Rainville was the Republican nominee against Democrat Peter Welch for the seat Bernie Sanders was leaving to run for the U.S. Senate. She signed a Clean Campaign Pledge in which she vowed to not attack her opponent, and condemned negative TV ads by outside parties. Rainville's campaign, though a positive one, made some gaffes including an incident in which one of her staffers was found to have plagiarized portions of issue position statements posted to Rainville's campaign website, which resulted in a drop for Rainville in pre-election public opinion polls.