Burlington Mayor
Ten votes, four terms, and a waterfront — how a socialist mayor changed Burlington, Vermont.
The 10-vote victory
On March 3, 1981, Bernie Sanders — running as an Independent, backed by a small citizens’ coalition — challenged five-term Democratic mayor Gordon Paquette of Burlington, Vermont. The initial count had Sanders ahead by 22 votes; after a recount, the margin settled at 10 votes. It was one of the closest mayoral elections in American history, and it made national news: a self-described socialist had taken city hall in Vermont’s largest city.
Four terms (1981–1989)
Sanders was re-elected in 1983, 1985, and 1987, serving four two-year terms. Each re-election widened his margin, and by the mid-1980s his coalition — a mix of students, low-income residents, artists, and progressive professionals — had displaced the Democratic establishment that had run Burlington for decades.
What the administration did
- Waterfront redevelopment. The administration blocked a luxury condominium development on the Lake Champlain waterfront and pushed instead for public access, parks, and mixed-use development — a fight supporters still cite as the defining achievement of his tenure.
- Affordable housing. City government expanded support for community land trusts and tenant protections, responding to gentrification pressures.
- Arts and community. The administration funded community arts programs and neighborhood assemblies, and created the city’s Community and Economic Development Office.
- Tax policy. Sanders’s budgets drew on progressive property-tax measures that supporters described as shifting the burden toward commercial and high-value properties; critics described them as hostile to business.
The national spotlight
As mayor, Sanders endorsed Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988, and traveled to the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua on municipal and fact-finding trips — visits that drew both interest and criticism in the national press. In 1987, U.S. News & World Report named him one of America’s best mayors.
Why it mattered
The Burlington years proved that Sanders could win and govern. When he left office in 1989, he was a known quantity in Vermont politics with a tested grassroots organization — the base from which he won his House seat in 1990.
Source notes
Election figures and tenure details are documented in the official Senate biography and in contemporaneous press coverage cited on the sources page. Characterizations of the administration’s achievements and of critics’ objections are attributed to their sources; this site does not adjudicate them.
Factual baseline: September 2026.