Voters in the 17th Senatorial District of Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Derby, Hamden, Naugatuck and Woodbridge have three choices to represent them in the Connecticut Senate. They are all named Jorge Cabrera.
No Republican is running. Cabrera appears on three ballot lines as a Democrat cross-endorsed by the left-leaning Working Families Party and the Independent Party, which is trying to rebrand itself as a centrist defender of, among other things, democracy.
The Independent Party has endorsed 84 candidates for the General Assembly, including cross-endorsements of 47 Democrats and 30 Republicans — and the party required each of them to denounce the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald J. Trump. The Working Families Party has endorsed 81 — every one a Democrat.
Connecticut and New York are among the few states that embrace fusion politics, allowing cross-endorsements that give candidates more than one ballot line and, to varying degrees, an identity beyond Democrat or Republican in an era of hyper partisanship.
What precisely those identities might be is blurred by a significant overlap in the endorsements by the pro-labor, leftist Working Families Party and the newly self-described centrist Independent Party, which once seemed friendlier to the GOP, especially in statewide races.
Cabrera is one of 29 Democrats running for the General Assembly — six in the Senate, 23 in the House — cross-endorsed by both the Working Families and Independent parties. While he is unopposed, others with multiple ballot lines are in competitive races.
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“Quite frankly, if you’re asking my personal opinion, if somebody’s gotten the endorsement of the Working Family Party, they should not get the endorsement of the Independent Party,” said Sen. Lisa Seminara, R-Avon. “The reality of the situation is that party is the most far left-leaning party there is in the state.”
Working Families was part of the coalition behind raising the minimum wage, creating the paid family and medical leave program, and requiring private employers to offer paid time off. It favors allowing jobless benefits for strikers, easing state spending caps and enabling municipalities to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections.
But for obvious reasons, Seminara still was happy to have been cross-endorsed by the Independent Party in her first run in 2022 and again this year. Her margin of victory two years ago over Democrat Paul Honig arguably came on the Independent line.
Honig’s 22,830 votes on the Democratic line were 513 more than the 22,317 cast for Seminara on the Republican line. But once her 637 Independent line votes were counted, her loss became a 124-vote win. She is in a rematch with Honig, who received his own second ballot line this time from an endorsement by the Working Families Party.
Unknowable, of course, is precisely how many additional votes come with an additional line. In Seminara’s case, how many of those 637 voters still would have backed her if her only identity was as a Republican, which is not a plus in every corner of her 11-town district?
“I generally don’t think either one is that impactful,” said House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford. “I think these minor party endorsements, at times, you can create the impression you are [selling] your soul to get another line on the ballot.”
Connecticut’s political world woke up to the possibilities of fusion politics in 2010, when Democrat Dannel P. Malloy ended the party’s 20-year losing streak in gubernatorial elections, winning by just 6,404 votes — a margin within his tally on the Working Families’ line.
Malloy delivered on two WFP priorities: A first-in-the-nation mandate in 2011 on a relatively small number of private employers, mostly in the service industry, to provide paid sick time; and a 2014 law that raised the $8.70 minimum wage to $10.10 by January 2017.
Under a law signed in 2019 by Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat cross-endorsed by the Working Families, the minimum wage is now $15.69, pegged to an index of economic indicators. On Jan. 1, it will go to $16.35. Lamont also signed a law greatly expanding the reach of the original paid sick days mandate.
But Malloy and Lamont each pushed back forcefully at other Working Families goals: In 2017, Malloy summarily dismissed the group’s proposed 19.5% surtax on the earnings of hedge fund managers as unspeakably bad politics, and Lamont now is an obstacle to its desires of loosening spending caps and providing jobless benefits to strikers.
So, what of the Democrats cross-endorsed by the party? How much of its agenda do they endorse? Or, for that matter, what should voters expect from a candidate who appears on the Independent line?
Unlike the Independent Party of Connecticut, which is mainly known in political circles for sparking periodic legal fights over who controls the ballot line, the Working Families here and in New York long has been focused on labor issues, spending on social services and progressive taxation.
Sarah Ganong, the state director of the Working Families in Connecticut, said the organization has no formal litmus test, though she could not imagine endorsing anyone opposed to its foundational positions on sick days, the minimum wage and paid family and medical leave.
“This year, we treated the paid sick days question like a litmus test, partly because we started interviewing and endorsing candidates and incumbents before that bill passed in late April, early May,” she said.
The bill expanding the reach of the sick days mandate passed the House in April with nine moderate Democrats joining the Republican minority in opposition. It won final passage in the Senate in May on a party-line vote, with one Democrat absent.
The Working Families asks candidates to fill out a 52-page questionnaire. It is a mix of demographic and policy questions — some yes or no, others open-ended. Two ask candidates to keep their distance from moderates and the state’s largest business group, the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.
“While we have worked to build progressive power in our legislature, we are often challenged by the Moderate Caucus who have organized against us in our fights for increasing minimum wage, expanding health care to undocumented immigrants, expanding paid sick days, and establishing a fair work week,” the questionnaire says. “If (re)elected will you pledge to not join the moderate caucus?”
Ganong said opposition to the moderate caucus or CBIA was not a requirement for a cross-endorsement. The questionnaire also asked for a pledge to oppose the creation or additional funding of charter schools and support for LGBTQ rights and tries to gauge support for racial justice, abortion access, gun safety and increasing taxes on the income and capital gains of the top 3% of earners.
