Tuesday is Election Day in Connecticut. Without any statewide races on the ballot, which local races are drawing eyes?
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas to discuss his article, “CT Democrats targeting open Republican municipal seats,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read Mark’s story here.
WSHU: National politics seldom play a role in Connecticut municipal elections, but this year might be different, because of Donald Trump. Is that why you decided to look into what the Democrats are doing on the local level in Connecticut, especially in New Britain, where a long-time Republican incumbent is giving up her seat to run for governor?
MP: That is one reason. The other reason is, look, when you're a reporter looking for common themes in municipal races, quite frequently, they're just not there. However, I decided to take a look at the five communities where there are open mayoral or first Selectmen races, and in four of those five communities, Republicans hold those offices, despite the communities being overwhelmingly Democratic. So this is an opportunity for the Democrats to make some inroads now, at the same time the President and the Congress have made the suspension of SNAP a very relevant issue, and as well as threats to Medicaid, and in New Britain, this has been used by the Democrats to try to increase the voter turnout.
WSHU: Now, let's talk a little bit about New Britain itself. It's a largely Democratic city. They have a higher registration in New Britain than Republicans, but they've had a Republican mayor for the past 12 years. How did that come about?
MP: Erin Stewart, she's well known. She's a product of the local schools. She's a very charming, engaging woman who was elected at the age of 26. Now her father had also been mayor, but she had succeeded by taking advantage of the fact that the Democratic advantage tends to be blunted by the low urban turnout in non-presidential years. So in a presidential year, you know, the turnout might be, you know, 65% 70% more. In a mayoral election in New Britain, the turnout has been about 26%. Additionally, another rule of thumb is that when examining turnout in cities, the two biggest predictors of turnout tend to be income and education. And in a struggling city, you know, you're going to get a lot of folks who are struggling. And you know, voting is not necessarily top of mind. You know, the poverty rate in New Britain is about 20%. They have almost 11,000 people who get SNAP food benefits. You know, you've got even a greater number who rely on Medicaid for health care. This year, the Democrats have certainly made federal issues a central part of their campaign.
Now Republicans will say, quite reasonably, why should you blame a municipal Republican for something that's going on in Washington? And that's absolutely fair, but that's not really how federal issues affect municipal races. It's a question of who is now inspired to turn out that might not otherwise. Who is angry, who wants to show up? And we saw that in 2018, in Connecticut, after President Trump's first election, and in 2016, there was a greater turnout among younger urban voters, which helped Ned Lamont be elected governor in 2018.
WSHU: Now, you know what you've just said makes me think about the early voting count, and New Britain doesn't even come close to the top 10 in early voting. A town like Stratford has the highest number of early voters. Even though there's an open seat and Democrats are trying to get people out, it doesn't seem as if it has moved the numbers in New Britain, at least not in terms of early voting.
MP: Well, that will be one of the things we'll be looking for Tuesday night and Wednesday, when we get to crunch the numbers. How has early voting increased turnout, as opposed to simply offering a more convenient way for people who would normally vote to do so? In New Britain, the Democrats believe that if they get a turnout that is somewhere around 30% not the 26 or 27% you normally see in municipalities, that should be enough, given their three-to-one voter registration advantage, to elect Bobby Sanchez.
WSHU: Bobby Sanchez is a Democrat who's a state rep who's running for mayor in New Britain, right?
MP: Bobby Sanchez is a state rep who ran against Erin Stewart four years ago and was absolutely crushed. But you know, this is very different. It's an open seat, and the Republican nominee is interesting. Sharon Beloin-Saavedra, she was a Democrat until last year, although she was allied with Erin Stewart and ran at least once, even though she retained her democratic affiliation, she ran on Erin Stewart's line. So you know, Sharon is trying to capitalize on Erin's success in reaching out across the party aisle. But you know, Erin Stewart, you know, is a gifted retail politician. So you know it's going to be harder for the Republicans if the Democrats can't win it this time with an open seat and everything going on. You know, they've joked that they may they may call it quits for a while.
WSHU: Okay, quickly, before we go. The other races that you looked at, a quick synopsis of each one of them?
MP: Well, okay, in Westport, you have Jen Tooker, who won narrowly four years ago. Westport is one of those, you know, you know, well down in Fairfield County, that's one of those Fairfield County towns that has trended democratic over the last decade or more. So the Democrats are hopeful they can regain the first selectman's office. Further up the coast, in Branford, you have a very popular Republican first selectman who is not running for re-election. The voter registration favors the Democrats, but Brantford also has a sort of conservative voter base. There are some blue-collar Democrats. When you get further away from those very expensive neighborhoods close to the water, you also have Norwich, which has gone back and forth over the years. Peter Nystrom, a conservative Republican former state representative, is not running. And so again, the Democrats have a significant voter registration advantage.
There's also, you know, as a footnote there, that the councilman who is running on the Democratic line is of the Sikh faith, and he would be the first Sikh mayor in Connecticut. So that's something to look for. And then you have in Torrington, but it's a little different thing. It's an open race for mayor, but Torrington is one of those places. It's really kind of a 5050 split as far as voter registration. President Trump has won there, not by huge margins, necessarily, one of the other races to look for. It's not an open seat, but in Bristol, another one of those places that's a very competitive city. The mayor, the Republican mayor who unseated a Democrat four years ago. They're in a rematch, Republican Jeff Caggiano and Democrat Ellen Zoppo-Sassu. So, you know, those are kind of the fun things to look at, because none of the big cities either have mayoral elections or they're not competitive. It's mid-cycle for some of the cities that have four-year terms for mayor; Stamford and New Haven have elections, but you know, the incumbents there are heavily favored.
