In an update sent to the Courant Tuesday, the spokesperson said that the senator is “continuing to improve and heartened by the outpouring of well wishes.”

The spokesperson said that Murphy early voted in Connecticut and “he encourages everyone to make their voices heard by voting and sending a message in this defining election.”

The 53-year-old senator experienced numbness in his arm Saturday afternoon while at his son’s hockey game, according to Allison Herwitt, the senator’s chief of staff in a statement Sunday.

Herwitt said in the same statement that after evaluation at a local hospital, Murphy was transferred to John Hopkins Hospital for further monitoring and “is responding well to treatment” and that doctors were “optimistic he will make a full recovery.”

Murphy is the fourth U.S. senator to suffer from a stroke in the past few years.

Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico experienced a stroke in 2022 along with Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat who, according to the Associated Press, attributed his stroke the same year to a blood clot triggered by atrial fibrillation. And Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, suffered a minor stroke in the same year.

A staunch critic of President Donald Trump’s administration and the Iran War, Murphy recently traveled overseas to receive a firsthand account of damage from the war that he has said the administration is covering up. He said he was blocked from seeing a key American air base in the Middle East during that official Congressional trip.

In a recent statements about a briefing on potential U.S. military plans for the Iran War, Murphy expressed deep worries about what the war plan would entail if the U.S. restarted military operations.

“I will just say this: their plan is insane,” he said. “It will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.”

As the midterm elections approached, Murphy was campaigning for candidates in the state as well as Democrats in nearly a half dozen states with marquee Senate races that could affect which party holds the majority, the CT Mirror reported.

Several neurologists in the Hartford region, who are not overseeing the senator’s care, said more younger people below the age of 54 are having strokes, due in large part to the increase of risk factors tied to the condition, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat), diabetes and obesity.

Strokes among adults ages 20 to 54 nearly doubled over three decades, “even as short-term survival after stroke improved,” according to a large U.S. population study released last month in the American Academy of Neurology.

A stroke is a blockage of the blood vessel in the brain or when a blood vessel bleeds in the brain, causing damage.

Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S., with 795,000 cases every year, and a major cause of long-term disability for adults, according to the American Medical Association. Based on Connecticut hospital emergency department visits and hospital discharge data from 29 participating stroke centers there were 8,914 stroke/transient ischemic attacks in 2025, according to the Connecticut Department of Health.

Dr. Rebecca Blumenreich, neurologist and stroke specialist at Yale School of Medicine, said not everyone who has a stroke has all of the risk factors.

“You can certainly see people in middle age and even younger with some of these risk factors,” she said. “And the longer people have them, the more of a toll they can take on the body and predispose them to a stroke.”

Dr. Rachel Forman, associate professor of neurology at the Yale School of Medicine, said the leading cause of strokes is high blood pressure.

“The thing about high blood pressure is people often don’t know they have had it until they’re coming in with a stroke,” she said.

Risk factors of stroke

Dr. Priya Narwal, medical director of the stroke program at UConn Health, said the most common risk factors associated with stroke in most people include uncontrolled high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.

While stress is not a direct cause of strokes, it can contribute to the development of a stroke, according to Narwal.

“If someone’s under a lot of stress and their blood pressure is consistently high and it’s not being addressed appropriately that can contribute to an increased stroke risk,” she said. “But also we have to remember that there are other things that may cause a stroke in someone as young as the senator which could be things like blood clotting disorders or a hole in a heart where a clot can pass through and go to the brain.”

Blumenreich agreed, adding that a person with high stress is less likely to eat healthy and more likely to develop things like high blood pressure.

“So, having a lot of stress will lead to those risk factors, which can lead to strokes,” she said.

Murphy traveled throughout the state and back and forth between Washington, D.C., and his home in Hartford, in addition to traveling overseas for congressional missions.

Blood clots in the legs from frequent air travel are a “rare causes of stroke,” according to Blumenreich.

No one stroke looks the same

In order to assess the cause of a stroke, Narwal said testing is conducted to look at a patient’s heart and their brain.

Blumenreich said a stroke tends to happen abruptly and no one stroke looks the same.

“People will experience a sudden onset of their symptoms,” she said, depending on where in the brain the stroke hits.

Symptoms of a stroke include balance loss, eye vision changes, facial drooping, arm weakness and speech difficulties.

She said if a stroke occurs in the language center of the brain, then people will have speech difficulties, or if in the frontal lobe of the brain that controls movement, they may have trouble moving either their whole body or single side. If a stroke occurs in the sensory part of the brain, they may experience numbness and tingling, Blumenreich said.

“The most important thing is to call 911 as soon as you’re experiencing a stroke, so you can get to the hospital as fast as possible,” she said.

Blumenreich said there are different severities of strokes dependent on the size and location of the stroke.

“So sometimes we can have a really small stroke, but it can be in a really important part of the brain and that can really cause a lot of impairments,” she said.

At the same time, Blumenreich said an individual could have a moderate size stroke in the part of the brain that doesn’t cause as significant impairments.

“Stroke can hit somebody differently even if it is in the exact same location,” she said. “It can look different from one person to the other.”

Recovery

Blumenreich said it is hard for doctors to say how a person is going to recover from a stroke until they get a sense of their trajectory over the first days, weeks and months “because each person, depending on all the factors of the stroke and all their individual factors, will have a different trajectory for their recovery.”

Forman said when a major stroke occurs, a large part of the brain is damaged, causing visible effects. In the case of a minor stroke, which is often referred to as a transient ischemic attack or a warning stroke, the person doesn’t suffer lasting effects.

“All strokes are just as serious,” she said. “We have to figure out why they happened. Unfortunately once you do have a stroke or TIA you are at higher risk of having another one.”

They arose after hundreds of homeschooling families had flooded the state Capitol in Hartford to testify against a bill that would essentially require a DCF check, and registration, to gain clearance to educate their kids. There were thousands of written testimonies against the bill, endless phone calls and emails to legislators and the governor, and when the bill passed two weeks later, there was a lot of bitterness.

In the months that followed many families talked about moving out of state and some about defying the law, which doesn’t take effect until 2027. Others began organizing. Legislators and advocacy groups hosted meetings encouraging homeschooling parents to run for election.

A handful did. Seeking election to the state legislature on Tuesday are some homeschooling mothers, a couple of homeschooling fathers, a grandfather and a recently graduated homeschooled student.

Philip Tummescheit, who has just turned 18, is running for state representative in West Hartford. He told the Courant he is focused on defending homeschooling rights and, if elected, would seek to repeal the controversial homeschooling bill.

“I don’t think that people were listened to,” he said of the bill’s passage following hundreds of written testimonies and emails and calls to elected officials.

Guy Tuccero, a homeschooling dad running for state representative in Haddam, has said he got into the race “because my eyes were opened during the 2026 legislative sessions.

“Legislators in the House set out on a mission to regulate homeschooling families, claiming that the regulation on home education would save children from abuse,” Tuccero said in a campaign Facebook post.

He is one of the many candidates from Connecticut’s homeschool community who say legislators created a law without listening to those who would be affected.

Optimistic CT Democrats looking for election gains with anti-Trump wave. GOP pushes back.

“I have met a lot of great homeschool families in my community and even State House nominees like Nicole ‘Coco’ Roscoe for State Representative – 6th House District, CT and Katelynn for the 64th that are homeschool moms themselves. These are great people, raising great kids with hard work and dedication. Never lump those abusive, murderous guardians with the homeschool community, because they are not the same,” he said.

In the past legislative session, the issues of homeschooling and child abuse became entwined. Three horrific cases came to light of children who died or were allegedly tortured outside of public scrutiny because they withdrew their children from school. All of those children were known to the Department of Children and Families and had referrals for abuse or neglect.

Homeschooling families argued the failure was with DCF oversight. Legislators said they had to do something to prevent more tragedies.

“What we are trying to do is have some system for the people who are withdrawing their children to hide neglect or abuse or who have no intent to educate their child and provide some parameters … maybe it will prevent you from withdrawing your child if you know someone is actually going to look for you to be accountable year after year,” Leeper said during the committee vote.

Connecticut’s homeschooling community is growing and unknown. No one knows how many children are homeschooled in the state and there is currently no way of identifying them or verifying their welfare.

A number of the candidates motivated by HB 5468 are from rural communities, where homeschooling and farming can go together. There’s also some overlap with the medical freedom or anti-vaccine community as well as those who espouse Second Amendment rights.

Katelynn Borraiz, a homeschooling mother of four who lives in Washington, is among them. She has said she’s “part of a ‘mama bear’ movement pushing back against perceived overreach by state institutions and ‘elites.'”

