Matthew Corey prevailed in Connecticut’s GOP primary for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, beating the party-endorsed candidate. But Corey now faces a much tougher fight in November in a state where Republicans have not won a Senate race in over four decades.
Corey defeated Beacon Falls First Selectman Gerry Smith 55% to 44% with 89% of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. Corey, a bar owner from Manchester and Navy veteran, will face U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy for a second time after losing to the two-term Democratic senator in 2018.
Of the state’s six federal races on the ballot this year, only two of them had contested primaries — for the Republican nomination in the U.S. Senate and in Connecticut’s 4th Congressional District. Tuesday’s primaries saw low turnout even with the state’s adoption of early voting.
With 776 of 799 precincts reporting to the secretary of the state’s office, the turnout in the statewide Republican primary was little more than 7% — about one-third of the turnout in the GOP’s U.S. Senate primary two years ago.
In the 4th District, which includes much of Fairfield County and some of New Haven county, physician and attorney Michael Goldstein defeated Bob MacGuffie, a former financial executive who led the state’s Tea Party movement, 53% to 47% with more than 95% of votes counted. Goldstein will face off against U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, who has won every race since 2008.
Smith and MacGuffie had secured the party’s endorsements in their respective races at the convention back in May. But even with the backing from the party, Smith fell short to a candidate who got in the race months after him but had run in a previous election.
Corey was the GOP nominee in the 2018 race against Murphy, but he lost with less than 40% of the vote. And Goldstein ran for the 4th District before, most recently mounting an unsuccessful primary bid in 2022.
Following his victory, Corey posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that he spoke with Smith in a “very gracious phone call” and will work with him to take on Murphy in the general election.
“Chris Murphy’s career has made life here increasingly unaffordable for CT’s middle class. Tonight I start bringing the case to unaffiliated & Democratic voters that they need a Senator who fights for them,” Corey posted on Tuesday night.
Smith was hoping to avoid a Senate primary after clinching nearly 70% of the vote in a four-way contest at the GOP convention. But Corey secured enough of the vote and garnered more than the 15% threshold to force a primary.
Ahead of the primary, Smith said in an interview that the primary “slowed things down” and put more of a financial burden on taxpayers by holding a primary. But he believed the primary raised his profile more.
Still, it was not enough to overcome a candidate with more built-in name recognition from his past bids for Senate as well as for U.S. Rep. John Larson’s seat in the 1st Congressional District.
Corey had argued that a primary challenge ensured that the fight for the U.S. Senate was not an “afterthought” for the Republican Party.
“Nobody was making the case why Sen. Murphy doesn’t deserve another six years. I was willing to take the backlash,” Corey said in an interview last week, referencing some of the pushback he received for staying in the race after Smith’s convention endorsement.
Ben Proto, the chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party, said Corey’s longtime involvement in GOP politics and his name recognition from past races likely helped him mount a successful primary in a shorter timeframe. But Proto said it is difficult to extrapolate why both convention-endorsed candidates lost with a voter turnout of less than 10%.
“Matt has been tremendously supportive of Republican candidates and the Republican Party in the state,” Proto said, adding that he has “been at a lot of events and made a lot of friends. And I think that helped Matt do what he did in a short period of time.”
In the 4th District, there was a similar clash of personalities in the GOP primary.
MacGuffie got in the race earlier and secured the endorsement at the May convention on the second ballot. While he has the party’s official backing, Goldstein got endorsements from a number of elected officials in Greenwich as well as state Senate GOP Leader Stephen Harding and Levy, the 2022 GOP nominee for U.S. Senate.
Goldstein argued that MacGuffie was “more interested in yelling” about Himes than in finding solutions and giving voters a reason to back an alternative to the congressman. MacGuffie had pushed back that there were not other candidates willing to take an “aggressive stance” against the congressman seeking a ninth term.
None of the Democratic incumbents faced primaries on Tuesday. Connecticut’s delegation has seen little turnover in recent years, and some lawmakers have been in office for decades. This year’s most competitive race, in the 5th Congressional District, did not have any contested primaries. Democratic Rep. Jahana Hayes is slated to face Republican George Logan in a rematch with the U.S. House majority on the line again.
Heading into the general election this fall, Republicans are hoping to increase their representation and break through the state’s all-Democrat congressional delegation. But in the Senate and 4th District races, the odds are more stacked against them.
The GOP has not won a U.S. Senate election in Connecticut since Lowell Weicker won reelection in 1982. And Republican Chris Shays held the 4th District for more than two decades until he was unseated by Himes, who has held the congressional seat since 2008. The once-competitive House district has now become one of the safest blue seats in the state.
There was little daylight between the GOP candidates on the issues. They largely aligned on economic issues like inflation, concerns about the U.S.-Mexico border, high utility bills and traffic congestion on major highways. But they differed more on their style and approach to the race.
While national topics are likely to play a major role in their campaigns, Proto said Corey and Goldstein should focus on transportation issues like the traffic on I-95 and other major highways and the consequences it has on the state’s economy and people’s ability to navigate to and from work.
The Republican candidates in both the U.S. Senate and 4th District races struggled to keep pace financially with their Democratic opponents, who have both stockpiled millions away in races that are not expected to be heavily competitive. The candidates will need to step up their fundraising if they want to compete on the airwaves.
Corey ended July with $32,000 left in the bank, compared to Murphy’s campaign account of more than $9.7 million.
“Murphy has a huge advantage both monetarily and from an incumbency perspective,” Proto said. “Matt is going to have to find a way to deliver a message on what’s going to be a shoestring kind of campaign, I could imagine.”
“I suspect we’ll see Murphy not engage Matt much or if at all,” he added. “We’ll have to find a way to create that oxygen.”
The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation.
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.
