A proud resident of Burlington, Nikhil has taught sociology at the University of Vermont, served as a senior policy advisor on education and children on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee under Chairman Senator Bernie Sanders, and was elected to represent Vermont as a delegate for Kamala Harris to the Democratic National Convention. He graduated with a BA from Goddard College and a MPhil and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Page Intro

Issues

Header

Footer

Our campaign is powered by YOU.Please sign up to knock on doors, make phone calls, write postcards, host a house party, or volunteer in any capacity.<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/01ba473c-c373-4764-a324-549c6eb1e95b/01ba473c-c373-4764-a324-549c6eb1e95b.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C665%2C485&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="Nikhil (far right) marching for voting rights in Selma with John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, and other civil rights leaders" align="center" alignwidth="50" variant="framed">Nikhil (far right) marching for voting rights in Selma with John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, and other civil rights leaders

Get Involved

Long Form

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Nikhil Goyal "has a command of the history of federal, state and local education laws and social programs."</h2><h4 style="text-align: center;">August 2023</h4><img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/2a1ea2ac-e68a-4973-baef-9eb9fbaabf62/2a1ea2ac-e68a-4973-baef-9eb9fbaabf62.png?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C174%2C600%2C117&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="center" alignwidth="25" variant="base">

Red Box

Donate

<h2>Announcement Title</h2>Put your announcement description here.

Announcement

Headline Text Here

<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/e3b1dec8-ff09-4185-81f1-32e16c2bdc4d/e3b1dec8-ff09-4185-81f1-32e16c2bdc4d.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C17%2C2987%2C1921&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="left" alignwidth="35" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed"><h4>The son of Indian immigrants, Nikhil is a sociologist, educator, and policymaker who lives in Burlington.</h4><h4>Lauded by the New York Times for his “command of . . . federal, state, and local education laws, and social programs,” he brings deep policy expertise, progressive values, and a strong record of fighting for children, families, and public schools in Vermont.</h4><h4>Nikhil is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Vermont, where he conducts research on juvenile justice for his next book under contract with Harvard University Press. He has taught sociology at the University of Vermont, Wesleyan University, and New York University.&nbsp;</h4><img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/e9e08613-989e-4f28-8e13-a01e808e991c/e9e08613-989e-4f28-8e13-a01e808e991c.png?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C103%2C3024%2C1513&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="right" alignwidth="50" variant="framed"><h4>Nikhil has influenced policy at the state and federal levels. He was one of the leaders of the coalition that opposed the passage of Act 73, the new education reform law. As a sociologist and member of Vermont School Workers United, he spoke at and helped organize more than a dozen town halls and rallies from Burlington to Westford to Hardwick.</h4><h4>In partnership with ACLU Vermont, Nikhil led a coalition of civil rights organizations and former officials from the Biden, Clinton, and Carter administrations to support and strengthen Vermont’s Raise the Age juvenile justice law that has shown clear success in rehabilitating youth and helping them desist from crime.</h4><h4>From 2021 to 2023, Nikhil served as senior policy advisor on education and children on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.</h4><img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/7eb8c356-1133-4d6f-80b5-3341a640de0a/7eb8c356-1133-4d6f-80b5-3341a640de0a.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=15%2C106%2C1101%2C923&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="left" alignwidth="40" variant="framed"><h4>In 2024, he was elected by Vermont Democrats to serve as a national delegate for Kamala Harris to the Democratic National Convention.</h4><h4>Nikhil is the author of Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty (Metropolitan/Macmillan), which was named A Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker, won the Media for a Just Society Book Award, and was touted by the Washington Post: “the stories of these children will change the way you think about poverty.”</h4><img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/8d5585ec-d754-4049-ad82-88a294413d92/8d5585ec-d754-4049-ad82-88a294413d92.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=645%2C88%2C5355%2C4697&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="right" alignwidth="37" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed"><h4>He earned his BA at Goddard College and MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge. He was also a Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace at Middlebury College.</h4><h4>Nikhil is running as a Democratic/Progressive candidate and will seek the nominations of both parties. If elected, he will join the Senate Democratic Caucus.&nbsp;</h4>

Text

Events Post

I look forward to speaking with you.-Nikhil<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/2af14991-1295-46df-a3b2-f8b9f877ad4e/2af14991-1295-46df-a3b2-f8b9f877ad4e.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C860%2C2394%2C2209&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="center" alignwidth="50" variant="framed">

I'd love to hear from you.