Fairfield Rep. Jennifer Leeper and Hartford Sen. Doug McCrory, co-chairs of the Education Committee, were the main targets of homeschoolers’ frustration. Leeper authored the bill with McCrory’s support and the bill was passed out of committee on party lines. Some members of the committee, specifically members of the Black and Puerto Rican caucus, agonized over their votes and spoke against it. Photos of the vote tally sheet later appeared to show that some votes had allegedly been changed to allow the bill to advance.

Challengers for both Leeper and McCrory said their objections to the homeschooling vote go beyond the issue of home education.

“It’s not just about the homeschooling bill; it’s about a government and a group of people running the government who are not listening to the people,” said Tim Knotts, a Windsor father of homeschooled children.

A lawyer who now writes high school curriculum, he and his family spent long days at the Capitol during the homeschool bill public hearing and when the bill was likely to be called for discussion.

“My wife and kids were at the Capitol for about 18 hours of the hearing and my wife testified about 1 in the morning. There were many hours of testimony, almost entirely against the bill. The submitted testimony was 98.5% against with thousands against,” Knotts said.

McCrory, whose seat Knotts is running for, lost the Democratic primary to Rep. Maryam Khan, who was also on the Education Committee that originated the bill.

“We went and sat for hours and hours every day when they said maybe it was coming up. When it was finally heard, Jennifer Leeper introduced it and most of the Democratic caucus was either not in the room or hanging around chatting. Various Republicans rushed in and spoke against it,” Knotts said, but no one listened to their arguments.

“I emailed, called, went to Doug McCrory’s office and never once did an aid get back to me let alone the senator himself. So when the bill passed, I called my Republican town committee and said who’s running against Doug McCrory so I can give them money, make phone calls for them and they didn’t have anybody. I said that can’t be.”

Emily Hau, of Fairfield, is associate director of the Yale Institute for Foundations of Data Science. She doesn’t homeschool but said the new law is “one of the things that really missed the mark and was an injustice in the name of solving a problem that it doesn’t really solve.”

“I think it’s a real miscarriage of justice that there were thousands of written statements and hundreds of people showed up to Hartford for 12 hours or more and they were just ignored. That’s kind of not what our process should be. There should be some community buy-in and if there isn’t, what are we doing?” Hau said.

She liked the provision – removed from the bill that passed – that would have allowed homeschooled students to participate in some district sports and activities. She would reform the law to restrict the right to homeschool based on judicial rulings rather than the DCF registry and create a clear appeal process.

Most of the candidates, running as Republicans, face long odds for election. In the very blue 2nd District, which includes Bloomfield and Windsor, Knotts said many people slam the door or launch a diatribe about President Donald Trump when they hear ‘Republican.’

“But most people, if you say ‘Aren’t our taxes too high here in Connecticut?’ They say ‘yes,’ and ‘Shouldn’t our government be about defending our liberties?’ They say ‘yes,’” Knotts said.

“Homeschooling is a very niche issue but … this really does have some very major implications for people because it’s not just about privacy rights, parents rights. It’s ultimately about whose children are they: are they your children or are they the state’s children and that’s an enormously important question.”

Democrats are expecting to increase their veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, along with continuing their streak of winning all Congressional and state constitutional offices since 2006. The state has become increasingly “blue” as Democrats have recruited candidates, raised money, and mobilized their get-out-the-vote efforts.

House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford and Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney of New Haven say they expect to increase their supermajorities that currently stand at 102-49 in the state House of Representatives and 25-11 in the Senate. While the top leaders declined to make public predictions, optimistic Democrats say their party could reach 110 or more seats in the House and 28 or more in the Senate if they win a series of close, unpredictable races that could go either way.

But state Republican chairman Ben Proto pushed back strongly against the Democratic optimism of an anti-Trump wave in a state where a recent poll showed 70% of those surveyed disapproved of Trump.

“They’re hoping it’s an anti-Trump year,” Proto told The Courant in an interview. “The Democrats have made Connecticut one of the most unaffordable states in the country, one of the highest-taxed states in the country, and one of the highest energy rates in the country. That’s all on the Democrats. If they actually had to run on their record, they would be in trouble. So, no, I don’t think it’s going to be quite as bad as the Democrats think it’s going to be.”

The marquee race on Election Day pits two-term Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont against Republican state Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich. The two combatants have blasted each other on everything from taxes to electricity costs in a multi-million-dollar battle of television commercials as they have criticized each others’ records. Lamont is leading in multiple public polls by a double-digit margin, but Fazio has questioned the polls and said the race is much tighter in the single digits.

The Democrats are hoping to sweep the statewide races for top positions like secretary of the state. Democrats have been particularly strong on the “under ticket” races, including winning the state attorney general’s office in every election for more than 65 years with big-name Democrats like Joe Lieberman, Richard Blumenthal, and William Tong. Democrats have also held the state comptroller’s office since 1975 and the state treasurer’s office since 1998 when Republican incumbent Paul J. Silvester lost the election before being sent to federal prison in a wide-ranging racketeering and money laundering scandal.

CT Senate

Democrats are expecting to pick up seats in the 36-member Senate, but Proto says Republicans are looking to defeat incumbent Democratic senators Martha Marx of New London and Paul Honig of Harwinton. Marx is facing longtime radio host Lee Elci, who is well known in southeastern Connecticut due to his radio show. Honig, a first-term incumbent who won two years ago in a race that was so close that it required a recount, is battling against Michael Criss, Harwinton’s first selectman since 2011.

Democrats are trying to hold the seat in the 8th district, which was once solidly Republican in towns like Simsbury, Avon, and Canton. Until Honig’s victory two years ago, Republicans had held the 8th Senate district for more than 50 years.

Professor Gary Rose, a longtime analyst who has written numerous books on politics, said Democrats have a solid chance at winning open seats that are currently held by Fazio and Sen. Tony Hwang of Fairfield. Known for his outgoing personality and track record of winning multiple elections through the years, Hwang defeated Democrat Rob Blanchard two years ago at a time when some Democrats had been predicting that Blanchard would sweep to victory as Fairfield County has turned increasingly blue during the Trump era.

This year, Hwang is not seeking reelection, and Blanchard, 38, is running against 39-year-old Republican finance board member Amybeth Laroche of Newtown, who ran into a buzzsaw of controversy recently over not paying her car taxes after she had criticized the tax in a video. Laroche later paid nearly $800, including interest, for the car taxes and said the issue had been overblown.

Rose notes that Laroche, a newcomer who first voted in Connecticut in 2025, does not have the long experience of Hwang, an amiable lawmaker known for his bipartisan outreach in the legislature for the past 18 years.

“Tony is Tony. I don’t think that the Republican who is running for Tony’s seat this time around has the political skills that Tony had,” Rose told The Courant. “I think it’s very possible that Blanchard is going to win that seat this time. Plus, you have to take into consideration that Lamont is going to have coattails, and we do have coattails in this day and age.”

The Fairfield Senate seat, which also includes Newtown, Bethel, and Easton, has been controlled by Republicans for the past 50 years. The seat was essentially guaranteed for Republicans during 16 years each by Sen. John McKinney and Sen. Ted Lovegrove.

Blanchard has long-held ties to Lamont, going back to Lamont’s 2018 campaign for governor and then joining the administration in the press office. Besides Lamont, Blanchard has been heavily involved in campaigns and governmental service for multiple Democrats, including Dannel P. Malloy, Ted Kennedy Jr., and former state attorney general George C. Jepsen.

The political winds have shifted strongly in Connecticut since 2005, when Republican Jodi Rell was a popular governor and Republicans held three out of the five Congressional seats with Rob Simmons of Stonington, Chris Shays of Bridgeport, and Nancy Johnson of New Britain. But Democrats have become increasingly strong over the past 20 years by winning all of the Congressional races and retaining the constitutional offices like state attorney general.

Insiders say that some Senate races are closer than expected, including Senate Republican leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield against Democrat Aaron Zimmer in an 18-town district in the state’s northwestern corner and longtime Sen. John Kissel of Enfield against former state Rep. David Kiner, whose father was also a legislator. Numerous Democrats have repeatedly tried to oust Kissel since 1993 when Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. was serving as governor, but they have been unsuccessful every two years.

Meriden

Looney said it is “really surprising” that the Republicans have no candidate in the 13th Senate district in Meriden. For years, outspoken conservative Republican Len Suzio ran repeatedly, winning at times and losing at others against Democrats Tom Gaffey and Dante Bartolomeo. Suzio was one of the key players whose victory allowed the Republicans to reach an 18-18 tie in the 36-member chamber in a strong Republican year when Trump was first elected as president in 2016.

Today, state Rep. Jack Fazzino is running with an unobstructed path to victory.

“Jack, who won a primary in that district, is running as a first-time Senate candidate and running unopposed,” Looney said. “That used to be a contested one. That was the one I saw as most surprising. It was a hotbed of activism for both parties.”

