Politics & Government
Blondin praises Hayes for withstanding withering attacks
Longtime Democratic official says changing demographics have benefitted party in the Fifth Congressional District
By Scott Benjamin
LITCHFIELD -- Audrey Blondin – who has been active in state Democratic politics for 42 years – says she is impressed at how Jahana Hayes, a political neophyte, has grown in four years as the congresswoman from the Fifth District.
Blondin, an attorney, points to acquiring infrastructure money that will not only upgrade the roads but provide broadband in rural towns that desperately need it.
Find out what's happening in Brookfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
She said Hayes, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, has been a congressional Democratic point person on child care services and has acquired more funds in the district for education and affordable housing.
However, the general narrative on Hayes of Wolcott, the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Connecticut, has been harsh.
Find out what's happening in Brookfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
CT Hearst columnist Dan Haar: “She doesn't always show up at the right places and shake the right hands and ask how the right kids are doing and say the right things. She doesn't have a close relationship with the media like, say, Blumenthal. Okay, no one has that, but Hayes has barely reached out to reporters at all in her four years on the job. And she has cycled through staff members.”
Republican State Central Committee member John Morris of Litchfield in an interview with Patch.com: “You’ve got to show up, you’ve got to stay visible and you have to stay in contact with folks.” He said that first selectmen in his district say they “never” talk directly to her, but only to her congressional staff.
Former Democratic state House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz of Berlin on the WTNH, Channel 8 Capitol Report days after Hayes won a third term on November 8, with just 50.4 percent of the vote: “I think Jahana Hayes needs to look in the mirror.”
Those don’t resemble the reviews for Neil Diamond at the Greek Theatre.
Greenwich resident John Filippelli, the president or programming for the YES Network, has said that a former player or coach with a marquee name can land a top position as a color commentator at a network. However, he said that his experience has been if you haven’t produced within a short time you are going to be either demoted or fired.
Hayes – who appeared with Democratic former President Barack Obama during her tenure as National Teacher of the Year - hasn’t been fired. She defeated Republican former state Sen. George Logan of Meriden, although by just 1,900 votes.
But she had won with about 55 percent of the vote in 2018 and 2020. Has she been demoted?
Blondin, who was initially elected to the Democratic State Central Committee in 2002 from the 30th state Senate District and currently is the Secretary for the state party, offers a five-star endorsement of Hayes, who grew up in Waterbury.
“She has the ability to listen and not be rigid,” she said in an interview with Patch.com. “Jahana has come a long way” since initially being elected in 2018.
“The person who had been on the city council, and was elected to the state House and then the state Senate has an innate understanding of how the system works. You know who to trust,” Blondin commented.
“Jahana had not been in the political spectrum,” she explained. “When that is the case, you don’t know who you can trust. You don’t know if you have a conversation that you are going to be hearing about that conversation the next day.”
Blondin, who lives in Goshen, commented that she agrees with Waterbury Democratic Town Committee Chairman Kenny Curran who told Patch.com last February that Hayes did have the advantage of understanding the fabric of communities since she had a career as a teacher and focused on that role instead of climbing the political ladder.
However, Southern Connecticut State University Political Science professor Jonathan Wharton told Patch.com this last February that it was surprising that national Republican organizations targeted the Fifth District, which has only elected Democrats since 2006.
Joe Courtney of Vernon in the Second District in 2006 and Jim Himes of Greenwich in the Fourth District, in 2008, both Democrats, were elected with smaller pluralities initially and now they are garnering close to or above 60 percent of the votes each election.
Hayes started at a higher plateau and then barely won a third term.
Blondin said Hayes “has challenges that many of her colleagues don’t face regarding personal safety issues.”
She estimated that the forces supporting Logan spent $12 million to unseat Hayes. “I don’t know of too many people that could have survived that.”
“They wasted $12 million – with all due respect,” Blondin declared regarding the Republican efforts, which fell short of producing the first GOP congressman from Connecticut since Chris Shays was defeated in the Fourth District in 2008.
However, Morris said in a recent interview with Patch.com that inaccurate and vicious television commercials by groups supporting Hayes were unleashed on Logan and may have been the difference in the election.
Blondin thinks that Hayes will be even stronger in the future after weathering the storm. She described the Republican onslaught as “a one-hit wonder” and doesn’t believe that the GOP will launch a similar effort in 2024. She said she also doesn’t think that Hayes will be challenged by a Democrat for the party’s nomination at the convention or in a primary in two years.
She said Hayes also has benefitted from the help of Milford Hayes, her husband.
“The strongest partnership is with the spouse,” commented Blondin. “Her husband is second to none. He is by her side. He is her strongest supporter.”
As a Democrat, it used to be that in the Fifth District you had to collectively win the five cities – Waterbury, Danbury, New Britain, Meriden and Torrington - by at least 15,000 votes. Hayes only prevailed by about 9,000 votes.