News Post

Issues Post

Read below for some of our top priorities

A Vermont We Can Afford

Keep Public Dollars in Public Schools

Stop Hospitals from Price-Gouging Patients

Establish Universal Primary Care

Build Affordable Housing

Protect Every Member of Our Community

<h4>Property taxes, health care costs, the rent, mortgages, and energy bills are out of control. Our public schools are under attack. Our immigrant neighbors are being kidnapped on our streets.</h4><h4>It's time to fight for an agenda that makes life affordable and delivers economic security and dignity for every Vermonter.</h4>

Priorities List

Contact

Your contributions help us reach more voters.

No Corporate PAC $. 100% People Powered.

Sign up for updates

I'm running for Vermont State Senate in Chittenden-Central to make sure no Vermonter is priced out.

Click this text to edit, or click this block to show more options on the sidebar.

Support Our Campaign!

<h3>Contribute now to support our campaign!</h3>

Landing Popup

Endorsements

Volunteer

Endorsements

Former Lieutenant governor

Doug Racine

Former state representative

Mary Sullivan

resident of williston

Wilmer Chavarria

former secretary of state and state representative

Don Hooper

state representative

Gayle Pezzo

Kate McCann

former state representative

Bob Stannard

writer and filmmaker

Melinda Moulton

Co-founder of ben &amp; jerry's

Jerry Greenfield

People With Bios

Events

News

Meet Nikhil

About

Issues

Issues

Contact

Sociologist and policymaker Nikhil Goyal is running for Vermont State Senate. 

Nikhil Goyal for Vermont State Senate

Home

Volunteer

Meet Nikhil

If you want to link an external news source, use the “link” icons on the sidebar. Anything linked externally will automatically be listed as “news” and any article you create on the site itself will automatically be listed as a “press release.”

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has b

Headline goes here

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. Many are struggling to make ends meet amid rising health care costs, draconian Trump tariffs, and growing public safety issues.&nbsp;Nikhil’s health care proposals will help reduce costs for employers. He supports strengthening procurement policies to support local economies and making it easier for entrepreneurs to get capital to start businesses.&nbsp;He is also a strong critic of Amazon and other corporations that suppress competition and undermine small businesses and entrepreneurs.&nbsp;

Write a little something about your issue here. You can only write about a paragraph here, but you can turn on an option to create full issues pages on the options sidebar of the issues page.

Support Our Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs

Growing rents and mortgages are making life too expensive. Nikhil believes that we cannot solve our health care, property tax, and workforce challenges without solving housing affordability. More than half of renters and nearly a quarter of homeowners in Chittenden County are cost burdened. Homelessness has more than doubled in the past few years. Vermont needs to create at least 24,000 new homes to keep up with demand. The simple truth is that we need to build many more homes to control rents, expand homeownership, and make it easier for young people to raise a family and seniors to downsize and retire with dignity.We need both public and market-oriented solutions to the housing crisis. Nikhil fights to build all types of affordable housing in our downtowns to create dense, walkable neighborhoods. The longtime efforts of the Champlain Housing Trust in creating publicly-subsidized permanently affordable housing is an excellent model for our state. We should explore other state investments in social housing, similar to the <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/a-new-vision-for-social-housing-in-america/">Vienna</a> model.&nbsp;Nikhil supports reforms to the permit review process to speed up and reduce the costs of housing development while protecting the natural environment and character of Vermont.&nbsp;Nikhil supports more funding for home repair programs that help low- and middle-income homeowners weatherize, modernize, and rehabilitate their homes for energy efficiency.&nbsp;Burlington, Winooski, and Essex residents overwhelmingly approved just cause evictions ballot measures. This prevents tenants from being evicted for “no cause,” while still allowing landlords to evict tenants who do not pay their rent and violate their leases. Governor Phil Scott vetoed the charter change. As your State Senator, Nikhil will fight to enact just cause eviction policy.Nikhil supports the University of Vermont Student Tenant Union, which has been working tirelessly to expose and improve deplorable conditions in student accommodations and find solutions to the growing housing crisis in Burlington. UVM must rehabilitate and modernize student housing and follow the city housing code. Every UVM student deserves safe, accessible, and dignified housing.