Overall, 39 races in the House and seven in the Senate are unopposed. Many of the races where Democrats are unopposed are in the major cities of Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven, and Stamford. But some Republicans are also unopposed, including House GOP leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford, Joe Polletta of Watertown, Christie Carpino of Cromwell, and Tracy Marra of Darien.

Polls

One of the points of contention has been the polls with Lamont saying they are accurate and Fazio saying they are not.

The candidates have jousted about the polls that have showed various margins. The latest Quinnipiac University poll showed Lamont ahead by 20 points, which was higher than an earlier Q poll that showed Lamont by 17 percentage points and another survey by Sacred Heart University that placed Lamont ahead by 14 points. A separate poll by Morning Consult rated Lamont as the ninth most popular governor in the country.

“Look, I’m not a big polling guy, but I think the Quinnipiac poll is pretty close,” Lamont said of the 17-point advantage.

Even after multiple polls have been released, Fazio still insisted that the race is tight

“I know he claims that his internal polls are less than 10,” said Rose, the Sacred Heart professor. “I have doubts about that in light of the fact that we have about five polls that show something pretty different.”

In addition to repeatedly saying that the polls are tight, Fazio has also criticized Quinnipiac during an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” and on X, which was formerly known as Twitter.

“Quinnipiac polling is notoriously bad and way Dem-leaning in its results every year,” Fazio wrote on X.

One of the big problems for Quinnipiac came in Florida during the 2020 president race when the poll showed President Joe Biden ahead of Trump by 5 percentage points in the crucially important state. In the end, Trump won Florida by 3.3 percentage, and Quinnipiac was criticized for missing by 8.3 percentage points.

But despite problems with various races in certain years, the Q Poll has had numerous accurate results in the past in both its home base of Connecticut and around the country.

In the 2018 governor’s race in Connecticut, the final Quinnipiac Poll had Lamont ahead by 4 points, and he won by 3 points. In the 2014 governor’s race, the final poll had incumbent Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ahead by 1 point, and he won by 3 points.

The 20-point lead for Lamont in the latest Q Poll is sharply different from relatively close races between Lamont and Republican challenger Bob Stefanowski of Madison, as well as two races between Democrat Dannell P. Malloy and Greenwich fundraiser Tom Foley.

“This is the biggest lead a candidate for governor in Connecticut has had in two decades since Jodi Rell led John DeStefano by 24 points in Quinnipiac University’s Nov. 1, 2006 poll,” Q poll director Doug Schwartz said.

While early voting has been underway since Oct. 19, voters will have the final say on Tuesday.

“This is an incredible town. It’s been so supportive, and we’ve had such a great experience,” said Dara Kovel, the chief executive officer of Beacon Communities, the developer. “We also landed in the district of one of the state’s most passionate and vocal advocates for housing for people in need.”

That would be Rep. Eleni Kavros DeGraw, D-Avon.

Opposition to 8-30g, as well as an omnibus housing bill Kavros DeGraw helped draft and pass last year, has been foundational to a Republican Party desperate for wedge issues that might resonate in suburbs where the GOP has lost its way, places like the Farmington Valley suburbs of Avon, Canton and Simsbury.

Kavros DeGraw is both a symptom of and contributor to the GOP’s slide in the valley.

With other moms alarmed by Hillary Clinton’s loss to President Donald Trump in 2016, Kavros DeGraw began reorganizing an ineffectual local Democratic Party that did not run full slates for municipal office and had failed to nominate a candidate for the 17th House District of Avon and Canton in 2014 and 2016.

What happened over the next decade in Avon is emblematic of the political shift that has drawn many upscale suburbs in Connecticut away from Republicans, helping Democrats win supermajorities in what was a closely divided General Assembly when Trump opened his first term in January 2017.

It is a story of how politics still are local, even when shaped by national trends, issues and personalities. Trump was a catalyst, but it was on-the-ground organizing that transformed Avon, a comfortable community of 19,000 with a median household income of $154,058, into a small-town Democratic powerhouse.

Kavros DeGraw, now 51, a stay-at-home mother of three with a background in writing, started a grassroots organization after the 2016 election with a friend, Carrie Firestone, called Forward Connecticut. It was organized around four pillars: connect, inform, serve and lead.

“We had, almost overnight, 2,000 members on Facebook,” she said. “They wanted to know what could they do because everybody was like, ‘This is going to be bad.’”

Grief and anger over a presidential election fueled action, first in the 2017 municipal races.

“We had women all over the Farmington Valley who suddenly stepped up to run,” Kavros DeGraw said, adding they were not universally welcomed at Democratic town committees unaccustomed to new volunteers with new ideas and ambitions. “It was like, ‘Why are you here?’”

Kavros DeGraw said she announced a plan to raise $15,000 for the municipal elections, instantly getting pushback from a Democratic town committee member.

“He goes, ‘Well, we need to raise like $1,800.’ And he goes, “What would you spend on $15,000?’ I said, ‘We’re going to run a full slate of candidates.’ And he goes, ‘Where are you going to get a full slate of candidates?’” she said.

Avon had 3,748 registered Democrats and 4,145 Republicans when they started in late 2016, and the GOP controlled the town council with a lopsided majority. Gains would come slowly. It was the start of a multiyear effort to recruit candidates, teach them how to run and expand the Democratic base.

“This is what these women did incredibly well,” said Eliza Massaro, a sales and management executive who joined the Democratic town committee in 2018, a move that would become life changing. Massaro now serves as its chair — and her volunteer political work became a career.

In 2021, Massaro abandoned her sales career to open 818 Political, a consulting firm whose name references the date when the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote was ratified, Aug. 18, 1920. The majority of its clients are women, Kavros DeGraw among them.

After working behind the scenes as an organizer, Kavros DeGraw ran for the General Assembly in 2018 in the two-town House district of Avon and Canton, challenging Rep. Leslee B. Hill, R-Canton. Kavros DeGraw carried Avon, but Hill narrowly won on the strength of the vote in Canton.

The same year, Democrat Ned Lamont won his first term as governor, but he lost to Republican Bob Stefanowski throughout the Farmington Valley. Other Democrats, notably U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and congressional candidate Jahana Hayes, did better.

Kavros DeGraw ran again and won in 2020, the night Joe Biden was elected president, carrying Connecticut by 20 percentage points and Avon by 24. She won with 52% of the vote. It also was the year that Democratic voter registration passed Republicans in Avon.

The trend would continue. As of this month, Democrats outnumber Republicans, 4,447 to 3,194, an advantage of more than 1,200 voters.  Running full slates of municipal candidates, Democrats won a 4-1 majority on the council last year.

Seeking a second term in 2022, Kavros DeGraw faced a moderate Republican councilwoman from Avon, Heather Maguire, typically a strong vote getter in municipal elections. It was the Joe Biden midterm, but national conservative politics intruded — that June, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“I went out the day it was decided, and every door … was a husband working from home,” Kavros Degraw said.

She was struck by how unsettled the men were. One told her a story about his wife’s ectopic pregnancy.

“I had one guy, former military, who said, ‘What if you’re 16 and you just make a mistake? And I thought, ‘Oh, he’s got a sibling or a girlfriend or somebody in his past who had confronted an unwanted pregnancy,’” Kavros DeGraw said.

Kavros DeGraw won with 57% of the vote.

As the Democrats have consolidated, the Republicans in the valley have struggled with internal differences over whether to stand with Trump or tack to the center. In 2024, Kavros DeGraw’s Republican opponent was Manju Gerber, a leader of the socially conservative Moms for Liberty. Gerber got less than 38% of the vote.

Two of the three Republicans who preceded her in the 17th House District seat, Kevin Witkos and Tim LeGeyt of Canton, have broken with their party to varying degrees. Both were elected to the Canton Board of Selectmen after leaving the General Assembly and still serve.

Witkos, the first selectman, resigned from the Republican town committee.

“It’s been taken over by the, I’ll say, the right wing of the party, and that just doesn’t go well in the valley anymore,” said Witkos, who also had been a state senator.

LeGeyt, who succeeded Witkos in the House after Witkos’ election to the Senate, went further. The day after Trump’s election in 2024, LeGeyt went to town hall and changed his voter registration from Republican to unaffiliated.

“I just could not continue with some of the crap that I was seeing Trump take part in, and it’s only gotten worse,” LeGeyt said. “And so Republicans, you know, they’ve got their heads down. They’re not proud of what’s going on, in my opinion.”

Witkos said the health of the local GOP is poor.

“I don’t even get a lot of Republicans requesting to serve on a board or commission. There’s apathy there,” Witkos said. “I think we need somebody closer to the local level, the state level, to kind of re-energize the base, give them something to want to fight for, because I think that’s missing in our party.”

Andrew Ziemba, the Republican running against Kavros DeGraw this year, said his party lacks the infrastructure that Kavros DeGraw and the other women built for the Democrats in 2017 and 2018.

