The last two presidential cycles have been challenging for down-ballot Democrats in Torrington, a Litchfield County city of 35,500 where Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden lost handily to Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020, respectively.
To win reelection with 51% of the vote in each of those years, Rep. Michelle Cook, a moderate Democrat elected in 2008, had to outperform Clinton by 14 percentage points and Biden by 8. In 2022, a non-presidential year, Cook was unopposed.
On the other side of the state is a Republican with a similar challenge: Rep. Kathleen McCarty of Waterford won with 51% of the vote in each of her two last elections. Biden won her hometown, the biggest part of her district, by 15 points.
Cook and McCarty are on a relatively short list of vulnerable House incumbents in swing districts, places where the margins of victory are small —and winning reelection likely will require doing better than the top of their tickets.
No one is predicting the balance of power will shift greatly in the House, where Democrats have won solid majorities in 2018, 2020 and 2022. They currently outnumber Republicans, 98-53.
“We are expecting to pick up seats — probably,” said House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, whose hopes for growing his 98-member caucus are modest. “I could see a scenario where we hit 100.”
House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, sees the map differently. He has hopes of winning back two GOP seats lost in 2022 by narrow margins, including one captured by a single vote by Rep. Chris Poulos of Southington.
But they agree that one irony of legislative elections is that vulnerable lawmakers from swing districts often are the ones the opposing parties least want to see defeated.
“I do think the very nature of competitive seats is that they are purplish,” naturally producing pragmatic lawmakers attuned to their districts, Ritter said. “That’s true of Michelle and Kathleen.”
Candelora said no one should be surprised that swing districts often produce lawmakers who work across the aisle.
“Does the fact that you’re in a tight swing district cause you to be a moderate?” Candelora said. “They are required, if they want to stay in office, to be responsive to their district and to vote accordingly. And I think that naturally happens.”
One result, he said, is they are the ones most likely to offer differing opinions in their own caucuses, a step towards bipartisan compromises.
“Nothing to any extreme is ever a good thing,” Candelora said. “And so certainly, having people that are providing different perspectives is always good in a caucus.”
House Speaker Matt Ritter consulting with House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora during a legislative session. Neither sees the potential for a big shift in the House makeup.. Credit: MARK PAZNIOKAS / CTMIRROR;ORG
The 65th House District of Torrington is a star-shaped Democratic outpost, surrounded by four other House districts represented by Republicans. Cook won by unseating a Republican.
Cook’s opponent this year is Joe Canino, a 27-year-old press aide employed by the Senate Republican minority. He said he is seeking office for the first time, recruited to run by Republicans in Torrington who did not want Cook to have a free pass, as she did two years ago.
At a debate Tuesday night sponsored by the League of Women Voters, Canino jabbed at Democrats over issues like taxes, crime, business climate and the high cost of living, including electric rates. But not all of the blows landed on Cook.
Canino said he objected to the police accountability law passed in 2020 and selected elements of Connecticut’s strict gun laws, though not its universal background checks or “red flag” authorization to temporarily seize firearms from individuals deemed a threat.
He was especially critical of a law Democrats passed over Republican objections this year that eventually will require nearly all private employers to offer 40 hours of paid time off, regardless of whether it is classified as vacation, personal days or sick time.
“It’s things like these that make businesses not want to come here,” Canino said.
Cook was able to note that she was one of the nine House Democrats to vote against the paid time off bill and one of four to vote against the police accountability law, primarily over its limitations on the qualified immunity police enjoy against civil lawsuits.
“I got the endorsement from our police union, because for me, they know that I support them and I back them,” Cook said.
On electric rates, Cook pointed to her vote against a bill passed in 2017 with significant Republican support that stabilized the finances of the Millstone nuclear power plant by allowing it to charge more.
Canino countered that a vote for him, regardless of Cook’s occasional breaks with her party, would send an overdue message to the decades-long Democratic majority.
“Are we going to vote for change? Are we going to vote for a new, fresh perspective that’s going to say no to the radical proposals that we’ve seen year after year in the state?” Canino said. “I think we need to send a clear message to Democratic majority in Hartford that none of you should be comfortable in your seats.”
McCarty, a former teacher and school board member, won an open seat in the 38th House District of Waterford and Montville in 2014, succeeding a Democrat who did not seek another term. She won 49% of the vote in a three-way race, beating the Democrat by just 90 votes.
As the ranking Republican on the Education Committee, McCarty has been an ally and close working partner with the Democratic co-chair, Rep. Jeff Currey of East Hartford, on school construction reimbursements and other issues. Currey toured schools in her district with McCarty on Wednesday, a legislative function that came close to a campaign event.
“Kathleen is one of the few who truly understands that education is the foundation for everyone’s future,” Currey said. “If we don’t do right by our children now, we are going to be suffering the consequences later. That’s why it’s been so essential to have Kathleen in that role.”
Another measure of her working relationship with Democrats is that the administration of Gov. Ned Lamont has placed a $500,000 funding request sought by McCarty for a public safety radio system on next week’s Bond Commission agenda.
Her Democratic opponent is Nick Gauthier, a former AFL-CIO labor organizer who is cross-endorsed by the Working Families Party and Independent Party. He lost to her two years ago, 51% to 49%.
McCarty said her focus on education, an essentially bipartisan issue, has helped her win successive close elections in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans.
“It’s that unaffiliated voter, that is what has kept me in office, and I appreciate them very much,” McCarty said.
Gauthier said McCarty’s bipartisan work on education issues should not overshadow her consistent votes with other Republicans on labor, environment and social issues.
“It’s not her personally or how she conducts herself personally. I have no qualms there,” Gauthier said. “It’s about her voting record. She’s voted against pro-worker legislation, time and time again. She voted against fair wage legislation. She voted against paid family and medical leave.”
McCarty was not one of the seven House Republicans to vote for a bill expanding the types of medical providers who can perform abortions by suction, the most common method of in-clinic abortions.
In Gauthier’s view, that vote and others makes McCarty an extremist, not a moderate.