Politics & Government
Despite meager numbers, Connecticut GOP has issues to run on
Sacred Heart's Rose says to win state Republicans should open primaries, nominate experienced candidates, ambitiously canvass neighborhoods
By Scott Benjamin
FAIRFIELD – If Republican Charlie Baker captured the governorship in 2014 and 2018 with 64.7 and 67 percent of the vote, respectively, in Massachusetts – where less than nine percent of voters registered with the GOP - then why haven’t Connecticut Republicans, who have 20.3 percent of the voters, elected a governor in the last four campaigns?
“It has to do with the people who are running for office,” said Sacred Heart University Professor of Politics Gary Rose, who recently wrote “Connecticut Republicans: Past, Present and Future” (184 pages, Ten Mile River Press).
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Rose added, “In Massachusetts they liked Charlie Baker a lot.”
Morning Consult reported in September 2022 that Baker, who is now the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, was the most popular governor in the country.
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Rose wrote that the Connecticut GOP – which hasn’t won a gubernatorial race or a U.S. House contest since 2006 or a U.S. Senate election since 1982 – should stop nominating multi-millionaire candidates with limited political experience.
For the governorship the GOP chose Greenwich millionaire Tom Foley over then-Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele of Stamford in 2010; Foley instead of state Sen. John McKinney of Fairfield in 2014; and Madison financial executive Bob Stefanowski over Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton in 2018. The Republicans lost each time, and again in 2022 when Stefanowski was the nominee.
Republican National Committee member Leora Levy was nominated in 2022 for the U.S. Senate over former state House GOP leader Themis Klarides of Madison and was then handily defeated by Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Greenwich in the general election.
“If you’re going to have the same formula, you’re going to have the same results,” Rose said in an interview with Patch.com.
But Hartford Courant political columnist Kevin Rennie wrote in 2021 that, “The state’s campaign public financing program has created an unintended consequence that gives wealthy candidates a formidable advantage. From the start of a campaign the wealthy can use their fortunes to spend, spend, spend. A candidate of ordinary means slogs along trying to collect $250,000 in small contributions and then waits until next spring to qualify for public funds.”
Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) and Stefanowski opted not to participate in the Citizens Election Program in either 2018 or 2022.
Have we reached the point where voters will only elect a governor living in a 12-bedroom French Manor overlooking Long Island Sound?
Rose said that even with the current provisions, he believes the funds from “the Citizen Election Program [which was approved in 2005] would be enough for a good Republican candidate.”
Under the program, a candidate for governor needs to raise at least $250,000 in small donations with $225,000 of that figure coming from Connecticut residents. That would qualify a gubernatorial candidate for a $6.5 million grant for the general election.
However, reportedly none of Connecticut’s 89 governors have gone directly from the General Assembly to the coveted office on the second floor at the State Capitol.
Four of the last nine governors have been the chief elected official in their hometown – John Dempsey of Preston, Tom Meskill of New Britain, Lowell Weicker of Greenwich and Dannel Malloy of Stamford. Yet, no sitting mayor has gone directly to the governorship since Morgan Bulkeley of Hartford in 1888.
So with no victories in the major state or congressional races for more than a decade, does the Connecticut Republican Party have a minor league system?
Remarked Rose, “There is no bench. There is no minor league. When you don’t have any of the constitutional offices, it is hard to have a minor league.”
Regarding the 2026 gubernatorial campaign: “There is no name other than Erin Stewart,” he exclaimed, making a reference to the mayor of New Britain, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor in 2018.
However, in 2019 Rose wrote “Connecticut In Crisis” in which he devoted “half the book” to the major obstacles facing the Nutmeg State.
Now, four years later, is Connecticut still in crisis?
“This state is a hurting state,” Rose remarked. “I do think that Connecticut is not a desirable state for business. It is a state that is over-unionized. It is a state that takes a lot of money from people in the form of personal taxes, corporate taxes and sales taxes. We do have a transportation problem.”
He added, “We still have a pension liability problem. We have a rising crime problem. I would say that even with the rosy rhetoric we get from the [Lamont] administration, I think the state leaves a lot to be desired. I do still think that it is still in crisis.”
If Connecticut was recently in a crisis and is still in a crisis, and the Democrats have controlled the governorship since 2011 and have dominated the General Assembly for the last 50 years, then why aren’t the voters sprinting toward the Republicans?
“I’m not sure the Republicans are making enough of a case for change in Connecticut,” said Rose. “Their message is not being delivered in a way that is connecting with the voters.”
“The Republicans do have issues to run on,” he exclaimed. “If they had a young, dynamic, charismatic candidate to address those issues in a coherent and intelligent way, they could win.”
Rose said that is what Baker did in Massachusetts, arguably the nation’s most liberal state.
University of Massachusetts-Amherst Political Science Professor Jesse Rhodes has said that Baker “staked out a distinctive moderate political identity, which has won accolades and helped him accomplish many of his political goals.”
For governor, over the last generation Republican moderate candidates have scored landslide victories - with M. Jodi Rell of Brookfield at slightly more than 63 percent of the vote in 2006 and John Rowland of Middlebury at about 63 percent in 1998. Rowland was the first governor in Connecticut since the late 1700s to capture three consecutive elections.
