Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott said on Tuesday that he voted for Vice President Harris, arguing he had to “put country over party.”
Scott cast his ballot for the Democratic nominee on Tuesday at a local voting precinct in Berlin, Vt.
“I did some soul searching and thought about a lot of different things … and came to the conclusion that I had to put country over party … and vote for Kamala Harris,” Scott told reporters on Tuesday, according to VTDigger.
The GOP governor said that his vote for Harris is not an endorsement but “more of a vote against [former President] Donald Trump.”
“I know that Donald Trump, from my standpoint, doesn’t have the ability, nor the desire, to unite our country,” Scott said. “Does Kamala Harris have that ability? I don’t know either, but I do know she wants to, and she’ll try, and that’s half the battle.”
Scott made headlines in the last presidential cycle when he shared that he voted for then-Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, breaking with his party while being up for reelection.
The Vermont governor has been critical of the GOP nominee and indicated throughout this year that he would not back Trump’s third campaign. In March, he campaigned for Trump’s former Republican primary rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R).
“The easier route would have been for me just to write somebody in, but that’s not the way I’m built,” Scott told reporters on Tuesday. “I thought the right thing to do, again, as I said four years ago: you have to put country over party.”