Build Affordable Housing and Protect Tenants

If you want to link an external news source, use the “link” icons on the sidebar. Anything linked externally will automatically be listed <a target="_blank" href="">as “new</a>s” and any article you create on the site itself will automatically be listed as a “press release.”

<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/344a6853-d37d-48a3-958d-e2c4a8773b53/344a6853-d37d-48a3-958d-e2c4a8773b53.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C3600%2C2400&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="left" alignwidth="40" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed">Nikhil is the proud son of Indian immigrants who came to this country to pursue the American Dream. He loves that Vermont is home to so many immigrants and refugees who contribute to our economy and way of life.&nbsp;Abolishing ICE is the conservative position. It is time to prosecute ICE. When Mohsen and Rümeysa and immigrant farmworkers and construction workers were kidnapped by ICE, he spoke up at rallies in their defense.<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/60d3fe06-7762-4111-8a0e-fcd43d3530f8/60d3fe06-7762-4111-8a0e-fcd43d3530f8.png?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C71%2C2960%2C1603&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="right" alignwidth="45" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed">When the Trump administration announced a new ICE surveillance center in Williston, he joined fellow Vermonters to protest. He has fought against deportations, family separation, and human rights abuses throughout his career.As your State Senator, Nikhil will use his platform and voice to stand up for the safety and dignity of immigrants and accompany them to their court hearings and check-ins with ICE.<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/4d49ed61-8e8e-4330-aab0-c45893ca9ff4/4d49ed61-8e8e-4330-aab0-c45893ca9ff4.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C840%2C560&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="center" alignwidth="40" variant="framed">

Defend Our Immigrant Neighbors

We deserve to walk down the street without fear of harassment or bodily harm. As a criminal justice expert and prison educator, Nikhil has dedicated his career to strengthening public safety and expanding educational and economic opportunities that address the root causes of crime.&nbsp;<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/4f2038e4-64ad-4eb9-81e2-9fb4f8b45b1a/4f2038e4-64ad-4eb9-81e2-9fb4f8b45b1a.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=302%2C147%2C1610%2C1218&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="left" alignwidth="40" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed">Nikhil taught sociology classes for incarcerated men at a medium-security prison in New York State through New York University’s Prison Education Program. He strongly supports and will work to expand the Vermont Corrections Post-Secondary Education Initiative, which provides tuition-free community college to incarcerated students and correctional staff in our state prisons and extends the benefit to children and spouses of correctional staff. College-in-prison is one of the most effective programs to reduce recidivism and provide people leaving from prison with the credentials and skills necessary to reintegrate, find a job, and desist from crime.&nbsp;A small minority of people are committing the vast majority of crimes, and many of them are experiencing homelessness, substance abuse, and mental illness. Our small businesses are reeling from exploding rates of retail theft and quality-of-life offenses. This cannot go on.&nbsp;Nikhil has a smart-on-crime plan to make our communities safer:<ul><li>The new Chittenden County Community Accountability Court designed to reduce the court backlog and deliver speedy justice is long overdue.</li><li>Target interventions and resources at repeat offenders. Some chronic offenders who are repeatedly harming themselves or the safety of the public and refusing treatment, may need to be held in secure confinement. That should be the last resort, because incarceration is expensive and ineffective at deterring crime. &nbsp;</li><li>Expand our Raise the Age law to emerging young adults so more youth can get rehabilitative treatment, such as restorative justice, in the juvenile system. One study found that the juvenile system's recidivism rate was nearly half of that of the adult system. We must also finally provide the Department for Children and Families with adequate resources and staffing to carry out this important work.&nbsp;</li><li>Implement cognitive behavioral therapy, functional family therapy, and multisystemic therapy—all evidence-based treatment options found to significantly reduce crime and far cheaper than throwing a person in jail or prison. Expanding summer, afterschool, and jobs programs and keeping school buildings open for activities during the evening and weekend hours are also essential.&nbsp;</li><li>Establish an overdose prevention center. Once it is set up, people can consume illicit drugs safely under the supervision of trained medical staff. If they consume drugs anywhere else in public, they should face swift and sharp consequences. Our children deserve to play in City Hall Park without fear of getting pricked by a needle.&nbsp;</li><li>Expand treatment for substance use disorder, particularly long-term care.&nbsp;</li><li>Enact additional gun-safety measures, such as banning assault-style weapons as well as banning firearms in bars.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Strengthen Public Safety and Tackle Gun Violence