“Republicans, they tend to not really have a robust door-knocking effort. They don’t really do the volunteer calls. They don’t really send out these postcards to people. They don’t really have events,” Ziemba said. “I mean, it’s the Democrats who are very well organized. They make the calls, they knock the doors, and they have volunteers who are very aggressive about making those efforts.”

Mark Pazniokas is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2026 @ CT Mirror (Ctmirror.org).

The trustees failed to come to terms on an extension with Maric last June, despite a contract requirement that they resolve her status a year ahead of her contract’s expiration. Instead, they negotiated a six-month extension of the deadline for acting on her contract until next month.

UConn trustees met in executive session Wednesday, with one notable absence: the speaker’s father, Thomas D. Ritter, a long-time trustee.

Maric could not be reached for comment Thursday, and Ritter neither confirmed nor denied that he had been approached.

CT House Speaker Matt Ritter to seek unprecedented 4th term

“I know there are stories out there about my future and potential job opportunities. Next Thursday I will be at the House Democratic Caucus seeking reelection as speaker of the House,” Ritter said in a text. “Beyond that, I’m not going to comment on possible or hypothetical job offers. I am 100% focused on getting House Democrats elected and meeting the caucus on November 5.”

With Democrats assured of retaining control of the General Assembly on Nov. 3, Ritter is expected to be endorsed at the Nov. 5 post-election caucus as speaker for an unprecedented fourth term. If Ritter and UConn come to terms, he would resign from the House.

If a formal offer is made and Ritter accepts, UConn would join the growing ranks of state university systems that have looked outside academia to former governors and legislative leaders for leaders.

An interim appointment of 18 months or more essentially would become a tryout for the 43-year-old Ritter, a partner in the downtown Hartford law firm of Shipman & Goodwin.

House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, said much of the skill set Ritter has displayed running the House for six years would be useful at UConn, though he was less than happy with the prospect of Ritter’s departure.

“The prospect of the House of Representatives without Speaker Ritter would not be a good thing for the institution,” Candelora said. “I think he’s done a lot of positive things for that chamber at a time that was very tumultuous.”

House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, is believed to have the votes to succeed Ritter as speaker.

Mark Pazniokas is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2026 @ CT Mirror (ctmirror.org).

The tally includes seven races in the 36-member Senate, where the Republicans will not field a candidate in districts in major cities like Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, and Bridgeport. By contrast, Democrats have candidates in all 36 Senate districts as they expect to increase their current veto-proof majority in the chamber. In addition, Democrats are guaranteed victories in 30 House of Representatives districts that do not have a Republican candidate — also mainly in the major cities.

At the same time, five Republican candidates like House caucus leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford and Joe Polletta of Watertown are running unopposed in party strongholds.

Politicians say the lack of competition is not good for democracy and could hurt the chances of Republican gubernatorial nominee Ryan Fazio, who is trailing in the public polls by double digits behind two-term incumbent Gov. Ned Lamont. Republicans have not won any Congressional or statewide races in Connecticut since 2006 as Democrats have strengthened their political hold in a blue state.

For months, Fazio and his running mate for lieutenant governor, Matt Corey, have been aware that recruiting efforts have been difficult in state legislative races. As a veteran campaigner who is highly familiar with get-out-the-vote efforts, Corey would like to see all Republican slots filled.

“It’s not good at all,” Corey told The Courant this week in an interview. “If you want to get the Republican message out, we have to get every state rep and state Senate seat filled, especially in the inner cities. … The Democrats don’t seem to have a problem putting candidates up against our most conservative candidates like Senator Rob Sampson.”

Corey added, “I want every single one of them filled. If you get on a football field, you play to win.”

If state Senate and House candidates are not on the ballot in various districts, an entire army of volunteers and supporters will not be knocking on doors and handing out fliers for those local candidates and other Republicans on the ballot.

In addition, Democrats say that Republicans are offering relatively weak candidates for five Congressional seats and the state constitutional offices like attorney general, treasurer, and comptroller. As a result, the Republicans lack top-tier candidates who would help bring out the vote in a non-presidential year that would help Fazio and the entire ticket, officials said.

“There are no superstars” on the Republican under ticket, said Gary Rose, a longtime political science professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. “I don’t see anybody who could help Fazio mobilize people for his campaign or theirs, for that matter. The down-ballot is problematic for Ryan.”

Rose, who has written multiple books on Connecticut politics, said that changing district lines every 10 years has strengthened the hold of the parties in distinct geographical areas.

“You have an extraordinary number of races in Connecticut that simply are not really competitive,” Rose told The Courant in an interview. “You actually have about 70% of all our state legislative seats that one could classify as non-competitive. I’m very troubled by it, and I have been for a while. … I understand the state has moved in the Democratic direction and become blue, but there’s a point where it really is dysfunctional if there is nothing that is hopeful and really competitive.”

Rose and others said they initially believed that the relatively new public financing through the Citizens Election Program, designed to help more candidates raise money, would have filled up more of the seats. But the repeated redistricting through the years has consolidated the districts for both Democrats and Republicans, he said.

At the same time, the shifting of the national political winds often has an impact in Connecticut. After a big year for Republicans in 2016 when Donald Trump won his first term in office, the Connecticut state Senate was tied at 18-18 and the Democrats held the House by a relatively narrow margin of 79-72. Those numbers have shifted sharply over the past 10 years as Democrats now hold supermajorities of 25-11 in the Senate and 102-49 in the House.

Many of the top House leaders are running unopposed, including House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford, House majority leader Jason Rojas of East Hartford, and longtime budget committee chairwoman Toni Walker of New Haven.

Proto’s view

But state Republican chairman Ben Proto said there is a financial explanation for why some races go uncontested due to the state’s Citizens Election Program. The reason is that state Senate candidates who run unopposed can receive about $40,000 in public financing, while those with an opponent receive more than $130,000. If the Democrat will win, anyway, they would have at least $90,000 in additional money to spend on the race. The same is true in the House, where those running in contested races receive more than three times as much money as those running unopposed.

In total, Proto says that he has calculated that Democrats in uncontested races will receive $1.7 million less than they would have if they received the full grant in a contested race.

“That’s a lot of money to take out of Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, Waterbury, Stamford, New London, Meriden. That’s a lot of money to take off the streets for get-out-the-vote activities for street money that the Democrats spend it on. If I can take a state senator like Gary Winfield from $150,000 to $30,000, that’s a lot of money off the streets of New Haven. The state created a system that, when you look at districts that are tremendously party-dominant, the party has to look at it from a strategic point of view. They are going to use it not to elect Gary Winfield but to get out the vote to help elect other candidates on the ballot.”

The immediate answer, Proto said, is to eliminate public financing, a system that has been strongly defended by the Democrats who control the legislature.

Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat who is a student of legislative history, said some lawmakers thought they were solving the problem of uncontested seats by enacting the public financing system.

“It’s kind of a complex phenomenon,” Looney told The Courant in an interview. “It is true that the amount of money that may be amassed for the general GOTV effort is less. … There was an issue a few years ago in New Haven, where the Republican chair in New Haven was interested in securing opponents in all races or close to that, but it did result in the Democratic candidates having much bigger budgets.”

In his own races in New Haven in 2022 and 2024, Looney ran against the same opponent each time, Republican Steve Orosco. In 2022, Orosco did not receive any grant and won 22% of the vote on Election Day. In 2024, he qualified for the full grant and competed fully with Looney on a financial level.

“Guess what he got? Twenty-two percent of the vote,” Looney said, noting the same results in both elections.

On the broader issue, Looney said the uncontested races could have an impact on the governor’s race in a complicated scenario.

“That’s potentially true that it could have some impact farther up the ticket,” Looney said. “But, on the other hand, it may help depress Democratic turnout in those districts a little bit because there is no Republican opponent. So it may turn out to be a wash.”

Like his running mate, Fazio says having more Republicans pushing for higher turnout would be helpful.

“I think having more candidates helps the entire ticket — obviously, myself included,” Fazio told The Courant earlier this year. “We want to make Connecticut as competitive of a democracy as possible. We’re doing our best to ensure that voters have a choice in as many places as possible.”

When he was recruiting candidates earlier this year, Fazio said, “Our simple goal is this: Every voter deserves a choice, and we, as a party, have an obligation to offer an alternative to voters in as many districts as possible. I think the Democrats take that obligation seriously. We, as Republicans, should take it very seriously. That’s the simple and very straightforward motivation for me recruiting candidates.”

Fazio sought newcomers, including on the controversial issues of homeschooling, vaccines and guns.

“I’ve met candidates who are specifically running because of issues like that,” Fazio said. “There are motivated candidates on our side for an array of issues and interests, and we welcome all of them because we want to build a big-tent coalition that brings people together across different backgrounds across Connecticut.”

