Zoe Berg, Senior Photographer

With a new spate of polls, fundraising disclosures and political ratings emerging in the past week, Democrats are poised to sweep Connecticut in the upcoming elections. 

While Democrats are fending off strong Republican challengers in several deep-blue states, Connecticuters so far seem to be sticking with Gov. Lamont and Sen. Richard Blumenthal among other state and local Democrats.  The sole race where Republicans appear to be on the brink of winning is in Connecticut’s 5th district, which is also the only congressional seat in New England with a chance of turning red. 

In New Haven, a historical Democrat stronghold, local organizers from New Haven Rising, labor unions and the League of Women Voters are working on driving up the vote. Democrats are confident about sweeping the state, but warn that voter turn-out will be a major barometer of success. 

“This election is the most important in our lives,” said New Haven’s House Representative Rosa DeLauro, who is slated for a landslide election. ​“Voters’ rights are on the line. Women’s rights are on the line. Our state’s economic health is on the line. Funding for our cities is on the line. If we don’t show up, then everything is on the line.”

Led by Lamont, Democrats are arguing that four years of sound fiscal governance including funding increases and rainy fund stabilization, an effective response to COVID-19, as well as conservative threats to reproductive access and voting rights makes them the right party for government in Connecticut.

In opposition, gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski and down-ticket Republicans argue that ineffective federal, state and local Democratic governance has exacerbated the cost-of-living crisis, inflation and crime across the state.

“It’s unconscionable that [Lamont] knows that there are people out there that can’t afford food, smiles in the mirror and says ‘I’m off for the day,’ even sitting on $6 billion in reserves,” Stefanowski said at an October campaign event in New Haven.

The governor’s race

Lamont has maintained a double digit lead over Stefanowski since September. Polls released by WTNH/Emerson/The Hill on Tuesday have Lamont up by 11 points while a Quinnipiac poll has Lamont up by 15 points. Polling in the race has remained static since September when Western New England’s poll had Lamont up by 15 points as well. 

When Lamont and Stefanowski faced off against each other four years ago, both ran on a platform of stabilizing the state’s fiscal condition following the usage of almost the entire rainy day fund to fight the negative effects of the 2008 Great Recession. 

The rainy day fund is a cushion for the state’s tax revenues, which can rapidly fluctuate due to large portions of the state’s workforce working in finance. Income in this sector can fluctuate with the market more than fixed-salary workers. Under Lamont’s four years in office, the state deficit grew by roughly $4 billion. 

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker told the News that the rainy day fund is an important safeguard for the city and localities across the state. In past years, the state has had to cut previously promised money to cities and towns because of revenue fluctuations. 

Western New England’s political polling director Tim Vercellotti described Stefanowski as having ran as a typical liberatarian-supply side economics Republican candidate during his first campaign in 2018. 

However, during this race Stefanowski has turned towards more populist appeals, including telling residents at recent campaign stops that he would work to give back roughly $2000 in savings to families if he was elected. 

While Lamont maintains the polling advantage, Stefanowski has outraised him in individual contributions. Stefanowski raised $341,380 in the last quarter while Lamont raised $217,760.

Each candidate has also spent large sums of their own money. Stefanowski donated $10 million to himself during the campaign while Lamont donated $8 million in the last quarter. In total, Lamont has donated $14 million to himself while Stefanowski has donated $10 million. Both candidates have doubled the amount of money they spent in their 2018 matchup.

Stefanowski has $2.24 million on hand while Lamont has $110,000 on hand. 

In New Haven, Lamont kicked off his campaign’s get-out-the-vote campaign on Oct. 15. His campaign plans on knocking on the majority of doors in the city. New Haven Rising and UNITE Here Local 34 are also supporting Democratic candidates. 

“We’re going to be canvassing in neighborhoods across the city and knock on 20,000 doors before the election,” Local 34 Organizing Director Barbara Vereen told the News. “Lamont and the other Democrats are going to expand all of the protections and benefits we’ve fought so hard for.”

Vereen also said that Democratic support of Local 33’s unionization efforts was an important reason for the organization to back them. 

New Haven Rising organizer Elias Estabrook told the News that New Haven Rising was going to knock on doors three times a week through the election. 

“Under the Democrats we’ve seen an increase in funding for New Haven through PILOT,” Estabrook told the News. “We need more funding for the city, and I don’t want to see Republicans wipe out our progress.”

