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Nov 06, 2024

CT House Democrats make gains, await full results on Wednesday

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The House Democratic majority appeared to make modest gains Tuesday night in the Connecticut General Assembly, flipping at least three Republican seats on a night marked by widespread frustration over slow and incomplete election returns.

Republican and Democratic legislative leaders said they were unable to call many competitive races due to the failure by some local officials to run early-voting ballots through tabulators and post results by a midnight deadline.

The Senate Democratic majority neither claimed victory nor conceded defeat in four districts represented by Republicans who won two years ago with less than 51% of the vote and were seen as vulnerable in a presidential year.

Democrats began the night with majorities of 24-12 in the Senate, 98-53 in the House and hopes for major gains, given expectations that Donald J. Trump would be a drag on down-ballot Republicans.

The Associated Press quickly declared victories for the top of the Democratic ticket in Connecticut: Kamala Harris had carried Connecticut and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy had won a third term.

But the state’s first experience with early in-person voting slowed results. Officials said 850,601 votes had been cast before Tuesday: 741,895 during the two weeks of early in-person voting that ended Sunday and another 108,706 by absentee.

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Early ballots were cast in sealed envelopes that had to be opened and fed into tabulators on Election Day. In some places, they were hand counted. Local officials had posted results from only 276 of the 760 polling places by 12:45 a.m. Wednesday.

The gains claimed by House Democrats came at the expense of Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, and Rep. Kathleen McCarty, R-Waterford. To win, both had to significantly outperform Trump in their districts.

Unofficial results showed Nick Menapace defeating Cheeseman in the 37th District and Nick Gauthier besting McCarthy in the 38th. MJ Shannon won the open 117th District seat in West Haven that Republican Charles Ferraro had held for a decade.

“It’s not a wave,” said House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. “Or it’s a light wave.”

Based on incomplete results, Republicans had hopes of Tina Courpas defeating Rep. Rachel Khanna, D-Greenwich. Khanna had unseated a conservative Republican two years ago, giving Democrats all three House seats in Greenwich.

House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, said incomplete results left another close race in doubt: Rep. Michelle Cook, D-Torrington, faced a strong challenge from Joe Canino in a district favoring Trump.

Democrats successfully defended seats in several districts targeted by the GOP, including the freshman who won two years ago by a single vote: Rep. Chris Poulos of Southington.

Poulos, a teacher, had spent the summer door-knocking.

Others to survive in competitive districts were Rep. Jaime Foster, D-Ellington, and Rep. Kara Rochelle, D-Ansonia. Rochelle was challenged by the Republican mayor, David Cassetti, and also faced a Democrat, Thomas Egan, running on the Independent Party line.

In the Senate, Democrats went to bed pessimistic about flipping seats held by two Republicans in Fairfield County: Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich and Sen. Tony Hwang of Fairfield. But the races were too close to call given the incomplete results.

Fazio has, perhaps, the highest profile of the four vulnerable Republicans. When he narrowly won a special election in 2021, reclaiming the seat from Democrats, Fazio drew national attention. It was the first Democratic legislative seat flipped after Joe Biden took office.

Fazio thanked the Republicans who gathered at a steakhouse in Greenwich early in the evening and recognized the difficulty of his reelection bid in an increasingly blue state.

Referencing the money that Democrat Nick Simmons raised and spent on the race, Fazio joked that he faced the “single most expensive state legislative campaign in state history.”

As the results continued to come in, Jerry Cincotta, Greenwich’s Republican chairman, acknowledged the partisan drift of the state and the region towards Democrats.

“As Greenwich continues to change, there is always more to do,” Cincotta said.

But Democrats said they seemed to be underperforming in Greenwich, leaving Simmons’ hopes with Stamford results not expected until later Wednesday.

In the 8th Senate District of Farmington Valley, Democrat Paul Honig had a lead over Sen. Lisa Seminara, R-Avon, a rematch of a close race two years ago. With returns from nine of the 11 communities in the district, Honig had 52% of the vote.

With nearly complete results posted in the 35th Senate District, Sen. Jeff Gordon, R-Woodstock, led his Democratic challenger, Merry C. Garrett, with 51.9% of the vote.

There are relatively few competitive races in the General Assembly.

Thirty-nine House members and five senators were unopposed, including Laurie Sweet, a Democratic candidate for the open seat vacated by retiring Rep. Michael D’Agostino, D-Hamden.

There were 13 open seats in the House and one in the Senate.

Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox, a Democrat of Bridgeport, won the seat opened by the retirement of Sen. Marilyn Moore, D-Bridgeport.

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Mark is the Capitol Bureau Chief and a co-founder of CT Mirror. He is a frequent contributor to WNPR, a former state politics writer for The Hartford Courant and Journal Inquirer, and contributor for The New York Times.

Andrew joined CT Mirror as an investigative reporter in July 2021. Since that time, he's written stories about a state lawmaker who stole $1.2 million in pandemic relief funds, the state Treasurer's failure to return millions of dollars in unclaimed money to Connecticut citizens and an absentee ballot scandal that resulted in a judge tossing out the results of Bridgeport's 2023 Democratic mayoral primary. Prior to moving to Connecticut, Andrew was a reporter at local newspapers in North Dakota, West Virginia and South Carolina. His work focuses primarily on uncovering government corruption but over the course of his career, he has also written stories about the environment, the country's ongoing opioid epidemic and state and local governments. Do you have a story tip? Reach Andrew at 843-592-9958