Patch Candidate Profile: State Sen. Robert C. Sampson For 16th State Senate

Editor's Note: Connecticut Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as election day draws near.

WOLCOTT, CT — The 2026 election is heating up in Connecticut, and there are plenty of races with candidates eager to serve in elected office.

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Eyes are primarily focused on the Connecticut gubernatorial election, but every state representative and senate seat is up for grabs. All five of Connecticut's congressional seats are up for grabs as well.

There are 151 seats in the state House of Representatives and 36 in the state Senate.

Democrats currently hold majorities in both chambers.

Southington Democrat Jack Perry is challenging state Sen. Robert C. Sampson, R-Wolcott, for the 16th Senate seat in Connecticut.

The 16th Senate District includes Southington, Wolcott, Prospect, Cheshire, and part of Waterbury.

Candidate's Name:
Rob Sampson

What office are you seeking?
State Senator

Age:
57

District:
16th Senate District

Party:
Republican

Campaign website:
https://sampsonforct.com

Occupation:
Realtor, Insurance Agent

Family:
Wife - Hsuan-Hui (Amberley)

Does anyone in your family work in government?
My wife is a teacher in the New Canaan School District.

Previous public office:
Connecticut State Representative, 2011-2018; Connecticut State Senator, 2019-present. Senior Deputy Republican Leader and Ranking Member of Government Administration & Elections, Housing, and Labor & Public Employees committees.

Why are you seeking this office?
I am seeking re-election because I remain deeply concerned about the direction of our state, but I am also convinced that Connecticut can do much better.

For decades, state government has grown larger, more expensive, and more intrusive. We have drifted away from some of the basic principles that made this country exceptional: individual freedom, personal responsibility, equal opportunity, the rule of law, and the simple understanding that hard work and merit should matter.

The consequences are no longer theoretical. People feel them every month when they open an electric bill, pay their property taxes, buy groceries, fill the gas tank, renew an insurance policy, or try to buy a home.

In my view, Connecticut's cost-of-living crisis is not an accident. It is the cumulative result of policy choices made under decades of one-party Democratic control in Hartford.

I have spent my legislative career pushing back.

Sometimes that means working across the aisle to pass good legislation. Sometimes it means standing virtually alone against a bad idea. Both are part of the job.

Connecticut needs legislators who are willing to ask hard questions, challenge powerful interests, defend individual liberty, and remember that government belongs to the people. I have tried to be that legislator, and I am asking for the opportunity to continue.

What do you believe is the No. 1 issue facing Connecticut, and how do you plan to address it?
The number one issue is the cost of living.

Connecticut is becoming a place where too many people can succeed professionally and still wonder whether they can afford to live here.

Young adults question whether they will ever afford a first home. Working families are squeezed by taxes, electric rates, insurance, food, housing, and transportation. Seniors who spent a lifetime working, saving, paying taxes, and contributing to their communities are increasingly concerned that they will be priced out of the state they helped build.

That is unacceptable.

For years, Hartford has treated every problem as an excuse for another program, mandate, subsidy, fee, regulation, or layer of government. Eventually somebody pays for all of it. That somebody is the taxpayer, the ratepayer, the consumer, the employer, and ultimately every Connecticut resident.

This year, I supported a Republican affordability proposal centered on approximately $1 billion in income-tax relief, a reduction in the Paid Leave payroll tax, property-tax restraint, and removing Public Benefits Charges from electric bills and forcing those policy expenditures into the normal state-budget process where legislators must defend them openly.

But the larger answer is philosophical: government must stop measuring success by how much it spends and start measuring success by whether ordinary people can afford to live free and prosperous lives.

Connecticut does not need another temporary rebate followed by another permanent expense. We need structural reform, fiscal discipline, abundant and reliable energy, competitive taxes, fewer mandates, and a government that understands there is a limit to what it can demand from the people who pay for it.

Energy costs have been soaring in Connecticut. What are your plans to help address this issue?
Connecticut's electricity crisis is not mysterious. Hartford Democrats have controlled the legislature and the energy-policy agenda for decades. They added hidden taxes to electric bills, restricted our energy choices, and committed ratepayers to expensive power contracts. Then they act surprised when families cannot afford the bill.

My first step is simple: get the Public Benefits Charge off the electric bill. Electricity bills should pay for electricity, its transmission, and its delivery. They should not be used as a second state budget hidden from public view.

I have been pushing this issue for years. Before the current crisis exploded, I was already introducing legislation to attack these costs. In 2025, as Senate Republican Policy Chairman, I helped advance a comprehensive energy proposal that would move public-policy costs off electric bills, separate PURA from DEEP, broaden Connecticut's clean-energy options, and put real limits on how much government can force ratepayers to pay for power contracts.

The Democratic majority had the votes to change course. They chose not to. Republican proposals have repeatedly been rejected, left on the table, or stripped out while ratepayers continued paying some of the highest electric costs in the country. In 2026, Senate Republicans again offered amendments addressing the Public Benefits Charge and broader energy policy.

