Stunned by a Republican sweep of the presidency and Congress, Connecticut Democrats are struggling to regroup as they look to the future and get back on their feet.
Optimistic Democrats had been hoping to win the national race against Republican Donald J. Trump, but few expected that they would fall short in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. As such, Republicans will control all three power centers in Washington, D.C. and hold extraordinary influence at least until the mid-term elections in 2026.
The Democratic losses have led to widespread finger-pointing and hand wringing, but some elected officials say party members should instead sit back and take a deep breath before making any rash decisions. Some political operatives say that Republicans won nationally because they focused on the economy, inflation, and border security, while Democrats focused on abortion rights and the threats to democracy under Trump.
Bread-and-butter economics
A Connecticut success story in this election is U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, who did well in a region — eastern Connecticut — where Republicans and Trump have been gaining steam over the past eight years. Still, Courtney polled better in his sprawling district than Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who won by major margins in the cities and other districts across the state.
Courtney won 58.01% of the vote in an independent-minded district, which was virtually the exact total as longtime veterans in heavily Democratic regions against underfunded, little-known Republicans. U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the dean of the state’s delegation, won with 58.83%, while U.S. Rep. John B. Larson of East Hartford captured 59.97% of the vote in a district where he has won every two years since 1998, according to the Secretary of the State’s office. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy won statewide with a similar total at 58.65%.
Known for generating bipartisan support, Courtney has succeeded in capturing the votes of independents and non-political, blue-collar workers because he focuses on gaining funding for two submarines per year at the Electric Boat shipyard and avoiding the attention-grabbing, high-profile headlines that more partisan members get in Washington, D.C.
“Our focus, which has always been bread-and-butter economics, is where Democrats succeed,” Courtney told The Courant in an interview. “Washington is not a debate club. We’re down there to actually do things and get results. That message resonates, certainly in eastern Connecticut, which is a very purple part of the state.”
As far as strategy, Courtney questioned the effectiveness of Harris spending crucial time during the final weeks with former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who became a national figure for blasting Trump as a member of the special committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection that led to more than 1,200 people being arrested for federal crimes. The strategy missed issues, such as inflation, that were important to many independent voters.
Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd.
“Some of the emphasis at the end of the campaign really was looking elsewhere,” Courtney said. “Trying to get disaffected Republicans to campaign with Harris. I really admire Liz Cheney — she served on Armed Services with me — and Adam Kinzinger, same thing, but I’m not sure that was necessarily the best use of very limited time. That’s the one critique which resonates with me.”
Courtney, though, cautions against making snap judgements in the blame game that is sweeping the country.
“I find it a little premature to be making grandiose conclusions at this point,” he said. “There were so many variables that you can point to. Having a campaign that lasted 107 days for Kamala Harris, in a country with 330 million people, that’s like the blink of an eye. My buddy Tim Walz had even a shorter time. He ended up with higher favorability ratings than the other three. People were just getting to know them. There was a woman who was interviewed, a Democrat, and she just said, ‘I just don’t feel like I got to know who Kamala Harris is.’ That’s significant. By the way, Trump’s decision to cancel the second debate, honestly, in retrospect, was brilliant. That would have been an opportunity for her to get in front of people.”
Before Trump won the election by winning all seven battleground states, Courtney had been enthusiastic about his party’s prospects in the House.
“I definitely drank the Kool-Aid,” Courtney said. “I thought we were going to take the majority. It’s not fun being in the minority, let me tell you.”
Looking forward, Courtney says lessons need to be learned.
“People should learn from setbacks,” he said. “I personally did that when I lost to [Republican Rep.] Rob Simmons the first time. I learned some lessons and was able to benefit from that process. … People should take a deep breath.”
Working class issues
Like Courtney, Gov. Ned Lamont says Democrats win when they focus on a variety of economic issues designed to help the traditional Democratic constituency of the working class, such as increasing the minimum wage and the earned income tax credit for struggling families.
Known as more fiscally moderate than many Connecticut Democrats, Lamont says that his party got distracted during the campaign and veered away from the traditional message.
