GOP Challenger Prepares for Battle Against U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal

Written By Scott Benjamin

State Rep. Dan Carter (R-2) of Bethel is seeking the GOP U.S. Senate nomination, said in an interview that he wasn’t planning run for a U.S. Senate seat until economics commentator Larry Kudlow of Redding announced that he wouldn’t be running.

At the time Kudlow opted not to run, the only candidate in the race was financial manager and former Olympic shot putter Augie Wolf of Stamford, who entered last spring.

About a week following Carter’s entry, former fashion design executive Jack Orchulli, entered the fray. Orchulli self-funded campaigns for the U.S. Senate seat in 2004 when he ran against Democratic incumbent Chris Dodd of East Haddam and for state Comptroller in 2010.

The last six U.S. senators elected in Connecticut all had either served in the U.S. House previously or were the sitting State Attorney General. No Republican has won a U.S. Senate election in Connecticut since 1982, when Lowell Weicker of Essex captured a third term.

The race for the seat held by first-term Democrat Richard Blumenthal (D-Greenwich), the former State's Attorney General, is vastly different than six years ago when WWE CEO Linda McMahon took the GOP nod in a primary and spent $50 million of her own money by November.

Despite facing the challenges of a busy General Assembly session and making a 10th-hour entry before the nominating convention, Carter says he’s confident he has at least the 15 percent of the delegates needed to force a primary in August.

Carter said Connecticut suffers from high corporate taxes and poor government policies. He said the decision by Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Stamford) and the General Assembly, for example, in 2012 to allow Sunday liquor sales and extend the night hours from 8 to 9 o’clock has hurt the package store owners since they are doing the same amount of sales but with higher overheads costs.

Carter acknowledged that the winner of the Republican nomination will have to make inroads in the major cities.

The Republican Tom Foley/Mark Boughton gubernatorial ticket won 128 of the 169 municipalities in 2010, but lost the election by 6,400 votes, largely because the Democratic ticket of Malloy/Nancy Wyman mounted huge pluralities in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford, the state’s three largest cities.

“There is more reason than ever for people in the cities to vote Republican, because of the need for a strong economy,” Carter said. “If we’re going the way of Detroit the people in the cities the people in the cities are the ones who will suffer the most.”

Carter said Connecticut’s economy has not improved since Blumenthal took office. Only 74 percent of the jobs lost during the recession that began in 2009 have returned and a disproportionate number of them have been low wage. This has been a factor in the current state budget crisis as legislators grapple to resolve a projected $930 million deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Carter said he believes that the Jackson Labs center in Farmington could become a bioscience hub but that the state should have negotiated an incentive package that was less than the $291 million agreement made in 2011. He said there is potential for further growth in the biosciences, but that the state government will need to reduce its business taxes and regulations.

At the federal level, Carter said “the tax burden is way too heavy on the top people at this point.”

Regarding college enrollments, Carter said some prospective students may have to reconsider the value of a college degree.

“We have this mentality that everybody should go to college and the government will throw money at it with college loans, which means there will be tuition money available for the schools,” he said. “Now it’s very expensive to go to school.” He said more students, who might not be best-placed in college, should consider vocational schools.

On foreign policy, Carter said that following the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, the United States should “destroy” ISIS.

On another topic, Carter said he’s against the proposed 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in its current form, and hopes that it will be re-negotiated. The agreement would encompass 40 percent of the global economy, including the United States, which is first in gross domestic project, and Japan, which ranks third.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said the proposed TPP will not be considered before the election. Democratic President Barack Obama has aggressively lobbied for the pact, saying that it would generate jobs and counter potential influence from China in the Pacific region.

Carter said that he “probably” would have voted against the Trade Promotion Authority fast-track legislation that was approved in Congress last spring.

On a separate subject, Carter said he is comfortable with the decision by McConnell to not hold hearings on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I’m sure it is being done for a good reason,” Carter said. “Although as a U.S. senator I would want to meet Judge Garland to at least get to know him and his positions.”

Recent polls indicate that a majority of voters want the Senate to consider the nomination before the election.

Carter said he hasn’t decided who he will support in Connecticut’s April 26 presidential primary.

“I think that the anger and frustration has grown,” he said regarding some disenfranchised voters who have suffered during the slow economic recovery following the Great Recession. He added that it’s partly an outgrowth of people in the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements who have attached themselves to Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Bernie Sanders, respectively.

Photo of Dan Carter by Autumn Studios