2024 races

With difficulty in recruiting candidates in partisan districts where veteran lawmakers consistently win races, 39 of the 151 state House of Representatives races were unopposed in 2024. That total has increased this year. The seats two years ago included those held by veterans like Ritter, Candelora, Walker and others.

Before the election in 2024, Democrats held the majority in the House by 98 to 53, which was a far larger margin than the 79-72 Democratic advantage in 2017 after the 2016 elections that vaulted Trump into the White House.

But that total increased to the current House supermajority of 102-49. With an anti-Trump wave predicted for Connecticut, Democrats are projecting potentially increasing their margin to a range of 106 to 110 seats, depending on what happens in close, unpredictable races. Optimistic Democrats believe they could control the Senate chamber by 28-8 or more, which would be an increase from the current supermajority of 25-11.

But despite a decade of huge surpluses, the state’s own projections show a recession would quickly make that unaffordable, especially now that Connecticut has been weaned off the huge pandemic aid it enjoyed in recent years.

State officials could pay for tax cuts, in theory, by cutting government services, something governors and legislators historically try to avoid during a downturn. That option is further complicated by huge cutbacks in federal human services programs that Connecticut already is trying to mitigate.

Or, officials here could finance relief for low- and middle-income households by boosting income taxes on the wealthy — something they haven’t done since 2015 and which likely would expose sharp political divisions.

“Connecticut is capable of enacting bold policies that build an economy that works for all of us, but we have to be willing to change our tax code so that the wealthy start paying their fair share,” said Emily Byrne, executive director of Connecticut Voices for Children.

Byrne’s group, along with the United Way of Connecticut, more than half of the current General Assembly and others, support a new state income tax credit for low- and middle-income households with children.

Gov. Lamont, Sen. Fazio clash in first CT gubernatorial debate over taxes, electricity

But that’s just one of the tax-cutting efforts building support for the regular 2027 General Assembly session, which starts Jan. 6.

The Connecticut Project, a nonprofit social and economic advocacy group focused on making the state more affordable, is spearheading efforts for a new credit for renters, also focusing on low- and moderate earners.

The most popular child tax credit proposal would cost state government about $350 million to $400 million per year, according to nonpartisan analysts. Renters’ credit proposals reviewed but not approved by lawmakers last year would cost anywhere from $200 million to $575 million annually.

And Republican legislators’ proposals to cut income tax rates would cost the state almost $1 billion annually by 2028.

Can state government afford tax cuts next year?

At first glance, all these proposals seem affordable without having to raise taxes on anyone.

State finances have finished, on average, with $1.8 billion unspent since new budget caps were installed in 2017. That’s an amount of black ink equal to about 8% to 9% of the General Fund.

The post-2017 surpluses are almost 90 times the size of the 0.1% average cushion Connecticut budgets generated over two decades prior.

A closer look shows those surpluses were not only statistical outliers but are already at risk of eroding.

When this November’s gubernatorial winner is sworn in and the 2027 legislative session convenes in January, it will mark the longest stretch between state income tax increases since the levy was enacted in August 1991.

But the chief reason those huge surpluses are at risk involves the $4.2 billion in emergency federal COVID assistance Congress sent state government here through the Coronavirus Relief Fund and the American Rescue Plan Act.

As spending caps were extracting $1.8 billion yearly from education, healthcare and other core services over the past six years, Gov. Ned Lamont and Connecticut legislators simply replaced many of those lost dollars with COVID grant funds, which weren’t subject to regular budget rules.

But that emergency federal aid largely was exhausted by late 2025, and Connecticut’s finances already are showing the strain.

State officials had to employ an accounting gimmick to divert $712 million headed for surplus into a new program to expand affordable childcare.

And as they ran for reelection this summer, they also formally exceeded a spending cap three times to redirect another $1.2 billion to cover Medicaid shortfalls, soften cuts to federal human service programs and boost town aid by $280 million.

That local aid funding was ordered as a one-time exception, meaning officials have no approved waiver, at least for now, to maintain the assistance next year.

Fears of economic weakness continue

And if Connecticut’s finances are feeling the strain now, what happens if the global economy continues to slip and tax revenues shrink?

In a May 29 interview with Bloomberg, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, called the U.S. economy “uncomfortably close” to recession, citing high oil prices, inflation and the ongoing war with Iran among other risk factors.

Many economists since then have said they expect a softer economic transition, but problem signs remain.

Connecticut Voices reported in late August that nearly 63,000 Connecticut residents have lost federal nutrition benefits since last July — roughly double state officials’ projections. And more cutbacks to federal human service programs take effect in 2027.

In early September, the United Way found about 40% of households here can’t afford a basic survival budget.

And diesel fuel that powers the trucks delivering most groceries and department store goods to Connecticut hit an all-time high in late September.

States typically respond to a recession by drawing down reserves, hoping to delay program cuts and tax hikes for as long as possible.

Connecticut, which used its recent surpluses to build reserves and pay down pension debt, still holds a record $4.5 billion in its rainy day fund. That represents 18% of annual operating expenses and is almost triple the safety wall the state built just prior to the Great Recession of 2007-09.

Despite that, an analysis by Lamont’s budget office last November showed surpluses would vanish, the reserve would be gone, and the General Fund would be 3% in debt within two years of a severe recession.

A more moderate downturn could just empty the rainy day fund by 2029.

Is a class-based tax war in CT’s future?

But either scenario likely eliminates the prospect of paying for new tax cuts out of surplus.

Connecticut Voices has urged lawmakers for years to raise taxes on the wealthy to preserve services and finance tax cuts for low- and middle-income households. This enables relief without destabilizing the state budget.

Connecticut For All, a progressive coalition of more than 60 faith, labor and other civic organizations, also supports this option.

“Connecticut families need relief, and our state can provide it by asking the richest among us to contribute their portion,” said Constanza Segovia, co-director of the coalition.

Others tax-relief advocates are still developing a position.

The United Way of Connecticut hasn’t proposed raising top income tax rates to finance a child tax credit but also has not ruled it out.

The Connecticut Project is “actively considering our position” on whether a wealth-related tax hike should be used to pay for new tax breaks for renters, said communications director Meghan Holden.

But she also noted the advocacy group is closely studying a recent poll it commissioned from the Survey Lab at Wesleyan University.

It found 73% of voters back a tax credit for renters and 70% support a child-based income tax break. It also reported that 76% support “increasing taxes on millionaires and billionaires.”

“We’ll be basing our position on what working class people are telling us,” Holden said, adding her group would again advocate for a renters’ credit in the upcoming General Assembly session.

Any tax redistribution plan next year will face opposition from the governor.

Lamont and Republican gubernatorial contender Ryan Fazio, both from the affluent Fairfield County suburb of Greenwich, share the conviction that taxing the rich would spark an exodus of wealthy households from Connecticut.

“Gov. Lamont is committed to more taxpayers, not more taxes,” has become a mantra for the administration in recent years.

“There’s a reason you see economic growth from people moving to states with low income taxes,” Fazio said.

House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, says legislators have other options to finance relief besides taxing high-earners.

The state could redirect hundreds of millions of dollars annually, he said, by scaling back generous raises for state employees, canceling Medicaid benefits for undocumented residents and cutting budgeted funds reserved for hundreds of positions often left vacant by state agencies and departments.

“The welfare state that’s been created is unsustainable,” he said.

But Rep. Maria Horn, a Salisbury Democrat and co-chairwoman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, said her party wants to deliver more relief, preserve key services and maintain healthy-but-possibly-smaller budget surpluses.

That doesn’t mean Connecticut has to raise taxes on some to finance relief for others next year, she said. But it also means that option can’t be quickly dismissed as it was when the state was awash in billions of dollars in federal pandemic grants.

Neighboring Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New York and New Jersey have met their obligations by boosting state income tax rates on top earners in recent years.

Meanwhile, Connecticut’s own tax fairness studies have shown the combined state and municipal tax systems have disproportionately burdened the poor and middle class.

The lowest earning 10% of Connecticut workers effectively lost 40% of their income to state and municipal tax burdens in 2022, according to the most recent study, done in late 2025 by the Department of Revenue Services. The middle three deciles lost 16% to 20%, and the highest-earning decile lost just 10.6%.

“I think it’s time for us to take a hard look at the context in which we live,” Horn said, adding there’s “a deep sense of unfairness” among the middle-class voters she’s spoken with this fall.

Note: The Connecticut Project is a funder of The Connecticut Mirror. 

Keith M. Phaneuf is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2026 @ CT Mirror (ctmirror.org).

The candidates also disagreed over President Donald J. Trump, who is seen by many politicians as the most polarizing figure in American politics.