“I think (the election) was about pocketbook issues. I think we took our eye off the ball there,” Lamont said. “Those middle-class families are getting squeezed. The high cost of education, the high cost of hospitalization, the high cost of electricity — what we can do to make life a little bit easier for them, I think that should be our laser focus. I think it has been for the last five years.”
Since Lamont took over as governor, he has presided over huge budget surpluses that led to sending an additional $7.7 billion to the state pensions funds to reduce the long-running debt that accumulated over nearly 70 years. Previously, tax increases and deficits had become so commonplace that then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget director said in November 2014 that Connecticut was “in a period of permanent fiscal crisis.” He later said he was referring to a book title and regretted the quote.
A Greenwich millionaire, Lamont has pushed back on liberal Democrats in the legislature who have repeatedly called for raising taxes on the rich. Lamont fears that raising taxes too high on the rich could prompt some of them to flee to lower-tax states like Florida as some Greenwich residents have done in the past. The high earnings of Fairfield County millionaires and billionaires have led to huge surpluses in the state budget in recent years and officials have been surprised at the level of capital gains taxes that have been paid through the state income tax because of record-setting increases on Wall Street. The S&P 500, which is a broad indicator of Wall Street’s health, has broken records 50 times during the current calendar year, leading directly to improved fiscal health for the state budget.
Republican view
While Democrats have been lamenting both Trump’s victory and his recent nominations of former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and FOX News host Pete Hegseth, Republicans have a different view.
State Senate Republican leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield said Harris and the entire party simply didn’t emphasize the right issues.
“I think the message just did not resonate with the voters. I think it’s that simple,” Harding told The Courant. “Voters generally vote on the issues that impact their lives and their families the most. In certain areas of the country, the border crisis impacted public safety. Everywhere across the country, including here in Connecticut, the issue of inflation and a lagging economy was impacting everyone as well.”
Harding drew parallels to another presidential election more than 30 years ago when Republicans failed to grasp the economic suffering of many voters across the nation.
“There’s probably a lot of similarities in some ways to 1992 when George Bush didn’t seem to really acknowledge that people were struggling and the economy was struggling,” Harding said. “What did Bill Clinton say? It’s the economy, stupid. I think you saw a similar problem with the Democratic message this election cycle. There wasn’t a strong enough acknowledgement that inflation is high, people are struggling, and we have to do better as a country to make our economy stronger and make our lives a little easier for the hard-working, middle-class people of this country. The message was on issues other than that.”
Senate Republican leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield compared the 2024 presidential election to the 1992 race when President George H.W. Bush failed to acknowledge the struggles of American families due to the economy and lost the race to Democrat Bill Clinton.
Economic populism
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who has been winning elections in Connecticut for the past 40 years, said he believes that Democrats will get back on their feet and score victories in 2026 and 2028. He said it is important for the party to take a long-term, analytical look at itself, rather than making any knee-jerk moves.
“We ought to be careful to learn the right lessons,” Blumenthal told The Courant. “There are a lot of sources of information that need to be digested and analyzed. But I’m very hopeful about the future. I think we will see a shift in the pendulum the other way in the midterms and in the next presidential election.”
On a national basis, Murphy has already been speaking out about the future direction of his party. In tweets, videos and national television appearances, Murphy says the party needs to make changes.
“Time to rebuild the left,” Murphy tweeted. “We are out of touch with the crisis of meaning/purpose fueling MAGA. We refuse to pick big fights. Our tent is too small. … The left skips past the way people are feeling (alone, impotent, overwhelmed) and straight to uninspiring solutions (more roads! bulk drug purchasing!) that do little to actually upset the status quo of who has power and who doesn’t.”
Murphy continued, “We don’t listen enough; we tell people what’s good for them. And when progressives like Bernie [Sanders] aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists. Why? Maybe because true economic populism is bad for our high-income base.”
The way to solve the problem, Murphy says, is by expanding the party and reaching out to poor and working-class independents who are not hard-core Democrats on a variety of issues.
“Real economic populism should be our tentpole,” Murphy said. “But here’s the thing: then you need to let people into the tent who aren’t 100% on board with us on every social and cultural issue, or issues like guns or climate. Those are hard things for the left.”
Christopher Keating can be reached at [email protected]
