This November, there will be an open Senate election in a state that is over 90% white, over 60% rural, and has only elected one Democratic senator in its 231 year history. It’s also one of the Democrats’ safest elections of the year.

Yes, after over 47 years in the Senate, Vermont’s Patrick Leahy is finally calling it quits and leaving the door open to a new generation of leadership. Well, kind of – Leahy’s likely successor is 75-year-old Peter Welch, a longtime Vermont state lawmaker and the state’s lone congressman since 2007. As we alluded to, Welch would be only the second Democratic senator in Vermont history, a consequence of the now very liberal state’s historic Republican lean (the state didn’t cast any electoral votes for Democratic presidential candidates until 1964, and didn’t do so again until 1992), Leahy’s longevity, and junior Senator Bernie Sanders’ status as an independent. Despite representing the most Democratic state according to Cook’s Partisan Voting Index, Welch is known for crossing the aisle when necessary, working on issues as universal as college affordability (with Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley) and as regionally specific as cheese storage regulations (with, who else, Wisconsin’s then-Congressman Paul Ryan) with his Republican colleagues, and even bucking the party line when his conscience demands it, such as when he voted against funding and arming Syrian rebels.

Welch is used to trouncing the opposition every two years (he hasn’t won less than 64% of the vote since 2008), and 2022 shouldn’t be much different. Welch will face off against U.S. Army veteran Gerald Malloy, who upset the establishment-backed former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan in the Republican primary. A Trump supporter who endorsed a federal abortion ban and says that he “wished” he was at the January 6th Stop the Steal protests, Malloy is a Senate candidate for a state whose most powerful Republican, Governor Phil Scott, voted for Joe Biden and signed a bill codifying abortion rights. It looks even odder when you realize that Liam Madden, the Republican nominee for Welch’s House seat, is actually to the left of most Democrats, supporting a wealth tax, a federal work guarantee, and Modern Monetary Theory. Vermont Republicans: they may not win a lot of statewide races anymore, but they sure aren’t boring!

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