“There’s a lot of things that our organization cares about, and the questionnaire is kind of a really broad swath outlining that. And we’re also really always eager to let folks know where we stand and where our partner organizations stand,” Ganong said, “And there’s not always going to be 100% alignment, but it’s folks that we think are going to be the best choice for sort of moving the platform forward if they’re in office.”
Seminara is among the Republicans who have used opponents’ Working Families cross-endorsement against them.
“My opponent wants you to believe he’s ‘middle-of-the-road’ and a ‘moderate.’ But by definition, you can’t call someone endorsed by the Working Families Party a moderate,” Seminara says in an ad. “I’m honored to be endorsed once again by the Independent Party of Connecticut because they looked at my voting record and know that I will continue to be a voice for common sense when I’m speaking for each of you.”
Honig countered by saying his Working Families endorsement reflected on Seminara’s politics as well as his. He pointed to a scorecard by CPAC, a national conservative group, that says Seminara voted as a conservative 61% of the time.
“Ned Lamont was cross-endorsed by the Working Families Party, and he’s known as a moderate Democrat,” Honig said. “I think what it means is that we do agree on some things, like women’s right to choose, gun safety legislation, things like that. And they made the determination that they would prefer me to be in the seat rather than Sen. Seminara.”
Honig, a selectman from Harwinton, noted that two Democrats in the region, Reps. Eleni Kavros DeGraw of Avon and Maria Horn of Salisbury, were endorsed by the Working Families and Independent parties.
“So I don’t think the cross-endorsements mean much of anything,” Honig said before a rally Saturday in Canton with Kavros DeGraw, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes. Murphy and Hayes will be on the same lines with Honig: Democrat and Working Families.
In 2022, the 4,020 votes Hayes got on the Working Families line was double her margin of victory over George Logan. He had the Independent line two years ago, but says he did not seek it in their rematch this year.
Kavros DeGraw is one of 133 candidates to sign a CBIA pledge to support “a sustainable opportunity economy that emphasizes affordability, meaningful careers, and a positive business climate.” CBIA’s leader, Chris DiPentima, quickly notes that is a larger number than those who accepted the Working Families’ line.
“I signed the CBIA pledge, and I have the Working Families Party endorsement,” Kavros DeGraw said. “My upset, I guess, is in the way that the Republicans have used it, they’ve misrepresented. It didn’t say that I couldn’t work with my moderate colleagues. It just asked me not to join the moderate caucus. But for the record, I’m not in the progressive caucus either.”
The Independent cross-endorsement comes with fewer demands to express an opinion on controversial matters. Its very name, Independent, makes it a safe ballot line to occupy in swing districts, say members of both parties. Who doesn’t want to be tagged as independent?
“If I had to choose, I think the Independent Party is a safer endorsement,” Candelora said. One metric backing that assessment: The absence of negative ads over an Independent cross-endorsement.
Two years ago, the margin of victory for Rep. Jaime Foster, D-Ellington, came on minor-party lines, including the Independent and Working Families. This year, her only cross endorsement is from the Independent Party.
Rep. Chris Poulos, D-Southington, flipped a Republican seat two years ago with a one-vote victory over a Republican who got 117 votes on the Independent line. This year, Poulos sought and received the Independent line.
Chip Beckett, the new chairman of the Independent Party of Connecticut, acknowledged his party lacked a strong ideological identity in the past.
“That was one of my big problems and objections — is it didn’t really stand for anything,” Beckett said. “And just putting people on the ballot because you have a line doesn’t make sense.”
In 2022, the party nominated its own ticket, Rob Hotaling for governor and Beckett for lieutenant governor, rather than cross endorse the Republican nominee, Bob Stefanowski, as it did in 2018. Stefanowski unsuccessfully challenged the endorsement process in lawsuit.
Beckett said the cross endorsements, as well as the nominations of a few candidates who only will appear on the Independent line, were chosen by the party’s 12-member governing committee.
Its questionnaire asks candidates, in 250 words or less, to “give us your thoughts on specific legislation you support, or would propose to address on the following topics.”
Those topics are voting and ballot access, ranked-choice voting, government transparency, education, environment and climate change mitigation, housing, state taxation and finances and transportation infrastructure.
One twist this year is a pledge inspired by Trump’s election denial, without mentioning him by name.
“I, [candidate’s name], strongly support free and fair elections and the rule of law, and reject the actions on January 6th, 2021 that attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in the history of the United States. I accept the results of all elections past and future, as certified by election officials.”
Beckett said the pledge was a deal-breaker for some Republicans who had been cross-endorsed in previous elections.
“We’ve gotten a lot of pushback because Jan. 6, 2021, was named, and I am entirely comfortable. I think that was appalling,” Beckett said.
Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, was among the Republicans who signed.
“I don’t think it speaks to any particular candidate,” Harding said. “Overall, it really speaks more to moving forward in terms of accepting election results. And it doesn’t speak to anybody’s ability to challenge results through the court system if they have questions about how ballots were counted, etc.”
Harding said he offered no cautions to his caucus about seeking or accepting cross-endorsements.
“I think every campaign handles endorsements and cross-endorsements individually, because every district is different, every senator is different, every position is different. We have general, unified principles as a party, but when it comes down to endorsements and cross-endorsements for campaigns, that’s upon the candidate to determine what endorsements they want to seek.”