Fazio said that he has “already been on the record for years” in disagreeing with Trump’s policies, including on “tariffs, deficit spending, and the war.”

But Lamont and Democrats say that Fazio has been relatively silent on numerous issues as Trump has generated headlines on a daily basis for years.

CT governor candidates’ claims: What’s true, and what’s misleading

In one of his more animated moments of the 60-minute debate, Lamont turned to Fazio, and said, “He never stands up to Donald Trump. I don’t know what happened to the Republicans in this state. The old Republicans — the Bush Republicans — would stand up and would be outraged. They would be outraged by this war. They’d be outraged by deficit spending. They’d be outraged by the fact that you’re pulling the plug on Revolution Wind after you’re approved it three times.”

Lamont was referring to the wind power project off the shores of Connecticut and Rhode Island that generates electricity from the spinning of huge turbines in the deep waters offshore.

Concerning his record, Fazio said, “Gov. Lamont called me bipartisan and objected to others calling me extreme before this general election campaign started. I’m an independently minded leader. I’ll bring people together in this state. That’s my record. That’s who I am.”

Both candidates and their surrogates immediately declared victory after the debate, which was held at the Mohegan Sun casino and broadcast live on WTNH, Channel 8.

Electric rates

Showing the importance and urgency of the issue, electricity was the first topic of the debate. The candidates have clashed on the issue as consumers complained about the high costs.

But Lamont says the consumers are actually paying less this year than last year due to the complicated nuances of the controversial public benefits charges. Those charges go up and down as part of long-term contracts that the state has with the Millstone nuclear power station in Waterford and the Seabrook plant in New Hampshire. The charges have been sharply reduced since May and many residents have been seeing a credit on their monthly bills as the public benefits charges have been temporarily eliminated. The reason is related to the price of natural gas that fluctuates, leading to high charges on bills, like in the past, or credits that are expected to last for a one-year period until next May.

“Look, people are working harder and harder and having a tougher time getting by,” Lamont said Tuesday night. “We’ve come a long way. We’re the only state in the country that has been able to reduce electric prices from last year. … We need more new sources of generation. … We have to hold Eversource and UI accountable.”

In the short term, Lamont said that the “public benefits charge” has effectively been eliminated and has been shown in credits on electric bills.

Gov. Lamont, Sen. Fazio clash in first CT gubernatorial debate over taxes, electricity

Electricity has been Fazio’s signature issue in the campaign, and he is recognized as one of the legislature’s leading authorities on the issue as the ranking senator on the energy and technology committee. In both television commercials and in campaign mailers sent to homes across the state, Fazio has criticized Lamont repeatedly for months on electricity.

Fazio rejected Lamont’s synopsis at the debate, saying, “Every single person, every single day, says, ‘My electric bills are too damn high in this state.’ ”

In a related issue on affordability, Fazio said Lamont has raised taxes by more than $3 billion over eight years, averaging $400 million per year. That includes a one percentage point surcharge on catering and prepared meals like rotisserie chickens that are sold at supermarkets.

Lamont responded that he has more control over the state income tax, which has been lowered during his tenure with the largest cut since it was enacted in 1991.

Affordable housing

The two candidates have clashed on the issue of high housing costs and local zoning authority with Lamont signing an affordable housing bill after vetoing an earlier version. Fazio voted against both bills.

“This is another opportunity for real reform and positive change,” Fazio told the crowd at the Mohegan Sun casino and a television audience. “We need to reduce the cost of building. … There should be reforms to workforce housing.”

Referring to the bill that he finally signed in a compromise, Lamont said that he favored turning “an old parking lot or an old mill” into affordable housing that could be built “as of right” at sites that might have been rejected in the past by local planning and zoning commissions.

Home heating oil

With the winter coming soon, Lamont said he dipped into a $500 million emergency relief fund to provide money for home heating oil costs.

“The war in Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, is driving up prices,” Lamont said. “If we have to do more, we will do more. People aren’t going to go cold this winter.”

In contrast to Lamont, Fazio favors an immediate “gas tax holiday” of 25 cents per gallon, which would be paid with surplus money in the state’s Special Transportation Fund, which had faced financial problems in the past that have been resolved for the moment.

“Listen, things change in our economy,” Fazio said. “What we need is leadership at the state Capitol.”

Data centers

Both candidates have raised concerns about data centers that have made the headlines across the country recently because they are known for needing huge amounts of electricity and water.

In one of Fazio’s most prominent TV ads, he says, “You pay taxes, but data centers don’t, thanks to Ned Lamont. It sounds crazy, but it’s true. Lamont waived all property and sales taxes for data centers. He cut their taxes, but raised yours, making families pay higher electric bills, higher sales taxes, higher property taxes, while data centers pay less. It’s just wrong. I’m Ryan Fazio. As governor, I’ll end Lamont’s handouts for data centers and cut your taxes by $2,500 per year.”

The commercial, however, never mentions that only one company — insurance giant CIGNA — has received a sales tax exemption from the state Department of Economic and Community Development under the bipartisan law that was signed by Lamont in 2021. CIGNA already had a data center in Windsor, and the company decided to renovate and upgrade it. After discussions, the town of Windsor did not reduce the local property taxes. The sales tax exemption was an estimated $17 million, while the overall renovation cost an estimated $386 million.

“We have not allowed any of those big, AI, energy-sucking data centers here,” Lamont said. “Some of our local companies want to upgrade their IT. That’s different. … But no to big AI data centers.”

Fazio said, “Gov. Lamont still supports his special tax exemption for data centers. … The people watching don’t get a special exemption from paying their sales tax.”

Highway tolls

Concerning a recent report that favored the installation of highway tolls, both candidates said no. They were asked if they would trade the toll money in order to eliminate the state’s unpopular property tax on cars, which generates about $1 billion annually for cities and towns.

“I do not support new taxes on Connecticut residents. I’ll make that promise — no new taxes for the middle class in Connecticut,” Fazio said.

Referring to the defeat of his plan for tolls in 2019, Lamont said, “We’re not going to do that.”

Education

Regarding public education, Connecticut has a sprawling system with 165 different school districts, while Maryland has 24 county-based school districts, officials said. The candidates were asked if money could be saved by consolidating back-office functions and other efficiencies.

“I do not believe in forced regionalization,” Fazio said. “I think that’s wrong. I believe in local control.”

Lamont said, “Ignore it when they say they opposed forced regionalization. … Your point is well taken. We do everything 169 times in this state. … I am putting building inspectors and town planners in the regional COG offices — just for really back-office services. Every mayor wants to keep his independence.”

Fazio said the schools in the state have not flourished during the Lamont years, adding, “The achievement gap has widened to become one of the largest in the country.”

“First of all, stop knocking our schools,” Lamont countered. “We don’t stand in the way of charter schools.”

Fazio objected, saying, “I’m the only candidate on the stage who is a product of Connecticut’s public schools.”

“When I do free breakfast — something that Ryan didn’t support — we pay for that,” Lamont said.

Debates

While Fazio wanted at least six debates, Lamont told The Courant that he thought that two was sufficient because that was the same number as in his 2022 race against Republican Bob Stefanowski of Madison.

The debates, Fazio said, were too late in the campaign because they took place after early voting started on Oct. 19. As of Monday, more than 270,000 people had already voted, including more than 230,000 early votes at town halls and public libraries. More than 38,000 absentee ballots had already been returned to the towns. State officials stressed that the unofficial totals will increase as the towns report on different schedules.

Tuesday night’s debate was co-sponsored by WTNH, Channel 8, and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. The debate was moderated by chief political anchor Dennis House and anchor Kathryn Hauser, while CCM’s executive director, Joe DeLong, also asked questions on the panel.

Polls

The candidates have jousted about the polls that have showed various margins. The latest Quinnipiac University poll showed Lamont ahead by 20 points, which was higher than an earlier Q poll that showed Lamont by 17 percentage points and another survey by Sacred Heart University that placed Lamont ahead by 14 points. A separate poll by Morning Consult rated Lamont as the ninth most popular governor in the country.

“Look, I’m not a big polling guy, but I think the Quinnipiac poll is pretty close,” Lamont said of the 17-point advantage.

Even after those polls were released, Fazio still insists that the race is tight.

While some voters still do not know much about Fazio, Lamont has sky-high name recognition after five statewide campaigns that include his U.S. Senate campaign in 2006 and races for governor in 2010, 2018, 2022, and 2026. Lamont spent more than $60 million of his own money in his previous races, and he has turned down public financing in his gubernatorial runs. He spent $25.7 million in his re-election race in 2022 and is currently spending millions more this year as Fazio has qualified for $18 million in public funds that has allowed him to wage a widespread campaign of multiple television commercials.

She would often complain about finding him alone for hours and needing to be changed or that he wore the same outfit for four days. She would bathe him daily because she said staff were not overseeing the care. His clothes were often missing, she said, and she bought him an Italian Roku which later went missing.

