Connecticut voters backed Democrat Kamala Harris for president by a wide margin Tuesday, rejecting Republican Donald Trump for the third consecutive presidential election.
The Associated Press called the race for Connecticut’s seven Electoral College votes almost immediately after the polls closed at 8 p.m. Harris was leading in Connecticut by more than 20 percentage points according to incomplete results.
The national race remained too close to call early Tuesday night, with the contest expected to hinge on key swing states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.
Though Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas hadn’t projected voter turnout by the time polls closed, her office described Tuesday’s balloting as “pretty steady.” And while Election Day voter registration typically poses some challenges, Thomas also noted that with more than 741,000 early ballots and 120,000 absentee ballots cast, more than one-third of the state’s voters had been accounted for entering Tuesday.
[Connecticut election results: U.S. president]
Trump has struggled badly in Connecticut
Since his first campaign for the presidency in 2016, Trump has fared poorly in heavily Democratic Connecticut.
Though he won that campaign, he captured just 41% of the Connecticut vote, losing the state to former First Lady Hillary Clinton by almost 14% points.
Harris had led Trump by 16 percentage points in a Sept. 23 Connecticut Mirror poll.
Trump, whose policies on immigration, taxation, health care and other social issues have drawn considerable criticism here, did even worse in 2020 when he lost Connecticut and the national election to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump carried just 39% of the Connecticut vote, losing by 20 percentage points.
Democratic campaigns at the federal and state level took aim at Trump this fall on the issue of access to abortion services.
Key Trump appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court backed the 2022 Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that gave the federal and state governments broad discretion to reduce access to abortion services.
“Women are coming out because of his comments,” Democratic State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo said, adding that fear of Trump, coupled with excitement about Harris’ agenda, has driven Democratic activism here to new levels.
“Voters are thinking about the personalities and the policies of the folks at the top of the ticket,” added Sarah Ganong, state director of the Working Families Party, who said that Trump’s character — framed by years of offensive comments about women, immigrants and others — made him as unelectable as any policy issue. “I think voters are smart and they pay attention,” she said.
Briana Bak, 25, an athletic trainer from Farmington and unaffiliated voter, said Trump’s track record on reproductive rights, along with offensive comments he has made about women and minorities, convinced her to vote for Harris.
“I don’t really understand what there is to support about him,” she said.
GOP chair: CT Democrats focused on fear tactics
But Republican State Chairman Ben Proto said much of Trump’s struggles in Connecticut can be tied to Democratic fear tactics.
With the national inflation rate hitting a 40-year-high in the summer of 2022, and with Connecticut’s taxes and electric rates remaining some of the highest in the nation, there are plenty of reasons for voters to be frustrated with the Biden/Harris administration, Proto said.
But Democrats narrowed the race here largely to a discussion of reproductive health issues and the former president’s personality, he said.
“The Democrats have become very good at trying to scare people,” Proto said, adding that more nuanced economic issues “go over people’s heads in a lot of ways.”
Trump has become such a political lightning rod here that Democrats running for all offices, including state legislative races, often focus much of their messages on their opposition to the former president, noted state Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield.
That means the Trump campaign here is beset on all sides.
“Every candidate can bring up every issue they wish,” Harding said. But he added that Trump-centric campaign messages by Democrats “take away from having meaningful conversations” on issues.
“That’s pretty much sucking up all of the air,” said Carolyn DeGrand of Farmington, a client senior executive with Cigna and a Trump supporter. DeGrand said she couldn’t ignore four years of inflationary impacts and a sluggish economy.
“I’m definitely worse off” now than in 2020, she said.
But state Sen. Mae Flexer, a Windham Democrat, said Connecticut voters are more focused than some campaigns realize.
Voters took note that Harris, who entered the presidential race late on July 21 after Biden, 81, dropped out amidst concerns about his age, quickly developed a plan to help struggling families, Flexer said.
Much of Harris’ plan was centered on boosting the federal child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,600 for most kids, and to $6,000 for newborns.
And Connecticut voters, who overwhelmingly support the abortion access standards that had been set forth by the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, couldn’t help but notice as dozens of states enacted full or partial bans following the Dobbs decision, Flexer said.
“They understand what’s at stake,” she added. “They understand what people in other parts of the country have lost.”