Climate change poses an existential threat to all life on this planet, and we must respond decisively.We all deserve clean air and water and a healthy, habitable planet. The effort to clean up Lake Champlain has been ongoing for decades, and Nikhil supports bold action to reduce phosphorous pollution in order to improve water quality, health, and tourism.&nbsp;We spend more than $2 billion annually on fossil fuels—more than 75 percent of which leaves the Vermont economy.By investing in electrification, energy efficiency, battery storage, weatherization, electric vehicle chargers, and restoring wetlands, we can keep more of our dollars in the Vermont economy, create thousands of living-wage jobs, cut energy bills, improve flood resilience, and make progress on our climate goals.&nbsp;Nikhil calls on all new commercial buildings to be solar-ready and new residential and commercial buildings with parking to include electric vehicle charging stations.Nikhil supports bringing catamounts back to Vermont and working towards creating a national park in the state to ensure permanent conservation of land.

Protect Our Environment

Vermonters are paying the highest health care premiums in the country. Health care costs in school budgets are the single biggest driver of skyrocketing property taxes. It’s only going to get worse with the Trump administration’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill. The legislation is throwing some 45,000 Vermonters off of Medicaid and more than doubling premiums for 30,000 Vermonters. This is an absolute catastrophe for our hospitals, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), Planned Parenthood clinics, and health care workforce, and it is time to fight back.Nikhil fights for property tax relief by curbing runaway health care spending. Patients at the University of Vermont Medical Center are being charged thousands of dollars more for care than patients at nearby hospitals, while health care executives are making millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses. This must end. Nikhil has been a champion of reference-based pricing and will work to ensure the legislation is a success.&nbsp;<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/6a4cafd0-39e6-4677-8d5c-037a33718711/6a4cafd0-39e6-4677-8d5c-037a33718711.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C5184%2C3456&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="left" alignwidth="40" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed">Health care should be a universal, public good guaranteed for every American. We deserve a federal Medicare for All, single-payer, universal health care system with zero copays, premiums, and deductibles, but we need not wait for Washington to make structural changes to Vermont’s health care system. Nikhil will fight for universal, publicly-funded primary care for all Vermonters as a first step in creating universal health care for all Vermonters. This includes mental health and substance abuse treatment as well as community nurses in every town. By removing the unnecessary and costly insurance middleman, this program will cut the cost of health care, reduce the risk of diseases and disabilities, improve health outcomes and life expectancy, and save lives.&nbsp;Nikhil also fights to protect our FQHCs and make investments in community-based care and wraparound health supports in public schools and child care centers.&nbsp;He also fights to crack down on price-gouging, protect Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights, expand pipelines into nursing and other critical fields, improve working conditions for staff, ban private equity from buying up nursing homes, and hold the UVM Health Network accountable to the mission of high-quality, affordable health care for all patients.&nbsp;

Write a little something about your issue here. You can only write about a paragraph here, but you can turn on an option to create full issues pages on the options sidebar of the issues page.

Write a short blurb about an issue your campaign is highlighting. Try to keep the text a similar size between the various issue blurbs.

