Republican State Sen. Ryan Fazio has won reelection, and credits his win to his bipartisan record.
“I'm very proud of my bipartisan record of passing new laws across party lines and as a member of the minority party, and they gave me credit for that,” Fazio said.
Fazio’s win is one of several state seats the Republicans held on to or flipped on Election Day, despite the state Democratic party retaining control of the state legislature.
But Fazio says more work needs to be done to attract voters to Republicans, while his former opponent Nick Simmons, a Democrat, said he lost because voters were simply more drawn to Fazio.
Fazio said while he and fellow Republican state Sen. Tony Hwang won their races, it didn’t mean Republicans as a whole did well, citing a state GOP candidate who lost his state senate race in the Farmington Valley.
“I don't want to say it's bad luck, because we need to do a better job as Republicans. But the votes were not distributed in such a way that we gained seats, even though we probably even on the state level, gained votes overall,” Fazio said.
Simmons said he lost to Fazio because he resonated more with voters.
“There's an incumbency advantage there to be able to be out and about, speaking to the community about it for years … there weren't huge differences in a lot of our positions,” Simmons said. “But Ryan probably had a head start in being able to message and communicate with the community about his views.”
Fazio said he’s going to prepare to advocate for continued local zoning control and limit state spending.
“That's a very important point of contention that is going to arise in this next year,” Fazio said. “And we need to do a lot more, I think, to empower communities rather than centralized control. In Hartford, I'm worried about more centralization of decision making for our communities and neighborhoods as well.”
Simmons said despite Fazio’s advantages, in the end, he thinks there were other factors outside of his control, including President-elect Donald Trump’s inroads with voters in cities throughout Connecticut.
Many voters, he said, aren’t getting their news from traditional media outlets and are instead getting them on social media or through the podcast circuit.
“We really have to start building out that messaging infrastructure and update and change with the times,” he said.
Fazio said he’s looking forward to his new term in office.
“I will propose probably 50 different bills this year, and I'm going to work very hard to build consensus across the aisle to get some of those positive reforms passed so it's more affordable to live in this state,” Fazio said.
As for Simmons, he’s going to spend time with his family, and credited his siblings, including his sister, Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons, a Democrat, for inspiring him.
“She certainly knows what it's like to watch, to be a candidate, to watch the results, the agonizing experience of seeing results come in, and the whole thing sort of out of your control,” Simmons said. “So we're very close, and just lucky to have her as a sister, as a mentor, as a role model.”
