A New Year’s Resolution: File Early to Run for CT General Assembly

The first tender shoots of a Republican campaign to win back one of the two dozen General Assembly seats lost since Donald J. Trump took over the GOP emerged this week in a chilly greenhouse in Ellington. Standing in a garden center owned by her husband’s family, Jennifer Dzen struck a bipartisan tone as she launched a campaign for the 57th House District, a seat Republicans lost to a moderate Democrat in a special election three years ago.

The popularity of Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat with a 61% approval rating, and the bipartisan passage last year of a budget that cut taxes has taken away two traditional targets for the GOP: a Democratic governor and higher taxes.

Twenty-two candidates officially opened campaigns for election or reelection to the General Assembly in the first four business days of the New Year, joining the dozens of others who filed campaign papers last year. On Friday alone, five candidates filed, including Democrat Rob Blanchard of Fairfield, a young political operative who is challenging Sen. Tony Hwang, one of the four Republican senators elected with less than 51% of the vote in 2022.

Every one of the 36 Senate and 151 House seats is up for election in 2024, a presidential election year that offers the prospect of a top-of-ballot rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. Democrats steadily lost seats from 2010 through 2016, producing an 18-18 tie in the Senate and coming within five seats of losing the House majority. But Democrats have dominated in the three election cycles that followed, winning majorities of 24-12 in the Senate and 98-53 in the House in 2022.

Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said he believes all 24 Democratic incumbents will be seeking reelection, and he has urged them to open their campaigns before the session opens on Feb. 7. Looney was one of three New Haven Democrats — two senators and one representative — to file for reelection the day after Thanksgiving. His early action was meant as a message: He is not retiring. His age, tenure and the fact his close adviser, Vincent Mauro, recently stepped down as chief of staff fueled speculation that Looney would not run. Looney is 75 and was first elected to the General Assembly in 1980. Instead, Looney not only filed but had raised more than $12,000 for reelection by year’s end. 

Qualifying for public financing available from the voluntary Citizens’ Election Program required raising $17,300 for the Senate and $5,800 for the House in 2022. (The thresholds for 2024 will increase, based on the consumer price index in January.) The 2022 general election grants to qualifying participants were $99,525 for a Senate race and $33,175 for a House race. The program, which imposes limits on contributions and spending, was used by the vast majority of legislative candidates in both parties.

The earliest filer was Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor. He officially became a candidate on June 23 and has since raised $22,630, meaning his fundraising is over. His rationale was professional: The legislature is a part-time job, and Anwar is a busy physician. “I try to stay ahead of the curve,” Anwar said.

Of the four Republican senators who had the closest races in 2022, two are freshmen who already have opened campaigns: Sen. Lisa Seminara of Avon and Sen. Jeff Gordon of Woodstock. Seminara, who won with 50.13% of the vote, faces a likely rematch. Her 2022 opponent, Democrat Paul Honig of Harwinton, filed before Christmas — a month after Seminara.

Democrat Trevor Crow has filed to run again against Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, who won with 50.1% in 2022. Nick Simmons, a policy advisor to Gov. Ned Lamont, also is expected to seek the Democratic nomination. In a reelection campaign, Fazio said, he would emphasize his support for two bipartisan measures, one increasing oversight of utility rates and another expanding access to birth control. In Ellington, Dzen staged a campaign kickoff to a few dozen supporters. Donor forms sat near trays of snacks and drinks, but she already has raised $5,995.

There was no criticism directed by her or supporters at the incumbent, Rep. Jaime Foster, a moderate Democrat who flipped the seat in a special election in 2021, or the Democratic governor who won reelection in a landslide in 2022. Instead, they spoke of a need to restore a political balance to the General Assembly. “We need her in Hartford. We’re outnumbered. All we need in Connecticut for a better government is a little balance. We’re way out of balance,” said Rep. Tim Ackert, R-Coventry. 

Ackert said the bipartisan budget and fiscal guardrails passed in 2017 were a product, in part, of the fact that Republicans held nearly half the seats then. “We had that a few years ago. And we did great work together. But now, we need to have a little bit more balance,” Ackert said.

Dzen, who is the chair of the Board of Education, said her approach on the school board was bipartisan. “Some of the challenges that I think we face here locally are unfunded mandates that are constantly passed down to the municipalities, forcing us to choose items and budgets, and leave other things behind,” Dzen said. “I think utilities are another issue that we need to work on. Utility prices are climbing and climbing.”

Dzen said the focus of the race will be local, a difficult challenge in a presidential year, especially if the matchup is Biden vs. Trump, a dynamic that House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, referred to as “national head winds.” Those headwinds include the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that ended a constitutional right to abortion.

“It is early to really determine how to handle it,” Candelora said. “I think Trump on the ballot is far less impactful for Republicans than some social issues. The Dobbs decision did more to affect our local races than Trump.”