It depends on the "city problem"

Scott Benjamin

Over the 17 years since it was considerably reapportioned, Connecticut’s Fifth Congressional District has gone from having “a Democratic city problem” to a “perceived Democratic city problem” to a “Republican city problem.”

In September 2002 Dave Boomer - who was managing U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson’s (R-New Britain) re-election campaign in a unique race in which, following the elimination of one of Connecticut’s six congressional districts, she was facing another congressman, Democrat Jim Maloney of Danbury – discussed the challenge facing a Democrat in the 41-municipality configuration. Johnson had been the congresswoman from the Sixth District.

Boomer said a Democrat would have to carry the five cities – Waterbury, Danbury, New Britain, Meriden and Torrington - by at least a 15,000 vote plurality to win. Maloney failed to do that and Johnson, who had been in Congress for 20 years – 14 years longer than Maloney – even narrowly captured the portion of the district that Maloney had been representing.

Now, the seat is open for the second time in 28 years after Democratic incumbent Elizabeth Esty of Cheshire announced earlier this week that she would not seek a fourth term following criticism over her handling of a sexual harassment issue in the Washington office.

In 2006, then-state Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Cheshire, engaged in an aggressive campaign of neighborhood tours which helped him capture the seat at a time when polling showed that Johnson had been in Congress too long, made errors in writing the Medicare prescription drug package and was on the wrong side of the issue on Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Murphy won the five cities by more than 19,000 votes and met the 15,000 threshold in the 2008 and 2010 elections, even winning the hometowns of his respective Republican opponents – Danbury’s David Cappiello in 2008 and Waterbury’s Sam Caligiuri in 2010.

After Murphy announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, Democrat Elizabeth Esty of Cheshire, a former state representative and Town Council member, compiled a 26,000 vote plurality in the four largest cities –Waterbury, Danbury, New Britain and Meriden – in 2012 to defeat Republican state Sen. Andrew Roraback of Goshen, who carried the other 37 municipalities by a collective 18,000 votes.

Roraback captured 31 of the 41 municipalities.

But his losses in Kent and Salisbury and narrow one-vote victory in Sharon – all of which he had represented in the state Senate for 12 years – underscored another obstacle for Republicans.

Since the mid-2000s, Democrats in the Northwest Corner of Litchfield County have become energized for such candidates as Ned Lamont, Barack Obama and Murphy.

The Hartford Courant reported last year that Democrats also have made advances in parts of the Farmington Valley, another sector in the sprawling congressional district. Esty, for example, took Simsbury in 2014 and 2016.

Esty posted even larger pluralities in the cities in 2014 when she outpolled Litchfield real estate developer Mark Greenberg . A CTNewsJunkie analysis following that campaign, stated that Greenberg underachieved. A poll indicated that a generic Republican would defeat at generic Democrat by seven points. Yet, Esty carried the district by more than 13,000 votes. CTNews Junkie speculated that if popular Danbury Mayor had been the Republican nominee, he would have captured the seat.

In 2016, Esty easily turned back a challenge by then-Sherman First Selectman Clay Cope, winning the five cities by a plurality of nearly 40,000 votes.

Although for the first time in more than a generation, the Democrats have held the seat for 12 consecutive years, there is reason to believe that the Republicans could prevail this fall.

For example, Greenwich Republican Tom Foley took the Fifth District in 2010 by double digits against Democrat Dannel Malloy of Stamford in the gubernatorial race. Greenwich Republican Linda McMahon, the current federal Small Business Administration director, carried the district that year even though she lost her bid for the U.S. Senate to Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Greenwich.

It is difficult to determine how national or state trends might impact the race.

On one hand, Republican President Donald Trump is suffering from low poll numbers. However, Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy of Stamford had a rating as low as 24 percent in the last two years, one of the lowest among any governor.

Maloney said shortly after this 2002 defeat that the district trended very slightly Republican, particularly in the gubernatorial election years when there is usually a lighter turnout.

Esty’s decision not to seek re-election, also means that you will have to go back two generations for the last time that a congressman from the district served more than three terms.

Waterbury Democrat John Monagan, who had served for seven terms, was upset by then-state Rep. Ron Sarasin, a Republican, of Beacon Falls in 1972. That election marked the beginning of an earlier major transformation of the district as some Fairfield Gold Coast territory, such as Weston and a part of Westport had been added following the 1971 reapportionment. Johnson served 24 years, the second longest tenure for a U.S. House member in Connecticut, but the first 20 years were in the now-defunct Sixth District.

Sarasin was the Republican nominee for governor in 1978 and former state House Speaker Bill Ratchford of Danbury, a Democrat, captured the seat only to lose in 1984 to then-state Rep. John Rowland, a Republican, of Waterbury. Rowland was the GOP nominee for governor in 1990 and Waterbury Alderman Gary Franks, a Republican, took over. Franks was defeated by Maloney in 1996, who lost to Johnson in 2002. Murphy captured the seat four years later and then Esty took the open seat in 2012.

Eighteen of the last 23 elections in the district could easily be termed at least interesting and at least semi-competitive, making it one of the most visible swing districts in the country.