U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy led Democrats in a coordinated campaign over the weekend before the election, exploiting his party’s advantages in money, voter registration and surrogates to give a boost to Kamala Harris, his own campaign and down-ballot candidates in competitive races for Congress and the General Assembly.
Republicans, meanwhile, fanned out across Connecticut over the past few days, mostly on their own. Many of the GOP candidates in tough races are keeping their distance from the top of the ticket, but supporters of Donald Trump have held a series of informal rallies for the former president organized through Facebook.
The primary beneficiary of Democrats’ coordinated campaign has been U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5th District, who faces a rematch with Republican George Logan, the challenger she beat by a scant 2,004 votes two years ago in race that drew more than a quarter million voters to the polls.
Similar to his efforts in 2018, Murphy is leading that campaign to help elect Democrats in Connecticut up and down the ballot — including him, for a third term. The senator has transferred at least $200,000 to the Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee to help with party infrastructure and voter mobilization for early voting and on Election Day. Candidates, however, run separate campaign advertising.
“I like to run a true coordinated campaign, meaning you know we’re standing up a campaign statewide where we have field organizers that are able to work for the federal candidates and the state candidates together,” Murphy said last week at a rally in Waterbury.
Those efforts culminated at multiple get-out-the-vote rallies throughout the weekend. On Sunday, a long roster of federal and state lawmakers addressed crowds of about 80 people in both Torrington and Litchfield. That included Gov. Ned Lamont, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Attorney General William Tong and Treasurer Erick Russell. Those outdoor rallies were periodically interrupted by the honking of drivers chanting Trump’s name and an anti-abortion protester who posted up at the Torrington rally.
They each gave a rosy prediction about Harris’ overall electoral prospects while arguing the importance of electing candidates who can help Democrats keep or gain majorities in Congress and in the General Assembly. Lamont said he felt good about Harris’ chances if the trend lines continue and if “women turn out in outsized numbers, like they have.”
One by one, they urged enthusiastic rallygoers holding signs and cheering to keep door-knocking and phone-banking until the final hours on Tuesday. State Comptroller Sean Scanlon recalled working on Murphy’s 2010 tough reelection race for the 5th Congressional District, when his campaign knocked on someone’s door 15 minutes before polls closed and convinced that person to cast a ballot.
“I tell that story because while this is a blue state, and we’re proud of the fact that Kamala is going to win this state, that Chris Murphy is going to win this state, Jahana is going to win the state, there are a handful of state Senate and state rep races that will literally be decided by less than 100 votes,” Scanlon said.
Hayes sought to make a similar point at the rally in the heart of downtown Torrington. She said she had a “suspicious feeling” the enthusiastic crowd were Democrats who already voted for the party but encouraged them to make last-minute calls and canvassing.
While Hayes was featured Sunday at Democratic rallies led by Murphy and Lamont, Logan campaigned by himself at pancake breakfasts in Farmington and Wolcott, emphasizing one message on which he and Hayes agree.
“Every vote counts,” Logan said repeatedly. Several times, he held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart and told voters, “Last time, I lost by just this much.”
Hayes is closing on a confident note as she seeks a fourth term in Connecticut’s most competitive congressional district — one that a young Chris Murphy wrested from a long-serving moderate Republican, Nancy L. Johnson, in 2006. It was the last year a Republican was elected governor or won a congressional seat in the state.
“I have done everything that I can do. I am not worried. I am not afraid. I am not scared. I am not upset. I am not in distress. I am full of joy. I am looking forward to a brighter future, because there’s no other option,” Hayes said.
“I have done everything that I can do. I am not worried. I am not afraid. I am not scared. I am not upset. I am not in distress. I am full of joy. I am looking forward to a brighter future, because there’s no other option,” Hayes said.
“I did what you sent me to do, went to Washington and got stuff done, delivered stuff back to this district. But I only get one vote,” she said at the Torrington rally. “And my vote counts exactly the same as everybody here, so your job at this point is to vote, is to show up, is to get other people to show up.”
Two weeks of early voting ended at 6 p.m. on Sunday. Logan voted Saturday in Meriden, the last stop on a day spent greeting early voters in Plainville, Burlington, Litchfield, Watertown, Waterbury and Wolcott.
“In these last days, our main goal is to get the vote out. We want folks to come out and vote. We feel the momentum is going our way, but we need to make sure that folks actually come out and actually vote,” Logan said. “The early voting has been extremely popular, particularly here in the 5th District. I think it’s going to help us in the end. So we’ve been embracing it.”
