Soul Searching Begins For Connecticut Republicans After Election Rout

[George II]

Great article about the Connecticut republican party analysis of their own losses this week (and in 2016-2017)

Can't say I pity them at all!

https://www.courant.com/politics/hc-pol-gop-soul-searching-20181108-story.html

Engulfed by the blue wave of voter scorn for President Donald Trump, Connecticut Republicans are soul searching after Tuesday’s election casualties up and down the ticket, from governor to the legislature.

The party squandered an opportunity to retake of the governor’s office from Democrats, despite departing incumbent Dannel P. Malloy ranking next-to-last in job approval nationally.

Eight years of GOP gains in the legislature — pickups of 35 seats in the House and six in the tied Senate — were washed away, along with entrenched incumbents from the Gold Coast such as L. Scott Frantz and Toni Boucher.

Now, several prominent Republicans are publicly criticizing the party’s strategy and its chairman, J.R. Romano, from its field operation to its selection of candidates. Further, the party’s nominee for governor, Bob Stefanowski, surrounded himself with consultants from out of state.

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Some interesting observations:

“We let Trump take over this race,” said longtime Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, runner-up in the party’s gubernatorial primary. “It became a referendum on Trump and you’re not going win that way.”

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Throughout the campaign, Stefanowski was largely unwilling to distance himself from Trump, a deeply unpopular president in Connecticut. Stefanowski declined to comment for this story.

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“I’m not quite sure in Connecticut that it gets any better,” said New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart, who finished second in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor. “It is going to be difficult to find candidates who want to run. I think that if the Republican Party is going to survive in Connecticut, we need to change the way we do things.”

(more....)

[Me.]

1. WEll, Well Well

Soul searching by the Cons for a change. No scolding of Dems, cautionary warnings or counting your chickens before they are hatched.

[C_U_L8R]

2. They certainly did lose their souls

I never had much sympathy for the Connecticut Republican species - they want all their social liberties but don't want to pay their share to support community, infrastructure and the common good. Selfish assholes.

[gratuitous]

3. You're going to need a powerful microscope

Finding a Republican soul is like running to overtake the horizon.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. They let the loons take over their party

and each one would get crazier and crazier, election after election.

I am glad that CT has finally come to its senses!

[Tom Rivers]

5. Happy for Ned Lamont

He deserves it after being screwed over by LIEberman and the democrats who still supported him. If he would've been elected, we would've gotten the public option as part of the ACA. Instead, we had Little Joe in that seat and he nuked it. He was also working against Lamont and for the republican behind the scenes in this campaign, so this win feels extra sweet!

[Downtown Hound]

6. LOL! You know how many times I've heard this bullshit?

Every time the Republicans lose, there's always this "soul searching" that is done in the immediate aftermath, during which Republicans promise to be more inclusive in the future and stop being the world's biggest assholes. All that has to happen though, is for them to win a few elections with their new moderate tone, and they are back to being the same old vile cretins that they always are and always will be in no time.

[NewJeffCT]

7. I think in many areas, voters did separate Trump from Connecticut

In 2008, my town went for Obama over McCain and it was the first time they had gone Democratic in decades.

In 2012, however, my town swung back to Romney over Obama, 51-47%

In 2016, my town then went big for Hillary Clinton - she beat Trump by 11 points here, 53-42. A 15 point blue swing.

But, in 2018, my town went for the Republican Stefanowski over Lamont by 6 points, a 17 point Republican swing in 2 years. However, a first time Democrat running for the state General Assembly came closer to winning a seat in the state legislature than Dems have in decades, losing by 99 votes out of several thousand votes cast.

Interesting that uber wealthy and educated Fairfield County has now swung to mostly blue. They used to be the epitome of the "Country Club Republican" - socially liberal and fiscally moderate to conservative.

[mercuryblues]

10. I think Sandy Hook

has opened a few eyes there. Remember trump loves him some Alex Jones, a SH truther. Even Country Club republicans don't want their kids shot and killed in schools.

[George II]

12. I was surprised at the results in our town:

Lamont lost 44-49 to Stefanowski, and even Tong lost to Hatfield. Considering that we've had a Democratic majority in our Town Council 14 of the last 18 years and our State Senator and State Representatives have both been Democratic for decades, I thought all the Democratic candidates would be shoo-ins.

[NewJeffCT]

16. I was surprised that the AG race was close

The only time the GOP came close in the AG race over the last 20 or so years was when teabagger Martha Dean lost by only 10-11 points 4 or 8 years ago.

[George II]

18. I think it was the backgrounds of the two that made it close. Tong is an Asian American....

....and Hatfield is your typical Fox News-like personality - an attractive blonde woman.

[W_HAMILTON]

8. Wait, so Lamont ended up winning?

Woohoo! The last I heard about that race was on election night, when he was trailing. After election night, it was one of the races that I had forgotten about given all the news about the other Senate/House races.

[msongs]

9. msnbc had him down with 99% in. good news he won! nt

[NewJeffCT]

15. Yes

I went to bed a little after 11pm and Lamont was down by like 6% - however, I looked at the map and saw that Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport were mostly still uncounted, Stamford was half counted and that heavily Jewish/Democratic suburb West Hartford was completely uncounted (West Hartford ended up going for Lamont ~18,600 to ~9,000) so was pretty confident that if Lamont didn't win, he'd be extremely close.

For the long term, Democrats can still do a lot better in the cities of CT - Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and Stamford all have about double the population of West Hartford, but their total number of voters usually only beats West Hartford by a small amount, if at all: New Haven turned out 33,000 total voters with a population of 130,000;
West Hartford has a population of 66,000 and turned out a little over 30,000 in total (3rd party Oz Griebel got 2,500 in WH)
Bridgeport has a population of about 150,000, but a pathetic 26,000 turned out. (Lamont won ~20,800 to ~4,900)

(Not voting age population, just total population)

[NastyRiffraff]

11. Do they even have souls to search?

Whatever you call the capacity for kindness and empathy, most of them seem to lack it.

[Oneironaut]

13. They stupidly put a Trumpster on the ballot.

Any moderate Republican would have won. A lot of people hated Stefanowski’s praising of Trump more than what Malloy did to the state, imo.

Stefanowski was an United States Republican, not a Connecticut Republican. If you praise Trump in CT, you’re not going to be very popular.

[George II]

14. Unfortunately for them (not for US!) all five candidates for Governor praised trump in their debate.

No matter who they got, they were in deep by supporting trump in Connecticut.

[NewJeffCT]

17. What made that even more stupid

Stefanowski admitted that he did NOT vote for Trump in 2016.