However, she added a broad coalition of small and suburban towns. Altogether, she captured 21 of the 41 municipalities in the sprawling district, which stretches from Brookfield to Salisbury. In 2012, Democrat Elizabeth Esty of Cheshire won an open seat and only captured 10 municipalities.
“The changing demographics have helped immensely,” remarked Blondin regarding the Democrats’ success.
She said, for example, the relocation of New York City residents to the Northwest Corner of Litchfield County that began following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 accelerated following the 2020 pandemic.
“People found they like it here,” explained Blondin. “It is less expensive. There is less crime. Zoom didn’t exist in 2001. They can now work from their living room.”
“Jahana’s ability to raise money in the Northwest Corner is second to none,” she declared. “She is absolutely idolized.”
Since the Fifth District became noted as a swing district in 1972, the Democrats current run of nine consecutive election wins is the longest for either major party.
Despite the photo finish in 2022 is the district on the verge of becoming solid Democratic?
Blondin said, “It is lean Democratic with the right candidate.”
She said since being elected to the Democratic State Central Committee she has tried to help get more than half of the 18 municipalities in the 30th State Central District, which she represents, into the party’s column and it hasn’t happened.
Blondin said that Kent, Salisbury and Cornwall are more Democratic. However, Torrington and Winsted have become more Republican.
The Democrats also have not elected a state senator in the district since 1978. Blondin said Eva Bermudez Zimmerman, the 2022 nominee, ran an impressive campaign, but still fell to state Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) of Brookfield, who carried better than 55 percent of the vote. She said Democratic leaders in the district will meet next month to review the election.
Nearly 13 years ago she hosted an event in her law office in Torrington with area Democrats endorsing Dannel Malloy, the former mayor of Stamford, for governor. He was elected and served for eight years. Last summer she held a meet-and-greet at her home in Goshen for Ned Lamont, who succeeded Malloy and was elected on November 8 to a second term.
Remarked Blondin, “Gov. Malloy made and built a foundation that Gov. Lamont has been able to build upon.”
Malloy of Essex has been praised for being the first governor in generations to fully fund the pensions for the state employees and for trimming the full-time work force by 13.1 percent.
Under Lamont of Greenwich, the state has paid down about $5.8 billion in pension debt, according to CT News Junkie. Lamont has been praised for his leadership in 2020 during the pandemic.
“With his business background, he made the right decisions,” said Blondin. “He also had the right tone at the right time.”
She said Malloy and Lamont have “different personalities.”
Blondin said Malloy is “a little more direct” and Lamont “is more flexible.”
She explained, “I couldn’t see Gov. Malloy appointing Mark Boughton,” the Republican former Danbury mayor, as the state Commissioner of Revenue Services.
Nationally, she has met Democratic former President Barack Obama a handful of times, dating to his keynote speech at the Connecticut Democratic Party’s annual fund-raising dinner in 2006.
Blondin said he deserves considerable praise, particularly for enacting the national health care program.
She added, “He had an innate ability to relate to people and understand the issues.” An example, she said, was changing his position on same-sex marriage after speaking with his two daughters.
Former W. Bush White House Political Director Karl Rove wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal that only members of the Silent and Baby Boomer Generations have been elected as president since 1992, and that it would behoove both the Democrats and the Republicans to nominate someone younger in 2024. He stated that there was a generational change in 1960 when two 40-somethings – John Kennedy and Richard Nixon – were the nominees.
Blondin said that President Joe Biden, who recently turned 80, has had even more success in his first two years than Obama had at a similar stage in his presidency. She believes that was partly reflected in the relative success that the Democrats had in the 2022 midterm elections as they lost just a small number of U.S. House seats and retained control of the U.S. Senate.
She said that she “fully” endorses a second term for Biden.
Reportedly, women now dominate Democratic presidential primary voting.
“I didn’t have that when I became active in the early 1980s,” commented Blondin, who received the Connecticut Democratic Party’s Ella Grasso Women’s Leadership Award in 2013, named after the former governor.
She said that she is pleased that more women have become active in the Democratic Party, because typically females face their “own set of challenges, starting with life balance. It is extremely difficult to balance a career, family and then add politics.”
Blondin added, “Not having adequate and competent child care [in the United States] is a huge impediment to women in every aspect.”
Resources:
Interview with Audrey Blondin, Patch.com, Sunday, December 18, 2022.
https://patch.com/connecticut/...
https://www.wcsu.edu/president/wp-content/uploads/sites/91/2017/09/oct1nt.pd
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/morris-calls-logan-talented-congressional-candidate
https://ctnewsjunkie.com/2022/11/11/analysis-jahana-hayes-nearly-lost-the-5th-why/
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/logan-declares-voters-feel-crushed-soaring-inflation
https://ballotpedia.org/Connecticut_State_Senate_District_30
WTNH, Capitol Report, November 13, 2022
