Peter Welch
Democrat · VT · U.S. Senate
Bio
Peter Francis Welch is an American lawyer and politician serving since 2023 as the junior United States senator from Vermont. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for Vermont's at-large congressional district from 2007 to 2023. He has been a major figure in Vermont politics for over four decades and is only the second Democrat to represent Vermont in the Senate, after his predecessor, Patrick Leahy.
Full bio on Wikipedia →Record of service
- In office
- 19.6 years
- Chambers
- House 16y, Senate 3.6y
- First took office
- 2007 (9 terms)
- Seniority
- 29 of 100 by time served
- Age
- 79
- Senate class
- 3 · junior senator
- Burlington, VT · 802-863-2525
Service history, offices and identifiers from unitedstates/congress-legislators (public domain). Years served sum each term rather than subtracting the first start date, so a break in service is not counted as time in office.
Reported net worth
- Assets
- $5.4M – $13.4M
- Liabilities
- $100k – $250k
- Net worth
- $5.2M – $13.3M
- Since 2019
- +$3.0M
Largest holdings in the 2021 filing · 139 assets reported
Largest first, capped at 40 line items. Each is the asset's reported value bracket, not the income it produced.
From annual financial disclosures, which report every asset and debt as a bracket — so these are ranges, and the figure shown is their midpoint. A primary residence is not a reportable asset while its mortgage is a reportable debt, which pushes some members negative. How this is calculated →
Overall lean (DW-NOMINATE)
Issue profile
Each issue runs left ↔ right, scored from how the member voted on bills tagged to that issue (−1…+1). Issues with too few votes are blank. Overall lean uses DW-NOMINATE.
How they score against the parties
Peter Welch's voting record compared with each party's national platform, issue by issue — the same similarity score used across the site.
On the political map
Peter Welch (the large ringed dot) among every current member of Congress and the party platforms.
Each small dot is a current member (Dem · Rep); the larger dots are party platforms — click one for its closest members. Economic axis: taxes, healthcare, labor, energy. Social axis: abortion, guns, immigration, civil rights, crime.
Do you vote like Welch?
Answer a few questions on the issues and see which members of Congress — and which party — actually line up with you.
Caucuses & committees
Where Welchsits in Congress's own organization — each group's lean is computed from its members' voting records. Explore them all on the caucuses and committees pages.
Committees
- Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestrycenter · 23 members
- Senate Committee on Financecenter · 27 members
- Senate Committee on the Judiciarycenter · 22 members
- Senate Committee on Rules and Administrationcenter · 17 members
Most and least aligned members
Treating Welch's 14 issue scores as a vector, cosine similarity measures whether two voting records point the same way (+100%) or in opposite directions (−100%) — the colleagues whose records align most and least with theirs.
Recent notable votes
Latest news
Student Loan Update: New Bill Would Cut Payments by Thousands of DollarsMillions of Americans with federal student loans could see their monthly payments fall and save thousands of dollars under a new proposal in Congress. The Student Loan Interest Elimination Act has been championed by two Democrats—Senator Peter Welch of Vermon…
Biztoc.com · July 23, 2026
John Fetterman poised to flip and become Republican 'majority-maker': ex-chief of staffSen. John Fetterman's increasingly independent political moves are drawing concern from Senate colleagues and raising questions about whether the Pennsylvania Democrat might eventually leave his party.Fetterman said last week he would formally switch his part…
Raw Story · July 21, 2026
Dems Celebrate Housing Bill: “We Finally Did Something”The bipartisan housing bill the House and Senate passed this week doesn’t go far enough, Democratic leaders say. But it’s still one of the most significant pieces of housing legislation passed in decades. Further Democratic goals on housing might have to wait…
The New Republic · June 24, 2026- Risch, Cornyn, Colleagues' Bill to Prevent Foreign Adversaries from Influencing U.S. Policy Passes Senate Foreign Relations Committee
U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and John K…
Globalsecurity.org · June 22, 2026
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