Universal Health Care for Vermonters

In 2024, Vermont passed a ban on cellphones in schools. This was a crucial first step. Social media is a public health emergency. Unaccountable tech companies are exploiting our children for profit and driving them to self-harm, depression, suicide, and other mental health challenges. Nikhil calls on Vermont to impose a ban on social media for children under the age of 16, following the lead of Australia. It’s time to take back control for the sake of our children’s health and well-being.&nbsp;Nikhil supports a moratorium on new data centers in Vermont. We need to enact clear guardrails for artificial intelligence that protect workers, students, power grids, and the public at large.

Ban Social Media for Kids

As an educator, policymaker, and author, Nikhil has been fighting for public education his entire career. He opposed the passage of Vermont's new education reform law, Act 73, which is designed to take millions of dollars out of the Burlington, Winooski, and Essex schools. There is no empirical evidence these reforms will reduce property taxes or improve our schools.&nbsp;<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/044df169-907f-4b31-8dbf-8651cd001584/044df169-907f-4b31-8dbf-8651cd001584.heic?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=96%2C160%2C2372%2C2009&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="Nikhil with Vermont-NEA President Don Tinney" align="left" alignwidth="50" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed">Nikhil with Vermont-NEA President Don TinneyNikhil supports the recommendations of the School District Redistricting Task Force to reduce costs: voluntary district mergers and shared services such as transportation and special education.&nbsp;Public dollars going to private schools, especially discriminatory religious schools, has grown nearly 90 percent since 2009. Nikhil fights to keep public dollars in public schools, protect universal, free school meals, make investments in community schools and health and social supports that ensure children’s basic needs are met, and make nature-based, outdoor education a universal experience for our children.In recent years, Vermont has made historic investments in child care. Nikhil is a champion of universal child care.The Legislature has taken some steps to change the property tax classification for second homes. Nikhil strongly supports taxing second homes more to help reduce homestead property taxes.<img src="https://run.imgix.net/44dc9aaf-252e-4685-9f6e-bd0e5260567c/b45e5674-a2ef-4e65-98fa-f6c1865077ee/b45e5674-a2ef-4e65-98fa-f6c1865077ee.png?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C1720%2C976&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="center" alignwidth="30" variant="framed">

Write a little something about your issue here. You can only write about a paragraph here, but you can turn on an option to create full issues pages on the options sidebar of the issues page.

Protect and Strengthen Public Schools&nbsp;

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

firstName

lastName

phoneNumber

zipOrPostalCode

email

Event title here

Green Mountain Transit is facing a major fiscal crisis, forcing the agency to reduce services. As your State Senator, Nikhil will work with lawmakers to create a sustainable funding plan for public transit. Nikhil will also seek to expand car-sharing programs to reduce car dependence.&nbsp;Nikhil believes we need to expand our political imagination of what is possible. He fights to restore passenger rail service from Burlington to Montreal to drive economic development and tourism and will work with federal, state, and local partners on a plan of action.

Support Public Transit

Vermont is one of the oldest states in the nation. According to a <a href="https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/default/files/document/hsi-factsheet-healthy-aging-in-vermont.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">recent brief</a>, "nearly one in three Vermont residents are age 60 or older." And we're aging fast.Many older Vermonters are enduring economic hardship, health challenges, hunger, and social isolation and loneliness. Those who live on a fixed income are often struggling to afford the rent, mortgage payments, energy bills, health insurance, and prescription drugs.Our older Vermonters deserve to retire with dignity. Nikhil will always defend Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and support federal efforts to expand these programs.My affordability agenda champions the needs of older Vermonters. For example, fixing the housing crisis will allow older Vermonters to downsize into affordable houses and apartments, freeing up housing for families.Nikhil is also a strong supporter of intergenerational child and adult care centers and has served on the board of Generations Vermont, which is working to establish such a program in central Vermont.

Dignity for Older Vermonters

Sociology professor and policymaker Nikhil Goyal is running for Vermont State Senate to make sure no Vermonter is priced out.