In Tuesday’s voting, incumbent Democrat Mark MacDonald, of Williamstown, lost the Orange District Senate seat to Topsham Republican Larry Hart.

Hart, a former Topsham Selectboard member, won handily, 7,218-5,512, or nearly 55% of the vote total. 

In a phone interview on Wednesday, Hart, 60, said a key to flipping the seat was the time he spent listening to residents while on the campaign trail.

“As politicians, we work for the people,” he said. “I didn’t make them feel like they work for us, and that was the biggest thing.”

Hart, who works in sales at the Bargain Building Products in Fairlee, said ahead of Tuesday’s vote that his top issue was affordability. 

“The cost of living in Vermont has increased because of taxation and the supermajority making mandates and not listening to the people who put them in office,” Hart told the Valley News earlier this fall.

A message left for MacDonald, who served a total of 37 years in the Legislature, on Wednesday was not returned by deadline. He served in the Vermont House from 1983 to 1994, before entering the Senate in 1996. He lost the seat in 2000, and was re-elected in 2002.

MacDonald, 81, suffered a stroke during his 2022 campaign, but went on to win re-election. He has served as vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, and as a member of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy.