Christine Hallquist in September said her gender status was "not an issue for Vermont".

Christine Hallquist, a former energy CEO, lost her bid Tuesday to make history as America's first transgender governor with Vermont voters re-electing the Republican incumbent, television networks reported.

The 62-year-old Democrat was projected to have lost to Phil Scott, a comparatively popular and moderate Republican who has only been the bucolic northeastern state's top executive for two years, by Fox and ABC News.

Cancer survivor Hallquist had jumped into politics to help lead a "blue wave" against President Donald Trump, who has sought to erode transgender rights, roll back environmental protections and crack down on immigration.

Scott distanced himself from Trump in the largely blue state whose most famous politician is Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist re-elected as an independent earlier on Tuesday.

Hallquist had defied death threats to run, hoping that Democrats and independents would flock to the polls to put her over the line.

Having made history as becoming the first transgender person to win a major party nomination for governor, Hallquist already considered herself a role model and her candidacy as expanding America's moral compass.

She told AFP in an interview in September her gender status was "not an issue for Vermont," and that it rarely came up with voters.

Before running, she was best known in Vermont for leading the charge toward renewable energy and as a pioneering American CEO who transitioned on the job and who until 2015 was officially Dave.

Had Scott been defeated, he would have become Vermont's first incumbent governor ousted since 1962.