Her father developed numerous E. coli and urinary tract infections, she said.

Cavallo said she would hear nursing staff tell residents to shut up in the facility.

Cavallo, a former alderwoman in Waterbury, chokes up when she shares her father’s experiences at the nursing homes before he died in April at the age of 93.

CT ranks 33rd in US for nursing home staffing levels. State lawmaker calls it ‘shameful.’

“It’s a lack of accountability and care,” Cavallo said. “There’s a lot of neglect. There’s a lot of retaliation. It’s almost if you have concerns you go to upper management. They just try to sweep it under the carpet and it keeps happening over and over again.”

She later met four women who had similar experiences of loved ones in nursing homes. The women united, forming the group Light Over Darkness, calling for more accountability, increased staffing, pay, and more training for certified nursing assistants than their required 100 hours.

Listening to the women’s stories, State Senate Republican leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield and Rep. Bill Buckbee, a New Milford Republican, said they are working on legislation in the next session to holistically address shortfalls in the nursing home system.

Increasing staffing, oversight and training at nursing homes are all components of planned legislation, Harding said.

“It’s a multi-pronged approach because it’s not just one issue that we are seeing in nursing homes and unfortunately what we are hearing from families is that the standard of care and the level of care that many of these patients are receiving in some of these nursing homes is tragic,” Harding said.

Harding said he heard complaints from families about residents at some nursing homes who are not fed properly, cleaned or attended to for hours. Sanitary issues are also an issue, he said, with some families reporting that rooms are improperly cleaned.

“I think in some cases we’ve seen individuals get very sick or even unfortunately lose their lives based upon some of this neglect,” he said.

Buckbee said he has also heard from families, particularly with concerns about certified nursing assistants coming in late and often on their phones.

“They are on their cellphones while they are walking in to talk to (residents) and not even giving them that humanitarian treatment to have a conversation and to say hello,” he said. “It’s not a one-off story, where you can say, ‘Hey this is the one person. This is the problem.’ It is an overall issue that needs to be addressed to the entire process. It’s not something that we can sit by and hope that it gets better.”

Buckbee also shared how the nursing home picture is not always bleak, describing how his father received “tremendous care” in a nursing home in the state.

Nurse, CNA arrested in death of 93-year-old found in the snow at CT nursing home

“And so we need to find that disconnect from people that you build that connection with and the people who are not getting the job done properly to the point of someone’s hygiene is at risk,” he said.

35 immediate jeopardy findings

Over the past year, there were 35 immediate jeopardy findings in Connecticut nursing homes, according to the Nursing Home Financial Advisory Committee meeting. That is an increase of 10 over the previous year, according to data from the meeting.

An immediate jeopardy designation “represents a situation in which noncompliance .. has placed the health and safety of recipients in its care at risk for serious injury, serious harm, serious impairment or death,” according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services.

During the second quarter of this year there were 14 immediate jeopardy findings, representing a spike, but in the third quarter the numbers dropped back down to eight.

The families’ complaints follow several incidents at nursing homes in the state.

Connecticut’s Long Term Care Ombudsman Mairead Painter, Sen. Saud Anwar, and Aging Committee co-chair Rep. Jane Garibay, recently called attention to alleged resident safety issues at an East Windsor nursing home, including an anonymous complaint sent to Painter’s office that contained images of a resident with an alleged maggot-infested wound.

The owner of Fresh River Healthcare, who has consistently disputed the allegations, said in a statement that the state’s Department of Public Health concluded its investigation of the facility with “no findings of noncompliance.” But DPH said that the investigation is not complete.

And in July, two employees were arrested in connection with the death of Margaret Healey, a 93-year-old resident at Bickford Health Care Center in Windsor Locks, who was outside for more than three hours on Feb. 8 before staff found her unresponsive in the snow, Windsor Locks police said.

Bickford, which later closed, received an overall one-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, records show, which is based on a nursing home’s “performance” in health inspections, staffing and quality measures.

The facility had 24 health citations over the last three years compared to the national average of 9.6, according to CMS, records show.

Painter said there were staffing shortages at both facilities. She said the number of complaints in nursing homes increased from 1,545 in 2009 to 4,413 in 2024.

Staffing is one of the biggest issues, Painter said.

“When there are challenges in buildings and we see care either decline or an increase in issues, we can tie that staffing,” she said. “The needs of the individuals in the nursing homes are greater than they historically have been.”

Connecticut is ranked in the bottom third of the nation for nursing home staffing levels, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data compiled by the Long Term Care Community Coalition. The national average is 3 hours and 45 minutes of direct care per resident per day.

Connecticut’s average is 3 hours and 40 minutes of direct care per resident per day, according to data.

Advocates at the nonprofit Long Term Care Coalition say the national average for nursing home staffing levels is “terrible and insufficient,” and that Connecticut finds itself 36th in the nation in nursing home staffing levels because as a wealthy state, similar to New York and New Jersey, it is more attractive to for-profit operators.

‘Shame on us all. Is this how we send them back to God?’

Laura Quigley, who founded Light Over Darkness, said she was so disturbed about issues in nursing homes that she needed to take action.

“These patients, the sickest of the sick, we wanted to advocate for them because of what families have been through,” she said.

The name of the group correlates with God, Quigley said, referring to the light over darkness.

Quigley said that while legislation is still in development, when it is finalized she intends to name it ‘Shame on us all. Is this how we send them back to God?’

Catherine McCarthy, another member of the group, said that her mother’s experience in the nursing home also troubled her.

She said she recalled buying her mother a new sweater and then the next day it disappeared. Staff at the nursing home told her it happened all the time, she said.

“They don’t care,” she said. “It’s a lack of empathy and it’s shameful.”

One woman, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the nursing home, claimed her mother ended up contracting sepsis and nearly died because staff neglected to oversee her needs.

Garibay said residents in nursing homes are afraid to speak up.

“And they are afraid they will have no place to live if they speak up,” she said. “We have to hold owners and administrators accountable for what happens in their nursing homes.”

Concerns about private equity

Questions also surround the ownership of nursing homes in the state.

The Courant obtained a list of the nursing homes in the state that shows most of the state’s 233 nursing homes are owned by corporations or limited liability companies. The list shows only 30 are owned by nonprofits.

With studies showing a higher mortality rate in nursing homes owned by private equity firms, Connecticut lawmakers are calling for more transparency and accountability from private equity firms investing in nursing homes in the state. They said they are hopeful that new legislation requiring private equity firms that own nursing homes to provide the state with thorough financial details will aid in those efforts.

In Connecticut, private equity ownership has brought concerns about firms stripping equity and cutting costs to the detriment of the company and its customers.

The Government Accountability Office has reported that “private equity firms have drawn attention in recent years by buying nursing homes, changing their operations to increase profit and selling them for more money.”

Comptroller Sean Scanlon recently held a roundtable discussion with leaders and organizations about the effects of private equity in the state.

Scanlon said many at the roundtable said the current situation results from government underinvesting in public services.

“What sort of is happening here is that private equity is seeing a vacuum and they’re entering that vacuum,” he told the Courant. “But the difference is they’re entering that vacuum with one goal in mind and that goal is to make money. And a lot of things that we rely on in our lives, whether they be hospitals or schools or nursing homes, our focus for those things shouldn’t be about making money.”

Matt Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities and Connecticut Center for Assisted Living, said during the roundtable that about 45% of nursing homes in the state have changed ownership in the last five years.

“We don’t know enough about what this ownership structure is,” he said at the roundtable. “Not every ownership structure is of the type that I think is of concern.”

Scanlon said Barrett’s statistics were staggering.

“So all of that is not private equity but a good portion of it is,” he said. “Most people don’t realize a nursing home doesn’t change their name. But if they change ownership you start to see differences. You start to see the costs go up.”

Scanlon said government is the largest payer of care at nursing homes.

“And that’s something I think we need to pay close attention to: Are we using taxpayer dollars to subsidize bad actors that are just trying to make a quick buck?”

Barrett said in an interview with the Courant that he did not believe the change of ownership has negatively impacted care in nursing homes.

“I think the evidence today is that it’s brought stability to the sector,” he said. “But these are organizations that are new to Connecticut over the last several years versus organizations that may have been operating in Connecticut for 30 or 40 years. I don’t think there’s any conclusion that those organizations are found to be delivering poor quality care or found to be financially unstable. Probably the opposite is true, but that is one of the things the legislation is going to look at.”

They disagreed on solutions to difficult problems as Lamont, a two-term Democrat, is seeking his third term against the 36-year-old Greenwich resident who has served for five years in the state Senate.

In his closing statement, Fazio said that Lamont was serving in politics when he was born in 1990. Now 72, Lamont served on the Greenwich board of selectmen in the 1980s and lost in a three-way state Senate race in 1990 for the seat that Fazio won 31 years later.