Win or lose, Logan said has no election night event planned. Two years ago, on the night of the 2022 midterm elections, he held an election watch party at an Italian restaurant in Waterbury less than 10 minutes away from where Hayes’ campaign gathered.
“All of our focus, every ounce of energy that we’ve put in this campaign, is towards getting our message out and winning this election,” Logan said. “There isn’t any room for us to be thinking about anything else other than our goal to get a message out to win this election and help improve the lives of families and veterans and our seniors in the district.”
Murphy is facing Republican Matt Corey, his opponent in two of his three races for U.S. Senate. He beat Corey six years ago, 59.5% to 39.4%, and had a 16-percentage point lead in the race’s only public poll.
Democrats promoted Harris and attacked Trump, throughout the weekend. Logan has campaigned with candidates for the General Assembly, including a stop Saturday in Litchfield with state Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield and Rep. Karen Reddington-Hughes of Woodbury.
But he has ignored the top of the ticket, like many elected Republicans in Connecticut, a state Trump lost by 20 percentage points in 2020 and by 14 percentage points in 2016.
While Democrats have a more robust state operation, Republicans at the state level have also sought to elevate their candidates through larger voter mobilization efforts. Since Labor Day, Republicans have held Super Saturday events in various places across the 5th District and elsewhere focused on door-knocking.
Ben Proto, the chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party, said they have also been focused on social media and a texting program.
About 40 Trump supporters held a rally for the former president Sunday in Trumbull, a Bridgeport suburb in Connecticut’s 4th Congressional District. It drew Michael Goldstein, the GOP nominee in the district who is challenging U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District.
“Don’t be a chump, vote for Trump,” Albert Mastri of Trumbull chanted into a megaphone. Mastri wore a Trump mask and a hospital gown, a costume he says was inspired by someone on Facebook calling him a lunatic for previously rallying near the Trumbull mall.
Suzan Sarris, a Trumbull resident, held a pink Women for Trump flag. She said she’s worried about immigration, human trafficking, inappropriate books in school libraries and the economy.
Alex Yaworowski, a Milford resident, was on his way to the library to apply for a second job when he saw the rally. He stopped and joined in because of concerns about the economy. Housing is too expensive, and he only eats two meals per day to save money, he said.
“I’m waiting on new ideas,” he said, nodding to the Trump flag in his hand. “You may disagree on the validity of the ideas, but at least he has them.”
The state has its Trump strongholds, including Wolcott, where Logan campaigned Sunday morning, and Torrington, where Democrats rallied Sunday.
On Saturday, Murphy and Hayes campaigned together in Canton, one of the Farmington Valley suburbs in the 8th Senate District, one of competitive state legislative districts that Democrats hope to flip.
It is held by Sen. Lisa Seminara of Avon, one of four Republican state senators to win two years ago with less than 51% of the vote. In a rematch, she is opposed by Paul Honig, a Democratic member of the Board of Selectmen in Harwinton.
On Sunday, Torrington was chosen for a Democratic rally to help Rep. Michelle Cook, D-Torrington, who is struggling to win in a city won by Trump.
To win with 51% of the vote in the presidential years of 2016 and 2020, Cook had to outperform Hillary Clinton by 14 points and Joe Biden by 8. In 2022, a non-presidential year, Cook was unopposed.
“We should talk about how dangerous Trump’s agenda is, but we can also celebrate with joy the fact that if we elect this team to represent Torrington and northwest Connecticut, we aren’t going to just complain about problem. We’re going to fix those problems,” Murphy said about the General Assembly candidates, including Harding’s Democratic challenger Justin Potter. “Please don’t take this delegation for granted. … Right now, there’s a contrast in this country between show horses and workhorses.”
Democratic presidential nominees have carried Connecticut in every election since Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who has been campaigning for the ticket like other statewide Democrats not on the ballot this year, said it is important, nonetheless, to produce big numbers for Harris.
“This congressional district is a battleground district. These representative and state Senate seats are battleground seats,” Blumenthal said at Sunday’s Torrington rally. “Our votes for president, the more of them, the more we can defeat this false narrative by Donald Trump by showing an overwhelming majority in a popular vote, which will defeat his effort to overturn the election.”
The Connecticut Mirror's Ginny Monk contributed to this story.
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.
