Amanda Janoo

Amanda Janoo was born in Norwich, Vermont, and grew up in Strafford in Orange County. She was homeschooled until sixth grade, then attended the Newton School in Strafford and Hanover High School in New Hampshire, and spent a semester at the John Woolman School, a Quaker boarding school in California.⁠[1][2]

She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at Macalester College in Minnesota, where she studied political science and global political economy and became interested in heterodox economics, and studied at the University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university in Oxford, England, where teaching existed in some form by 1096; it describes itself as the oldest university in the English-speaking world and is organised as a federal system of the university and dozens of self-governing colleges.Open the full entry as an undergraduate. In 2013 she earned a master of philosophy in development studies from the University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a university in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. It gives 1209 as its founding date, is made up of Schools, Faculties, Departments and autonomous Colleges, and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry, where she studied under economist Ha-Joon Chang. She also held a Fulbright research scholarship studying a women’s labor movement in India.⁠[2][1][3]

After Cambridge, Janoo worked with the United Nations and the African Development Bank in Myanmar, Mozambique, Ukraine and South Africa; from 2013 she studied South African manufacturing subsidies with Philipp Neuerburg of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). At UNIDO, initially based in Vienna, Austria, she provided industrial policy support to countries, including work with the government of Myanmar on reducing rural-urban inequality.⁠[2][1]

She spent nearly a decade as an industrial policy and structural transformation specialist at UNIDO, GIZ and the African Development Bank.⁠[3]

Janoo moved back to Vermont permanently in 2018. In 2020 she joined the UK-based Wellbeing Economy Alliance as economics and policy lead, led its “Policy Design Guide” and advised Finland on a 2023 economic action plan. She also helped establish the Wellbeing Economy Alliance of Vermont.⁠[2][1][3]

She has been a Family Economic Security Fellow at New America’s New Practice Lab, supporting state-level coalition building in Vermont and advising U.S. foundations.⁠[3]

She has served on the board of the ACLU of Vermont and on the steering committee of the Fund Vermont’s Future coalition, which advocates changes to the state budget process, also acting as its economic advisor. Her only previous public office was justice of the peace in Burlington.⁠[1][2]

In April 2026 Janoo became the first Democrat to announce a run for governor of Vermont, with priorities including universal primary care, support for small businesses and preparing for federal actions affecting the state. “The economy is here to serve us,” she said. By then her campaign had raised $80,281 and had more than 300 volunteer sign-ups.⁠[1]

On August 11, 2026, she won the Democratic primary for governor, defeating Aly Richards, former CEO of Let’s Grow Kids, by just over 3 percentage points.⁠[2][4][1]

In the general election Janoo challenged Republican Governor Phil Scott, who was seeking a sixth term. She proposed a state-funded universal primary care system, which she estimated would cost at least $322 million a year, paid for by an income surcharge on top earners, and called for higher property taxes on wealthy out-of-staters and higher income taxes on top earners to lower taxes and housing costs for working-class residents.⁠[2][1]

She opposed the Vermont Air National Guard’s F-35 fighter jets, pledging to do “anything I can do legally as governor” to remove them from Vermont’s skies. Her campaign built a volunteer network of about 1,500 people.⁠[2][5]

At about 11 p.m. on November 3, Janoo conceded and congratulated Scott: “I want to congratulate Governor Scott on his victory.” The Associated Press projected Scott the winner; AP data as of November 4 showed Scott with 52.5% of the vote and Janoo with 45.9%.⁠[5][6]