Hamden Coach Plans To Challenge Chris Murphy For U.S. Senate Seat

By Jack Kramer, Correspondent

HAMDEN, CT – Dominic Rapini admits many of his friends think he’s “crazy” for taking on well-known Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy but the way Rapini looks at it politics is easy compared to what he’s seen most of his life in Hamden.

And what he’s seen, Rapini, who now lives in Branford, says has prepared him well for the rough and tumble world of politics. (To sign up for Hamden breaking news alerts and more, click here.)

“I’ve been a youth football coach for 30 years,” Rapini said. “I’ve been a coach in Hamden. Hamden has the widest range of demographics you can imagine in one state.

“When its 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning and I have to pick up an 8-year-old kid on Newhall Street and step around a drug addict and a pitbull and take him to his aunt’s house because he left his equipment in the trunk of her car that gives me a perspective that nobody else has,” Rapini said.

While he may be new to the political game, Rapini has plenty of friends in both Hamden where he spent much of life as a coach and a teacher – and now in Branford, where he and his family have lived the past five years.

So many that more than 100 friends, family and supporters of his showed up at Stony Creek Brewery on June 19 to hear his announcement that he would running to be one of two Connecticut United States senators in Washington D.C. in 2018.

Rapini has a formidable task – taking on Murphy, who has made a name for himself as a senator, being one of the leading critics of President Donald Trump.

But Rapini said he’s not afraid and if it takes hard work to win the race against, Murphy, who has yet to announce he will be seeking re-election, then “nobody will outwork me, I can tell you that.”

“A lot of my friends tell me I’m crazy,” Rapini, an Apple sales executive said in an interview in his Branford home on a recent day. “He’s got a lot of money. Why do you want to go into politics, it’s so nasty.”

Last November, “when I saw (Donald) Trump made it, I said if a business person can do this maybe I can get in here and make a difference. This is something my instincts tell me that I need to do.”

Rapini, 56, listed what he said what would be his top three campaign issues: a new, simplified tax plan, less regulations on business, and, what he termed “real immigration reform policy.”

On taxes, Rapini said the current tax system is broken.

“I’m a reasonably smart guy and I can’t do my own taxes,” he said. “People shouldn’t need to hire people to do their own taxes.”

On less business regulations, Rapini said it would help stimulate growth, “and we all know that increased revenue solves all problems.”

On immigration, Rapini said he “wants to create a path to legalization, not citizenship. These people went through great peril to get here. They’re our friends, they’re my friend.

“I want them to become legal, to pay taxes. They can’t vote, but they can participate in whatever state level benefits that states want to grant.”

While Rapini said he is “proudly conservative” he said his background and his group of friends and advisors would serve him well in working with Democrats if he was elected to go to Washington.

“I have an incredible group of friends that I bounce ideas off of,” Rapini said, “and more than half of them are Democrats.”

He criticized Murphy, and his fellow Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who Rapini said spend all their time criticizing Trump and Republican initiatives.

“Resistance is not a strategy,” Rapini said.

Rapini also said that Murphy has built up a “to do list and not a resume.”

“He’s gone from college, to law school, to state representative, to congressman, to senator.”

Spokesperson for Murphy, Laura Maloney, said the senator would not comment on Rapini’s intention to run.

Rapini said he finds it amusing that Democrats spend so much time criticizing Trump for his practice of Tweeting about issues of the day.

“Murphy out Tweets Trump 5-to-1,” Rapini claimed.

One of Rapini’s constant themes is “the need for diversification” in the Senate. “We have 60 lawyers in the Senate. “That’s not diversity - that’s millionaires who feel empowered.”

As far as financing his run for office, Rapini said he wouldn’t be pulling a Linda McMahon - who spent approximately $100 million of her own money in two unsuccessful campaigns for Senate.

McMahon now serves as head of the U.S. Small Business Administration in Trump’s cabinet.

“I have a mortgage,” Rapini said with a laugh.

He said one of the reasons he announced that he was running well before the November, 2018 election “was so I could put together a good team of fundraisers” to raise the millions of dollars needed to wage a competitive campaign.

Rapini said he expected his money would come from both in and outside the state of Connecticut, “just like Murphy’s does.”

Rapini said one reason he’s confident that he can win the race is looking at results from the 2016 presidential election.

“Forty towns in Connecticut flipped from Obama to Trump,” even though Hillary Clinton did wind up winning the state of Connecticut popular - and - electoral college vote.

“We’re going to flip Connecticut red in the near future,” Rapini predicted.

He said he has been spending time since he announced his intention to run “boning up on all the issues,” and meeting with supporters and putting together a team of staffers to form a campaign team.

Rapini said he didn’t know, but “expected” that he would likely have competition from within the GOP ranks for the Senate nomination.

“I welcome that,” said Rapini, who added that he would not be outworked by anyone - Democrat or Republican - in his effort to win the Senate seat.

Rapini said he will continue to work at his Apple executive position until the election nears when he would then “likely take a leave of absence’’ to concentrate full-time on the campaign.

Photo by Jack Kramer