After a short hiatus Governor Scott may have figured or simply hoped he could spend the summer back at Thunder Road happily racing his stock car around in circles. Now he may need to spend a little more time thinking about his upcoming reelection campaign as he just got a declared Democratic opponent.

Former Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe (a Democrat appointed by former Gov. Shumlin and retained by Gov. Scott) has declared she will be running for the party nomination to challenge Republican Scott — who has yet to formally say he will run.

“I’m running for governor to take the state in a new direction — to put my experience as a lifelong educator to work and make sure every Vermonter has an equal opportunity to succeed,” she said in a written statement.

SevenDays reports: Holcombe, who has not previously run for public office, was appointed secretary of education by Democratic governor Peter Shumlin in September 2013. When Scott chose to retain her in February 2017, the new GOP governor hailed her “fierce commitment to improving Vermont’s education system,” and she said it was “a privilege and an honor” to serve in his administration.

Those feelings had evidently changed by March 2018, when Scott announced that Holcombe had resigned for “personal” reasons. The outgoing secretary declined repeated interview requests at the time and said only in a letter to colleagues, “It is time to move on.”

Although not a candidate in 2018, Holcombe wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Bennington Banner (and several other newspapers up and down the state) critical of Governor Scott’s “flawed” reelection campaign claim that he avoided $71 million dollars in tax rate increase. Holcombe rebutted Scott’s claim and warned about what she saw as his poor budgeting practices. She closed the piece back then sounding like the candidate she now is: You can’t drive it [state government] like a racecar, unless your goal is to beach on a rock. On the other hand, engaged and measured leadership, basic fairness, and attention to details of policy can yield better solutions. None of us can get everything we want, but if we work together, we can get what we need.

Others who may join the race according to SevenDays include Democratic Attorney General T.J. Donovan, Lt. Governor David Zuckerman, who was elected as a Progressive/Democrat; 2018 Democratic primary candidate Brenda Siegel could run again.

Maybe Holcombe won’t trouble Scott’s summer idyll at Thunder Road racetrack but she got a strategic first-one-in-the-race jump on  his potential  challengers next fall.

See you at the races Phil.