The second problem is their obsession with choosing politically favored sources of electricity regardless of cost. I support renewable energy. I want solar, wind, nuclear, hydroelectric power, natural gas, and whatever technologies come next. But an energy policy that makes working people poorer is not a successful energy policy.

The state should pursue an all-of-the-above strategy built around three requirements: affordability, reliability, and environmental responsibility. Nuclear and large-scale hydropower should be treated as clean energy resources. We should expand access to natural gas rather than artificially constraining supply. And Connecticut should stop approving long-term wind and solar contracts at prices wildly above available market power. In 2025, I introduced a bill that would have prohibited zero-carbon power contracts above the wholesale rate, and the Republican energy plan proposed barring contracts priced more than 150% above wholesale.

I would go further. As a basic consumer safeguard, I believe Connecticut should establish a reasonable ceiling so that government cannot force ratepayers into renewable contracts costing dramatically more than available conventional power. If a project cannot come reasonably close to competing on price, taxpayers and ratepayers should not be compelled to subsidize it indefinitely.

We also need to separate PURA from DEEP. The agency regulating utilities and protecting ratepayers should not sit inside the same department charged with advancing the state's energy and environmental policy agenda. I sponsored legislation this year requiring an independent review of the PURA-DEEP structure.

This is not a new concern for me. In 2024, I stood with ratepayers and small-business owners at the Capitol when more than 68,000 Connecticut residents signed a petition demanding relief from the Public Benefits Charge. Those were not lobbyists or political operatives. They were ordinary people saying that their government had pushed them too far.

Here is a link to that event: 68,000 Connecticut ratepayers demand electric-bill relief

Connecticut does not need another study explaining that electricity is expensive. We know why it is expensive. The majority party has had years to fix the policies driving these costs, while repeatedly resisting Republican alternatives. What is missing is not another explanation. It is the political will to change course.

Affordability has been a major topic across the country and here in Connecticut. How do you plan to address this issue?
My record on affordability is simple: I have never voted for a tax increase or a state spending increase. Not once. And I never will.

When I have proposed something that would require additional spending, I have always identified an offsetting reduction somewhere else.

That is because I believe government should live by the same basic rules as every family and business in Connecticut: set priorities, live within your means, and understand that every dollar government spends first had to be earned by somebody else.

Unfortunately, that is not how Hartford Democrats have governed.

For decades, the majority has expanded government, created new programs and mandates, raised taxes and fees, and added billions of dollars in spending.

Under Gov. Lamont alone, Connecticut residents have been hit with higher payroll taxes, higher taxes on prepared foods and restaurant meals, digital downloads and software, alcohol, parking, dry cleaning and other services, repeated corporate-tax surcharges, the Highway Use Tax on trucks, which makes virtually everything we purchase locally cost more, higher business fees, and numerous other new or expanded costs.

Government spending matters too. Medicaid has grown enormously. Connecticut now has an extraordinary percentage of its population receiving government health benefits.

At the same time, the Democratic majority has adopted policies that I believe attract illegal immigration to Connecticut while taxpayers absorb the resulting costs in education, housing, health care, and other services. They have even extended taxpayer-funded health coverage to illegal aliens.

There is no such thing as free government. Someone always pays.

The people paying are the family trying to afford their mortgage and electric bill, the senior watching a lifetime of savings disappear, the young person wondering whether Connecticut will ever be affordable enough to buy a home, and the small-business owner trying to make payroll.

Connecticut's tax climate reflects those choices. We remain one of the most heavily taxed and least economically competitive states in America. People leave. Businesses struggle to expand. Employers think twice about locating here. And the majority's answer is too often another subsidy, another government program, or another tax credit intended to soften the damage caused by the policies they enacted in the first place.

That is backwards.

My approach is to attack the cost of government itself. Spend less. Tax less. Borrow less. Eliminate programs that do not work. Reduce unnecessary regulation. Stop hiding taxes in utility bills and fees. End political giveaways and earmarks. Make agencies justify what they spend. Root out waste, fraud, and abuse. And when Connecticut has excess revenue, give it back to the people who earned it.

This has become even more urgent as we continue uncovering examples of questionable spending, political earmarks, weak oversight, and corruption in state government.

As the leading Republican senator on the Government Oversight Committee, I have been deeply involved in exposing these problems and pushing reforms. I have repeatedly spoken publicly about what I call the "corruption tax" because every dollar wasted, mismanaged, diverted for political purposes, or lost through poor oversight eventually comes out of somebody's pocket.

Meanwhile, Republicans have repeatedly offered an alternative. This year we proposed more than $1 billion in relief, including income-tax reductions, car-tax relief, a reduction in payroll taxes, relief from the Public Benefits Charge on electric bills, and other reforms aimed directly at lowering the cost of living.

The Democratic majority rejected it on party lines.

That is the choice Connecticut faces. We can continue asking taxpayers to finance an ever-growing government and then invent programs to help them cope with the resulting cost of living, or we can finally address the cause.

