Connecticut State Sen. Julie Kushner said she felt concerned in June after President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance against former president Donald Trump.
She had a different reaction Tuesday night after watching Vice President Kamala Harris go up against Trump.
“We can win this,” Kushner said.
Kushner watched the debate alongside other Democrats at the local party headquarters in Danbury. Many attendees had high expectations, and people like Kushner praised her ability to counter Trump’s attacks. They say they’re seeing excitement in Connecticut even with voters who they previously thought of as supportive of the former president.
One voter, and a city councilman, Ryan Hawley, said Harris did much better than Biden.
“Between seeing this debate performance of hers, and also the debate performance for Biden, it is night and day,” Hawley said.
While Kushner and Hawley said they expressed concern for Biden’s ability to win, Connecticut has long voted for Democratic presidential candidates. (Democrats have won Connecticut since 1992.) Kushner said she’s excited but also cautioned that sustained voter outreach is the only way to turn that excitement into votes.
She referred to a recent interaction with a voter who, she said, she might have been written off just a few months ago,
“‘He's too old, and I think she's smart,” the voter told her.
“And I was shocked, because I didn't expect it,” Kushner said. “And he is an undecided voter. He is one of those people that we know has not made up his mind yet.”
It’s a far cry from June, when Biden’s debate performance renewed concerns about his ability in taking on the former president. Those concerns were shared by Democratic congressional officials, including U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, who called on Biden to step aside for another candidate.
But after watching Harris parry Trump’s attacks, both Kushner and Hawley say they feel confident in Harris.
They’re not alone.
Democratic Party chair Nancy DiNardo issued a statement after the debate, saying that Harris “laid out a plan for making lives better by increasing economic opportunity and protecting freedoms.” Dinardo said that Trump was “flustered, angry, and spouting such absolute nonsense it was hard to know what he was talking about most of the time.”
Not everyone in Connecticut is convinced.
Connecticut Republican Party Chair Ben Proto said Harris downplayed her own failures as vice president and said she distorted Trump’s accomplishments.
“She couldn’t provide an answer to a simple question, ‘are you better off today than you were four years ago’ because she knows, as do Americans, that answer is a resounding NO,” Proto said in a statement.
