last week, ‘Look, if you want to do this, go for it, but it’s really up to you to make the final decision,’” Ledbetter said.
Ledbetter’s father, a former Vermont commissioner of banking, insurance and securities also named Stewart Ledbetter, ran as a Republican against senator Patrick Leahy in 1980 and was narrowly defeated.
In a phone call on Friday, Leahy, the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Vermont, called the younger Ledbetter “a good friend” and said he was sure his skills as a journalist would translate well to the Vermont Senate. Leahy retired in 2023 after 48 years in the U.S. Senate.
“He’s a man of integrity,” Leahy said of Ledbetter. “Whether he was reporting on Republicans or Democrats, it was all done professionally; you never saw any bias.”
John Tracy, a former Democratic lawmaker who became Leahy’s state director in 2011, will be Ledbetter’s campaign treasurer. Ledbetter said he’ll release the names of other supporters next week.
Correction, May 18, 2024: A previous version of this story misstated the length of Ledbetter’s tenure on “Vermont This Week.”
This article appears in May 15-21, 2024.
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