Giri Viswanathan, SeniorPhotographer

At a rally for New Haven Democrats last month, Rep. Rosa DeLauro implored her audience to help get out the vote, saying that “this election is on a knife’s edge.”

The observation is true of the nationwide presidential contest she was discussing, but hardly reflective of her own prospects in her bid for an 18th term in Congress representing Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses New Haven and the surrounding towns. Voters in the district overwhelmingly favor Democrats.

DeLauro, an 81-year-old Democrat, is facing the Republican opponent Michael Massey, a businessman with no prior political experience who wants to create what he has called an “urban Republican movement.” DeLauro has not debated Massey.

Instead, in the final weeks of her campaign, the incumbent has made a blitz of public appearances around her district, many of them highlighting federal investments she helped secure as the top Democrat on the House Committee on Appropriations. Last Monday, she appeared alongside Mayor Justin Elicker and Karl Jacobson, chief of the New Haven Police Department, to promote a $963,000 federal grant for the New Haven Police Department’s training facilities and programs.

DeLauro chaired the Appropriations Committee during the last Congress. She is perhaps best known for advocating for an expanded child tax credit to be a part of pandemic stimulus legislation in 2021. In a New Haven Register opinion piece published on Tuesday, DeLauro wrote that she is “laser-focused” on trying to bring the anti-poverty measure back after its enlarged version expired at the end of 2021.

“We are close to securing the biggest help for families by making the monthly, expanded Child Tax Credit permanent,” she wrote. “I will not rest until we do, so that people can worry less about paying their bills and be confident in their economic future.”

Massey, the candidate endorsed by the Republican and Independent parties, grew up in several New Haven neighborhoods and said he became interested in politics while serving time in prison, after watching former President Donald Trump speak on TV during his first run for the White House.

In an interview with the News, Massey stressed that his platform presents a distinctive set of policy ideas to help residents of cities like New Haven. The proposals include direct financial rewards for adult women — or doubled ones for married couples — who have children, as well as payouts to the families of children who receive honors in school.

“I want financial incentives to change the culture,” he said. “My policies are uniquely me, and I don’t think there’s another congressman like me, and this is the issue: You have Democrats in control of these urban communities, and they know nothing about how we live.”

Massey is not the only challenger seeking to unseat DeLauro. Last month, Shahd Omar, a Palestinian student at the University of New Haven, began a write-in campaign attacking DeLauro from the left for supporting Israel’s war in Gaza. Omar is 23 years old, meaning that she is constitutionally ineligible to be a member of the House of Representatives.

Omar told the News that she would like to enter a career in politics and sees the write-in campaign as a first step, in addition to a protest of American policy in the Middle East.

“As a Palestinian American living in America, it’s sad to see America involved in the government relations of Israel and Palestine,” she said, adding that her aspirations to be a political voice for youth go beyond the current war. “In this election, if I don’t win, you’ll be seeing my name in more elections.”

Before DeLauro took office in 1991, Connecticut’s 3rd District was represented by the Democrat Bruce Morrison.

Reeti Malhotra contributed reporting.