MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Democrat Peter Welch has easily won a fifth term as Vermont's lone representative in the U.S. House, turning aside the second challenge in as many elections from Republican Mark Donka.
Welch, formerly the top Democrat in the state Senate, first won election to Congress in 2006 and now has coasted to re-election four times since then.
In 2012, Welch beat Donka, a conservative Republican and Woodstock police officer, by more than three-to-one.
Donka's positions and concerns — last week his Facebook page linked to an article about socialists in Congress — never caught on in deep-blue Vermont.