New Haven Democrat Erick Russell is running for State Treasurer against Republican Harry Arora and is expected to win the race, a trend predicted for most other state-wide races. 

Connecticut’s 5th District

Incumbent Jahana Hayes, first elected in 2018, is locked into a tight race with Republican challenger George Logan. On Wednesday, Cook Political Report moved the Fifth District from lean Democrat to toss-up. 

Logan was the only Black Republican in the state Senate during a two-term tenure that ended with defeat in 2020. He has proved to be a stiff challenger in a district that is rated with a D+2 partisan rating, which measures how strong support for either party exists in a congressional district.

Cook’s Political Reporter rating was given more credence on Thursday when WTNH/The Hill/Emerson College polls gave Logan a one point lead in the race. Thursday’s poll is a shift from a July poll where Hayes was up by 8 percent. 

Emerson polling’s spokesperson Camille Mumford broke down their polling in the race saying that independents currently favor Logan 53 to 38 percent while 55 percent of women favor Hayes. 57 percent of men favor electing Logan. 

“Logan is presenting himself as a more palatable candidate than most national Republicans,” Mumford told the News. “He’s not going the same sort of campaign route as many other Republicans.”

Mumford explained that national trends against Democrats seemed to be at play in the district, which is almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Mumford continued by noting that Democrats are voting with abortion and voting rights as their top issue while Republicans and some independents are voting with the economy and crime at the top of their mind. 

Connecticut’s fifth district runs along the western border of the state covering Waterbury, New Britain, Meriden and Bristol. 

In the most recent fundraising quarter, made public on Oct. 15, Hayes raised $750,000 which was more than double that of Logan in the same quarter. Hayes has also spent $866,000, which is nearly triple that of Logan. Hayes enters the final stretch with $1.5 million, while Logan has $250,000 on hand. 

“The contrast between the number of in-district donors tells the story,” Hayes’ campaign manager Barbara Ellis said in a press statement. “We have over a thousand in-district donors this quarter alone.”

While Hayes currently dwarfs Logan in spending and fundraising, Logan has steadily been building momentum in fundraising over the past two quarters increasing his haul by $341,000. 

On the Republican side, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a national Republican Super-PAC tied to former House Speaker John Boehener, has reserved $825,000 in ads that describe Hayes as having fallen out of touch with her constituents. 

“Jahana Hayes has rubber stamped the failed policies that are destroying the economy and it’s just one more reason voters can’t afford to send her back to Washington,” CLF communications director Calvin Moore told the CTMirror. 

Hayes argues that her time in Congress has been one of the most productive Congressional periods in American history. Looking forward, she says that Logan and a Republican majority in the House would put reproductive rights on the chopping block. 

At a debate last week, Hayes unequivocally committed to codifying Roe on the national level, a pledge that Logan did not join in on. Logan said that he is pro-choice; however, he argued that Hayes supports abortion in all cases while he believes in restriction as well as parental notification. 

At the debate, both candidates also clashed over inflation, federal assault weapon ban and cuts to social safety programs. 

“They’ve come up with an alphabet soup of programs to fix things, but it hasn’t worked,” Logan said on federal pandemic spending. “The funding is not getting down to helping people who truly need it.”

Hayes shot back saying that her tenure saw the passage of the largest social spending bill since the Great Society. She added that if that bill was “nothing” to Logan, then she didn’t understand “what the role is about” for him. 

The race is seeing extra attention from both national Democrats and Republicans in the last weeks of the campaign.

Outside groups have spent $7.2 million on the race according to analysis done by the California Target Group. Democrats are currently outspending the GOP by a little more than $1 million. RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel and Vice President Harris have both visited the district to support their respective candidates. 

New Haven Rising and Local 34 also joined a statewide AFL-CIO canvassing event in the district over the weekend supporting Hayes with Ed Camp, a New Haven Rising organizer, saying that her and other Congressional Democrats are important to protecting organizing rights and funding for cities like New Haven. 

Connecticut residents can register to vote online or by mail until Nov. 1. They can also register on the day of the election at the designated registration spot in their city or town. 

YASH ROY
Yash Roy covered City Hall and State Politics for the News. He also served as a Production & Design editor, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion chair for the News. Originally from Princeton, New Jersey, he is a '25 in Timothy Dwight College majoring in Global Affairs.