We’re just over two weeks out from Primary Day in Connecticut.
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Lisa Hagen to discuss her article, “Larson, Bronin waging an ad war in waning weeks before primary,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read Lisa’s story here.
WSHU: Hello, Lisa. There's a four-way Democratic primary for Larson's seat, but the escalating ad war is dominated by Larson himself and former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin. Is that because they have raised the most money, or is there more going on here?
LH: Yes, exactly. The two of them have raised significant amounts of money. Both Congressman Larson (D-CT-1) and former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin (D) have raised significant amounts of money, and the other two opponents are State Representative Jillian Gilcrest (D-West Hartford) and Ruth Fortune (D), who serves as a Board of Education member for Hartford. They just haven't raised the same amounts of money, and so it's just really tough to be able to air ads when you don't have enough funds, especially in a federal race, and so that's why you're really seeing both Larson and Bronin just dominate the airwaves currently, and I expect that to run up all the way to the August 11th primary.
WSHU: Now let's talk about the nature of the ads; what are they focused on?
LH: Some of the ones I focused on in the story were: you had Luke Bronin last week have two new ads, and a lot of his have been focused on this change time to pass the torch, and that's pretty much been the through line through a lot of his ads, with just like a slight raise of the temperature since then. And so one of his ads had voters making that same exact case as Bronin himself has; it's also kind of Bronin responding to some of these Larson ads about where the fundraising comes. And so you have Larson running ads criticizing Luke Bronin for getting a lot of money from billionaires and tech executives and what have you, and so this new Bronin ad that came out last week-it's almost kind of a response to that. And so it was focusing on the fact that Congressman Larson takes a lot of his money from corporate PACs or political action committees, and so a lot of it has been focused on the fundraising, which is then really the reason that they're able to even go up with these ads at all, so it's kind of an interesting little bit of a cycle.
WSHU: Quite a vicious cycle there. So, let's talk about money. Where is this money coming from?
LH: Yes. So, again, as I was saying, for Luke Bronin, basically all of his money comes from individual donations, and so all four of them are getting money from individual donors, anywhere from very small amounts of money to basically maxing out, which is about $3,500 per election, and you can get that three different times in Connecticut specifically. So a lot of his is fueled by individual donors, and a lot of the donors are very wealthy people. They're billionaires. They're people in private equity or more from venture capital and some tech executives. And so again, that's why Larson's focused on that. But Larson himself has also gotten individual donations from very wealthy people also in those same kinds of fields, and then for Larson specifically, he has gotten about half of his total fundraising over the course of the campaign, so from about January 2025 through now, from different political action committees. And so it's not just corporations; it's also unions, it's other industry groups, and so yeah, that's where a lot of that money is coming from. The two of them, and you know, again, for Gilcrest and Fortune, they're also getting money mostly from individual donors.
WSHU: What type of policy differences do they have, and do they highlight any of those in the ads?
LH: The ads, it feels a little bit less so like they're focusing on those very small policy differences, again, the wedge issue that's playing out both on the campaign trail and in these ads is just where they get their money from. But overall, I'd say there's little daylight between all four of them on policy. I mean, you know, we'll hear from them at debates this week. They're largely all supportive of universal health care, of other policies, but there's little distinctions here and there, and so maybe less so in the ads, but on the campaign trail, you have like Luke Bronin highlighting some of John Larson's votes that he's taken, and then with John Larson, they're highlighting Luke Bronin's time as mayor and some of the, you know, tougher relationships he's had with with unions, so we might be seeing that play out a little bit more on the campaign trail rather than what you might be seeing on TV as a voter.
WSHU: What about the generational change? Is that an issue in the ads?
LH: That's kind of been that the trend line we're seeing through most of the ads he's had throughout the entire year, and it's not making a major distinction on the two of them on policy, but saying Connecticut's first congressional district hasn't had a change in 28 years, and hasn't had a primary in 28 years, and so saying that, making the case, and this is not just Bronin, but this is also Larson's other competitors, Jillian Gilcrest and Ruth Fortune, all making the case, trying to make the case that we're in an unprecedented time. We need someone to go up against the Trump administration, and we think that needs to be someone, you know, new leaders, fresh leadership, and so that's a, and that's, and that's something we're seeing in a bunch of primaries, especially the Democratic Party throughout the country.
WSHU: Well, for those in that district who have been inundated with these ads, they'll soon be over because the primary is on August 11.
LH: Yes, exactly. They're all running up until August 11, and so I can imagine people are starting to get very inundated on TV or even just digital ads as well. I'll be continuing to cover the race. Again, since the story published last Friday, there's already been a new ad from the Larson campaign; it's a more positive spot, and it focuses solely on Larson through the eyes of Senator Chris Murphy, who has endorsed him. The whole Connecticut congressional delegation has endorsed their direct colleague John Larson for another two-year term, and so I think people's TVs and just when they're searching things online, they'll continue to get hit with ads until August 11, and yeah, I think that's what we'll see a lot of.
WSHU: Okay, so we'll see what happens on August 11.
LH: Definitely.
