We're less than a month away from Connecticut's primary Election Day.
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Lisa Hagen to discuss her article, “Jillian Gilchrest tries to break through in primary, one door at a time,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read Lisa’s story here.
WSHU: Hello, Lisa. You say Jillian Gilchrest’s victory over a long-time incumbent in a 2018 primary for state representative was powered in large part by her door-to-door knocking operation, and she's now trying to replicate that in her campaign for Congress. You recently tagged along. What was the experience like?
LH: Yeah, she's looking to have lightning strike twice, and this worked for her when she ran in 2018 and ran against a longtime incumbent, someone with a similarly long number of terms as Congressman Larson, and she's trying to do that again, but in a campaign for Congress, which is arguably a lot harder and has its own challenges. And so, yeah, I tagged along with her for a couple of hours in late June and went door to door with her. And door knocking is tough. Not everyone answers. A lot of times, people just aren't home because it's midday. They're at work. They're on vacation. And sometimes I think people just aren't answering. And so it's, you know, it's really like a boots-on-the-ground kind of operation. But again, you're meeting people where they are, and when you do meet someone who is interested in talking, you can get in quite an interesting conversation and try to make your pitch to them.
WSHU: Now, for those who were interested and had conversations, what were the conversations like?
LH: It's interesting. I think it's really what's happening and how people feel in Connecticut is really kind of what you hear from voters all across the country. I mean, it's the same types of issues that people are frustrated by, and it's affordability, it's cost of living, and keep in mind a lot of these are Democratic voters, or you know, again, we we met one person who was registered Republican years ago and just never quite switched it, but largely we heard from people who are really concerned and frustrated by President Trump, and so you hear a lot of those national issues, those national forces, and it's this-it's a lot of the same issues in Connecticut, which is not surprising. I mean, there's definitely a theme out there of what concerns people going into these midterm elections, and so it was, regardless of whether they supported Congressman Larson or not, they really want Congress to do more and want to do more in taking on President Trump, at least for those voters.
WSHU: So, the bottom line here is who can fight Trump the best,
LH: Yes, yes. That's someone who is willing to take him on, do that from Congress, and you know it's, I think when you're in the minority party, you know, especially for Democrats, it can be frustrating because they're like, hey, we're doing what we can. We have little leverage and influence. But voters understand that they, at least people I talk to, like they get that they're just one member of 435 in the House. But with that said, they still want them to do more, and so that sentiment is out there, and it's in Connecticut, and it's across the country.
WSHU: So how popular is the incumbent John Larson, and do they feel he's doing everything he can to fight against Trump?
LH: It’s an extremely small sample size of who we spoke to and who we heard from on this door-knocking trip. But again, as I kind of wrote in the story, and as Jillian Gilchrest described it, it's a mixed bag. You're getting people who are at least people we had heard from at length. They are familiar with the primary and with the race, and so you know some people who want the congressman or, again, just Democrats in Congress to do more.
WSHU: So let's talk a little bit about the primary itself. Who are the four people contesting here?
LH: It's Congressman John Larson, who was first elected in 1998, and then it is Luke Bronin, a former mayor of Hartford, and he is the party-endorsed candidate. He won that endorsement at the nominating convention in May. It's Jillian Gilchrest, and she's a state representative from West Hartford, and again, she won that race by unseating incumbent in 2018 and then it is also Ruth Fortune, who is an attorney and an appointed member on Hartford's Board of Education.
WSHU: Now, money is like the lifeblood of most campaigns. How do the candidates stack as far as money is concerned?
LH: Yes, it is. Money is needed to run any campaign, especially a federal one. And it has become one of the biggest issues that we're hearing from all four of the candidates, and especially how they're kind of framing their campaigns. And so both Larson and Bronin have raised the most amount of money and spent the most amount of money at times, you know, when you report fundraising to the FEC, you do it in quarterly reports, and so in those past reports, Bronin has typically narrowly outraised Congressman Larson, but it's pretty comparable. They're both raising large sums of money.
And then you have Gilchrest and Fortune quite a bit behind in the money race, and so how that's going to translate and shake out is that that's going to give Larson and Bronin more ability to go up on air to be able to run ads, particularly on TV. They've already done so, and so you know they're all four of them are going to be, you know, canvassing and doing events and meeting people where they are, but that's where it really comes down to for Gilchrest and Fortune is being able to do more of that again, boots on the ground kind of campaigning and that canvassing.
WSHU: So, shoe leather.
LH: Exactly.
WSHU: Now you spoke with Scott McLean, a political scientist who is studying this campaign. What is his analysis of race the way it stands right now?
LH: I think conventional wisdom and how McLean sees it is that the more people, the better for the incumbent, which means better for Congressman Larson. But that doesn't necessarily mean he's going to win, and he was pointing to the fact that Luke Bronin has raised a lot of money, and big money race in the split between four of the candidates. That really means again that shoe leather campaigning is really going to come in handy for Gilcrest and Fortune.
WSHU: Well, in a few weeks, we'll find out whether shoe leather carries the day.
LH: Yes. Yeah. We'll see.
