Candidates canvassing neighborhoods to win 107th state House seat

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD -- CT Mirror Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas recently told a Greenwich civic group that Connecticut is in a “political identity crisis.”

The Hartford Courant was reporting a decade ago that the Farmington Valley was trending Democrat more than before.

The War in Iraq apparently activated Democrats in Litchfield County’s Northwest Corner. They became energized in 2006 for Ned Lamont of
Greenwich in the U.S. Senate primary and Chris Murphy of Cheshire in the general election in the Fifth Congressional District. Then they were posting lawn signs and making phone calls in droves two years later for Barack Obama.

After 40 years of GOP representation, the Fourth Congressional District went to Jim Himes of Greenwich 10 years ago, who has since amassed as much as 60 percent of the vote.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first Democrat to capture Darien since 1888 and the first to in in New Canaan since 1964.

Erin Stewart, a Republican, has been mayor of Democrat-dominated New Britain for five years.

Following the Obama victory in 2018, Republicans had only 37 seats in the state House and 12 in the state Senate. Those numbers have steadily increased to 72 seats in the House and 18 in the Senate.

Who would have thought after Bill O’Neill of East Hampton amassed 59 percent of the vote to win a second term in 1986 that it would be 24 years before the Democrats won another gubernatorial election? Departing Gov. Dannel Malloy of Stamford won twice, but he prevailed in 2010 in a photo finish and in 2014 by half a length.

Is the 107^th state House District going through an identity crisis?

Since being formed in 1966, Republicans have held it for 50 of 52 years. Democrats haven’t won since Bethel attorney James Mannion captured the seat in 1974,

However, Democrats have won the first selectman’s office in four of the last five municipal elections in Brookfield.

From 1995 to 2009, Republicans controlled the first selectman’s office in Bethel 12 out of 14 years. However, Democrat Matt Knickerbocker prevailed in 2009 and has annexed four subsequent races.

From 1967 to 2001, Democrats held the mayor’s office in Danbury for 30 of those 34 years. Now, Republican Mark Boughton, who was the runner-up in the GOP gubernatorial primary, is finishing his 17^th year in office.

“I think people vote on the issues and for the candidate, not necessarily the party,” said two-term Republican incumbent Stephen Harding, a Brookfield attorney, as he canvassed homes Saturday along Brookfield’s High Ridge Road.

“I think over time the demographics and political ideology has changed,” said Democratic challenger Daniel Pearson in an interview before he and a campaign volunteer went door to door near Candlewood Lake in Brookfield.

The district includes all of Brookfield, the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a slice of northern Danbury.

This is probably the most ambitious campaign in its history. The roster of state representatives includes former Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and former state House Speaker Fran Collins, who were both from Brookfield.

Harding did not have an opponent two years ago and his immediate predecessor, David Scribner of Brookfield, did not have Democratic opposition in five of his nine campaigns.

Pearson was accompanied by a posse of about 20 volunteers, including Brookfield First Selectman Steve Dunn, on June 23 during a canvassing tour.

Pearson estimated Saturday that he and his campaign volunteers had contacted 7,000 homes since then.

They planned at least 1,500 visits during the final weekend before the Tuesday, November 6, election.

Harding had a campaign kick-off in January at a local bar and had lawn signs posted before July 1.

Harding, who was campaigning Saturday afternoon with first-term state Sen. Craig Miner (R-30) of Litchfield, said the neighborhood tours are the best way to determine how voters feel about the issues.

“I actually most enjoy talking to voters who aren’t going to vote for me because we get a real dialogue going on the issues,” said Pearson, who works for a non-profit organization based in Norwalk.

“I have Bernie Sanders supporters who are going to vote for me and Donald Trump supporters who said they will vote for me,” he added.

“You interact with people that you would not otherwise be speaking with,” said Harding.

When Brookfield resident Liam Gallagher told Pearson that his chief issues is traffic, the candidate replied, “I know what you’re talking about. It takes me an hour and a half to get to Norwalk on weekday mornings when it should only be 30 minutes.”

An ad-hoc commission recommended a 30-year, $100 billion infrastructure improvement program three years ago. Voters this week will consider putting transportation funds in a lockbox when they get their ballots.

One elderly couple politely waved Harding and Miner off, saying that they are Republicans, were prepared to vote for both of them, are enthused about GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski of Madison and approve of the policies of Republican President Donald Trump.

Jim Messina, who managed former Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, has told The Christian Science Monitor, that targeted door-knocking has become more important in political campaigns.

“We don’t have the kind of data that the Obama campaign had, obviously, but we can tell from the data that we have about which people have voted in the midterm elections over the years,” said Pearson, who was a volunteer for Obama’s 2012 campaign.

“It is more advanced than who is a Democrat and who is an unaffiliated voter,” he added.

“We know about their voting history,” said Harding as a campaign volunteer with a clipboard and list of names and residences stood nearby.

Both candidates said the social media is playing a larger role in campaigns.
Harding said the sophistication has grown in leaps and bounds since he initially won the seat in a special election in February 2015 against former Brookfield Democratic Selectman and Board of Finance member Howard Lasser.

Boughton has called it “the broadcast network of the 21^st century.”

Harding, who said he has personally visited at least 2,000 homes since July, indicated that taxes and the projected $4.6 billion budget deficit for the two-year cycle that starts July 1.

How do you resolve that when the state employees have a no-layoff clause through June 30, 2021, their benefit package has been extended until 2027 and their pension system is only 29 percent funded, according to the March 1 report of the state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness?

Harding, 31, an attorney who formerly served on the Brookfield Board of Education, said he believes that efficiencies can be found and insisted that he would not support an increase in taxes.

Pearson, 26, who is vice chairman of the Brookfield Housing Authority, also said he believes efficiencies and told voters during his stops that he would support investments in education and energy sources to boost Connecticut’s economy, which contracted by eight percent between 2007 and 2016, according to the state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness.

He said he believes that taxes can remain at their current rates.

Both candidates said they would consider establishing a state Office of Inspector General with a small group of forensic auditors who would identify wasteful spending.

Both said they would want to see data on the possible cost-effectiveness of adding that office.

Former state Senate GOP Leader John McKinney of Fairfield and former Trumbull GOP First Selectman Tim Herbst, who have each sought the party ‘s gubernatorial nomination, have said that the federal government yields a large return in efficiencies from the money devoted to hiring the forensic auditors.

Pearson said he is confident that Lamont, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, will make investments in education and social programs.

“In this district, that’s the difference in this campaign,” he related. “Harding wants to cut his way to prosperity and I want to make investments to establish prosperity.”

During a recent debate sponsored by the Brookfield Chamber of Commerce, Harding said that Pearson’s platform to spend more money during a fiscal crisis is not the proper prescription.

Harding said he has had one brief conversation with Stefanowski, who is making his first bid for public office.

However, he said based on the feedback that he’s received, he agrees with former state Sen. Jamie McLaughlin, a former Brookfield resident who now resides in Darien, that Stefanowski would be able to make “structural changes in Connecticut’s government operations” as a result of the financial acumen he acquired while working for UBS and his years at General Electric, where administrators are in the trenches with the people directly reporting to them and offer recommendations on how to improve operations.

Polls from Quinnipiac University and Sacred Heart University indicate that the gubernatorial race is a statistical dead heat with unaffiliated candidate Oz Griebel of Hartford, the former head of the Metro Hartford Alliance, running a distant third.