In a phone interview with Patch.com, state Sen. Stephen Harding (R-30) of Brookfield commented, “With the Democrats having about 400,000 more voters in the state certain things have to align with the right candidate with the right message.”
As of November 1 of last year, the Secretary of the State’s office reported that Connecticut had 1,033,470 (41.76 percent) unaffiliated voters, 898,303 Democrats (36.3), 502,482 Republicans (20.3) and 40,143 (1.62) belonging to minor parties.
Rose said the Democrats also are buoyed by the collective bargaining units for the state employees, who regularly endorse their candidates and provide financial and organizational support.
“There is no kind of urgency with the Republicans to have a ground game,” said Rose, noting that he can’t remember the last time that the GOP Town Committee in Cheshire, where he lives, canvassed his home.
So, the Republicans should establish an operation similar to the Fight Back CT group that U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Hartford organized for the 2018 election to aid the Democrats, where canvassing began months before the election and some homes were visited multiple times?
Rose said, “That would be highly beneficial. It would of course depend on the Republican state chair to organize this. Senator Murphy is now operating well above the Democratic party organization, almost like his own party.”
The Republicans have long had a city problem.
Danbury Republican former Mayor Mark Boughton has noted that when he was the party’s candidate for lieutenant governor in 2010 with Foley, they annexed 128 of the 169 municipalities – 72 percent – but still lost by 6,400 votes. The primary reason was that they were clobbered in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford – then the three largest cities in the state.
Rose said that since then Democrats have made gains in the suburbs.
“You have a well-educated population, particularly in some of the wealthy suburbs, and with the positions of the national Republicans on some of the social issues they have trouble supporting Republican candidates even if they are moderates.”
He noted in Greenwich, which for generations was a core Republican town, all three of the state representatives are Democrats.
Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report has said if there is Whole Foods in your town it will likely be Democratic and if there is a Cracker Barrel it will be Republican.
Connecticut has 10 Whole Foods stores, including one in Greenwich, and only two Cracker Barrels.
Rose said he believes Connecticut’s Republicans will face obstacles in the 2024 campaign if former President Donald Trump is the GOP nominee.
“The name is toxic to some voters,” he said, explaining that even in the midterm election of 2018 when Trump’s name was not on the ballot, apparently suburban women, who typically trend evenly for the two major parties, voted in higher numbers for Democratic candidates.
Rose commented that the Republicans need to attract more African-American, Latino and Asian American voters, which now constitute about 70 percent of Connecticut’s electorate.
Also, he said the GOP is on the verge of losing Generation Z – those 25 years of age and younger.
“Their values are not consistent with the Republican Party,” remarked Rose. “It does not bode well for the Republican Party.”
He said that since they are outnumbered, the Republicans should adopt open primaries.
“I used to be opposed” to open primaries, he remarked. “I have changed” since they generate a broader electorate that will likely produce better candidates for the general election.
In a phone interview with Patch.com, Larry Lazor of West Hartford, the 2022 Republican candidate for the U.S. House seat in the First District, said, “Open primaries are incredibly important. We should be talking to all of the voters. When you have closed primaries, it pulls candidates to extremes.”
Are the Republicans willing to have open primaries?
Weicker, then a Republican and who was then at the height of his power in the U.S. Senate, sought 40 years ago to adopt open primaries, and then a short time later the party abandoned that initiative, partly because some thought it was a self-preservation initiative for Weicker, who had faced a formidable challenge at the 1982 convention from Prescott Bush Jr. of Greenwich, whose brother and nephew would each be elected as president. Reportedly, Weicker had lost favor among conservative Republicans but enjoyed considerable support from unaffiliated voters.
Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Ben Proto of Stratford, who wrote the preface for “Connecticut Republicans,” has stated, “This book should be required reading for every Republican in Connecticut.”
Rose and Proto will moderate a forum on “The Future of the Connecticut GOP” on October 24 at 2 p.m. in the Loris Forum of the Martire Center for Liberal Arts at Sacred Heart. The roster will include state Sens. Tony Hwang (R-28) of Fairfield and Ryan Fazio (R-36) of Greenwich, former state representative and 2022 Republican candidate Laura Devlin of Fairfield, former state representative and former candidate for Secretary of the State Terrie Wood of Darien, former Darien First Selectman and former congressional candidate and former candidate for lieutenant governor Jayme Stevenson and former state Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy.
Will the GOP adopt Rose’s recommendations?
Rose remarked, “Some of the people participating on the panel, have said, ‘Yes.’ Some other people have said, ‘No.’ “
Resources:
Gary Rose, “Connecticut Republicans: Past, Present And Future,” Ten Mile River Press, 2023.
Gary Rose, “Connecticut In Crisis,” Academica Press, 2019.
Interview with Gary Rose, Patch.com, Thursday, September 28, 2023.
Phone interview with Larry Lazor, Patch.com, Wednesday, September 27, 2023.
Phone interview with Stephen Harding, Patch.com, Tuesday, October 3, 2023.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts
https://www.umass.edu/news/article/gov-charlie-baker-leaves-office-high-approval-ratings-strong-legacy-according-new#:~:text=Baker%20in%202021%20relinquished%20his,high%20of%2068%25%20in%202020.
Mark Boughton interview, February, 2011, WXCI radio, Danbury.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Connecticut
Secretary of the State, Voter figures, 2022.