Affordability does not come from making people more dependent on government. It comes from making government less expensive, less intrusive, more honest, and more accountable, so the people who earned the money get to keep more of it.

That has been my record for sixteen years, and that is exactly what I will continue fighting for.

Some of my recent remarks and press conferences on affordability, spending, and government accountability:

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?
I have served in the Connecticut General Assembly for sixteen years, first in the House and now in the Senate, and I believe my record demonstrates that principle and effectiveness are not opposites.

I have worked successfully with legislators from both parties to pass meaningful laws involving jobs and the economy, public safety, transportation, insurance, housing, energy, government accountability, and many other issues.

More than 240 bills I have sponsored or co-sponsored during my legislative career have become law. Most recently, the independent Center for Effective Lawmaking ranked me the most effective Republican State Senator in Connecticut for the 2023-2024 legislative session.

I am proud of that record, but legislative effectiveness is not measured only by the number of bills you pass.

Sometimes the most important job of a legislator is to stop government from doing something harmful.

Throughout my career, I have fought higher taxes, excessive spending, costly mandates, infringements on individual rights, and policies that I believe make Connecticut more expensive and less free.

I have helped stop proposals including highway tolls, new taxes on real-estate transactions, and an individual health-insurance mandate. That role has become increasingly important in a state where one party has held overwhelming control of the legislative agenda.

Today I serve as Senior Deputy Republican Leader and Ranking Member on Government Administration & Elections, Government Oversight, Housing, and Labor & Public Employees.

The Government Oversight Committee has been particularly important to me because Connecticut taxpayers deserve to know where their money goes, whether programs are working, and whether public officials are acting honestly and responsibly. This year, legislation I co-sponsored through that committee became law, strengthening the authority and work of the Auditors of Public Accounts.

But I would still give essentially the same answer I gave Patch two years ago about my proudest accomplishment.

It is the trust of my neighbors.

Nearly 100,000 people live in the communities I represent. They have different backgrounds, different opinions, and different political beliefs. My responsibility is to represent all of them seriously, honestly, and respectfully.

I work extremely hard at this job because I regard that responsibility as an honor. I read the bills. I ask the questions. I show up. I speak up. I answer constituents. I explain my votes. I work with people I disagree with when we can accomplish something worthwhile, and I stand my ground when I believe government is heading in the wrong direction.

That is what the people who elected me have a right to expect.

My job is not to serve Hartford. My job is to represent the people back home in Hartford. I have never forgotten the difference.

Is there anything else you would like voters to know about yourself and your positions?
Yes. I want people to understand how seriously I take the responsibility they have entrusted to me.

Representative government is one of the great achievements of the American experiment. We live with extraordinary freedom and opportunity because generations before us built a system based on a simple but profound idea: government belongs to the people, and those who hold public office are their servants.

I never want to lose sight of that.

Nearly 100,000 of my neighbors have entrusted me with a voice and a vote in their state government. I put that responsibility on a very high mantle. Every day I try to be worthy of it.

That means working hard. It means knowing the issues. It means answering difficult questions. It means being accessible. It means telling people what I actually believe rather than what a pollster says they want to hear. It means respecting people who disagree with me and treating them with the same dignity I would expect for myself.

Respect matters. Character matters. Honesty matters.

Politics has become far too comfortable with the idea that winning excuses almost anything. I reject that.

My opponent and I should disagree vigorously. We should debate taxes, spending, electricity, housing, crime, immigration, education, constitutional rights, and the proper role of government. I welcome every one of those debates.

But those disagreements should be honest.

My greatest fear in this election is not losing. Elections come and go, and ultimately the voters decide who they want representing them.

What would genuinely trouble me is knowing that someone made that decision based on information about me that simply was not true.

That is why I have gone to unusual lengths during this campaign to publish bills, roll-call votes, videos, source documents, and my own explanations of disputed issues. I do not expect anyone to agree with me on everything. I do expect voters to have the opportunity to make an informed decision based on the truth.

Do not vote for me because somebody told you to. Do not vote against me because somebody told you to.

Look at my record. Listen to what I actually say. Examine my votes. Ask me questions. Then make up your own mind.

That is representative government.

And when people do examine my record, they will see someone who has consistently fought the policies that I believe have made Connecticut increasingly unaffordable, someone willing to stand as a strong check on one-party government in Hartford, and someone who still believes that public service is supposed to be about principle rather than power.

My beliefs have remained remarkably consistent throughout my time in office: individual liberty, limited constitutional government, personal responsibility, equal opportunity, public safety, respect for taxpayers, and the rule of law.

I love this country. I love Connecticut. And despite everything that frustrates me about our politics, I remain an optimist about both.

Our system works when good people participate, when elected officials remember whom they work for, and when citizens insist upon truth and accountability from those seeking their trust.

That is the standard I expect from myself, and it is the standard I believe every voter should expect from every person privileged enough to hold public office.