“He’s had his chance,” Fazio said. “He’s been in politics for decades.”

But Lamont returned to his theme of listing his accomplishments as governor while candidates make promises that they cannot keep.

“Ryan, we have done the biggest income tax cut,” Lamont said. “Talk is cheap.”

At times, Lamont was on the defensive as Fazio continued delivering criticisms. But Lamont countered that the state has made progress when he was asked if his third term would be different from his first eight years.

“Only one guy has cut the income tax,” Lamont said, referring to himself. “Connecticut is one of the very few states that reduced electric rates.”

After Lamont painted a positive picture of progress, Fazio countered that Lamont “is living in an entirely different state” than the average, working-class Connecticut resident.

“He promised to hold the line on taxes,” Fazio said, adding that he calculated the combined overall tax increase under Lamont over 8 years as $3 billion. “As governor, I’ll cut your taxes by thousands of dollars.”

Less than 15 minutes after the televised debate ended, Lamont sent an email to his supporters that he said was being sent “on my ride home” from the debate studio in Rocky Hill.

“During the debate, we covered my plan to roll out universal Pre-K and lower your electric bills,” Lamont said. “I called out Donald Trump’s disastrous efforts to raise your healthcare premiums, and ICE’s attempt to deport our friends and neighbors. A good debate requires honesty – so I talked frankly about my opponent’s record. I pressed him about why he was part of an extreme minority who opposed many commonsense bills, like AI guardrails and social media protections for kids. I made sure voters knew that he stood in the way when we shielded Connecticut residents from Trump’s healthcare premium spikes.”

Just before the debate started, Fazio sent out his own message.

“For most of this campaign, Lamont has found that hiding from his record is the best thing for his campaign,” Fazio said. “Tonight, that ends.”

Electric rates

Fazio’s signature issue in the campaign has been the high cost of electricity, and he is recognized as one of the legislature’s leading authorities on the issue as the ranking senator on the energy and technology committee.

In a two-sided campaign mailer that arrived in homes this week with a black-and-white picture of Lamont looking glum, Fazio criticized Lamont again on electricity.

“We can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results,” Fazio said during the debate. “Gov. Lamont gave Eversource a sweetheart deal in 2024” as the company sold its water utility, the Aquarion Water Company, for $2.4 billion to a newly formed, not-for-profit organization.

Lamont pushed back, saying that recent electric rate cuts means that Connecticut no longer has the third highest electricity charges in the country and is not even the highest in New England. While rates can fluctuate with decisions by utility regulators, an independent agency in the U.S. Department of Energy said that Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire all had higher average electric rates for residential customers in July than Connecticut.

“We are holding Eversource accountable,” Lamont said during the televised debate on WFSB, Channel 3.

“I think the viewers out there will be very surprised that Governor Lamont is holding Eversource accountable,” Fazio responded.

“There’s no truth to this at all,” Lamont said. “We gave Eversource five different decisions under [former utility regulation chairwoman] Marissa Gillett, and they sued us five different times.”

Scandals

When asked about scandals and corruption during his eight years in office, Lamont said he has made sure that high-profile state employees were moved out of positions of power.

“We hold people accountable,” Lamont said. “I have zero tolerance for any malfeasance out there.”

Fazio criticized Lamont over the case of Terrence Cheng, the much-criticized former chancellor of the public higher education system who is paid more than $440,000 per year. He has been blasted by Republicans since it was revealed that he and other educators had spent excessively on taxpayer-funded purchasing cards for expensive meals, dry cleaning, alcohol, room service, car washes, and limousine rides, despite having access to a state vehicle. While Cheng charged 56 meals that exceeded the state’s $50-per-person limit, the chancellor retains discretion to go beyond the limit.

“Gov. Lamont called it small ball. Why would you call it small ball?” Fazio asked as he turned to Lamont. “Terrence Cheng was given a no-show job for the following two years. … That happened on Gov. Lamont’s watch. The buck stops somewhere.”

Fazio then mentioned Kosta Diamantis, the former deputy state budget director and former Democratic state legislator who fled to Greece without being detected by the FBI after being convicted of 21 felony counts in a high-profile bribery and extortion scandal.

“Kosta Diamantis – I didn’t hire him, but I fired him,” Lamont said.

Trump’s foreign policy

Lamont’s campaign has criticized Fazio for supporting Republican President Donald J. Trump on some issues and remaining silent on others.

In a frequently-shown television commercial, Fazio is seen answering host Dennis House when asked to assess Trump’s performance.

“I think he’s doing a good job,” Fazio answers in a message that is repeated four times during the 30-second commercial.

During the debate, Fazio said, “I oppose the war in Iran. I’ve said it repeatedly. … The issue here is this election is about Connecticut.”

Fazio pivoted and asked Lamont why he does not support a rollback of gasoline and diesel taxes due to the recent sky-high prices at the pump.

“It would leave a hole in the budget,” Lamont responded. “By the way, you can’t mumble when it comes to Donald Trump.”

Trump’s war has raised gasoline prices by $1.75 per gallon, and Fazio’s idea to cut the tax by 25 cents would not make a huge difference, Lamont said. But Fazio continued that the gasoline tax could be cut by 25 cents per gallon by eliminating the state tax that Lamont supported four years ago.

“Politicians have to look beyond the next election,” Lamont said. “You want a cut in the gas tax? Tell me how we’re going to pay for it.”

Agreement on parks

In a rare area of brief agreement, both Fazio and Lamont said they enjoy the state’s parks as hidden gems within Connecticut. Fazio has an affinity for Waveny Park in New Canaan because that is where he was engaged, while Lamont enjoys regular walks in Elizabeth Park near the governor’s residence in Hartford.

“I find it very good therapy and cheaper than a psychologist,” Lamont said.

Both candidates agreed that they would like to invite former President Abraham Lincoln if they had a chance to have dinner.

Affordability

Throughout the one-hour debate, the candidates sparred over the high cost of living.

“You don’t need a spreadsheet to know that Governor Lamont has raised taxes,” Fazio said, adding that he would cut taxes. “I’m not promising the moon and the stars.”

“It’s fantasyland,” Lamont countered. “You know what, the Republicans in the state Senate did not come up with a budget. … By the way, Ryan, there is no sales tax on food. Period.”

But Fazio noted that Lamont and the Democratic-controlled state legislature increased taxes in 2019 on prepared meals, such as rotisserie chickens that are sold at supermarkets.

“That’s food,” Fazio said.

“There’s no tax on groceries,” Lamont countered.

Debates

While Fazio wanted at least six debates, Lamont told The Courant that he thought that two was sufficient because that was the same number as in his 2022 race against Republican Bob Stefanowski of Madison. The second debate is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Oct. 27 from the Mohegan Sun casino that will be broadcast live on WTNH, Channel 8.

The debates, Fazio said, are too late in the campaign because they are taking place after early voting started on Oct. 19. As of Wednesday, more than 140,000 people had already voted, including nearly 113,000 casting early votes at town halls and nearly 28,000 through absentee ballots that had already been returned to the towns. State officials stressed that the unofficial totals would increase as the towns report on different schedules.

Lamont also noted there have been multiple forums, such as a CBIA event where the candidates appeared separately in front of a live audience at a Hartford hotel ballroom.

“This was one of the forums, so you get a chance to look at the two candidates, one after the other, and make your call,” Lamont said after the CBIA event.

Thursday night’s debate was held at the Channel 3 studios in Rocky Hill with WFSB anchor Erin Connolly serving as moderator with questions posed by CT Insider’s Dan Haar and WFSB chief political reporter Susan Raff.

Polls

The candidates have jousted about the polls that have showed various margins. The latest Quinnipiac University poll showed Lamont ahead by 20 points, which was higher than an earlier Q poll that showed Lamont by 17 percentage points and another survey by Sacred Heart University that placed Lamont ahead by 14 points. A separate poll by Morning Consult rated Lamont as the ninth most popular governor in the country.

“Look, I’m not a big polling guy, but I think the Quinnipiac poll is pretty close,” Lamont said of the 17-point advantage.

Even after those polls were released, Fazio still insisted that the race is tight.

“All of our internal polling — we’ve now polled several times … says it’s a single-digit race,” Fazio said when asked by The Courant.

While some voters still do not know much about Fazio, Lamont has sky-high name recognition after five statewide campaigns that include his U.S. Senate campaign in 2006 and races for governor in 2010, 2018, 2022, and 2026. Lamont spent more than $60 million of his own money in his previous races, and he has turned down public financing in his gubernatorial runs. He spent $25.7 million in his re-election race in 2022 and is currently spending millions more this year as Fazio has qualified for $18 million in public funds that has allowed him to wage a widespread campaign of multiple television commercials..