Letters To The Editor
By Dave Mullane
All Opinion pieces and Letters to the Editor reflect ONLY the thoughts of the writer, and not those of the Stratford Crier or its Editorial Board.
This year’s special in the 21st district will be only the 3rd time in almost 60 years that the seat is wide open.
Stratford’s Doc Gunther was first elected to it in 1966, and his last election was in 2004. In that last hurrah for Doc the Democrats didn’t even put up a candidate they couldn’t beat him. It must not have been worth the time and resources. Sometimes you just can’t win. All Doc’s wins were without the assistance of CEP and on his last go around in 2004 he raised and spent $16K in his final race where he destroyed his opponent Bill McGuire of The Working Families Party (McGuire had a $0 campaign budget). The vote was 26,713 to 2,778.
In 2006 Doc retired the seat opened up and for the first time no candidate from Stratford was involved. CEP still wasn’t around but this time we had 2 guys from Shelton going at it. Republican Dan Debicella and Democrat Chris Jones.
Debicella raised and spent $233,000 while Democrat Jones raised and spent $86,000. This was a decent race Debicella won 16,476 to 15,099 for Jones. With that the seat stayed Republican but with a Shelton resident.
In 2008 CEP was in play and the field was level money wise and a Stratford Democrat returned to the field named Janice Andersen. This time incumbent Debicella won the race by a wider margin, but Andersen got the most votes for a Democrat in district in recent history. Debicella won with 24,925 to Andersen’s 21,334. This was a presidential election year and voter turnout is usually higher than Midterms.
In 2006 31,575 voters came out. 2008 saw 46,259 come out. Both candidates were evenly matched with $85,000 in CEP and Stratford’s own Dave Fuller was the treasurer on Andersen’s campaign.
In 2010 Debicella past on a third state senate term in favor of a try at the U.S. House of Representatives. This caused the 21st seat to open for just the 2nd time without an incumbent and the seat was going to return to a Stratford resident since Republican Kevin Kelly and Democrat Jim Miron were facing off with even CEP of over $85,000 each and Dave Fuller returned as treasurer this time for Miron.
Kelly destroyed Miron 22,455 to 10,864. The seat has been Kelly’s ever since, and he’s scored a lot of CEP cash out it even when it seemed ridiculous to do so like in 2014 & 2016 or unopposed in 2020. CEP has made races more expensive when they don’t need to be.
Democrats gave the seat 2 real attempts in the low turnout years of 2018 (Monica Brill) and 2022 (Chris Green). Everyone had CEP and Dems did beat Kelly in their hometown of Stratford, but they never got more votes than Democrat Andersen did in 2008.
Green got 17,345 votes in 2022; Brill got 18,805 votes in 2018. In the 2 times Prez Palmer was in the race he got 10,384 votes on a budget of $250 in 2014 and in 2016 he got 16,561 on a budget of $1,200. Kelly had over $200,000 for the 2 races thanks to CEP against a guy with less than $1,500.
This special election is the 3rd time the seat has been open and now it’s between Shelton Republican Perillo and Stratford Democrat Anthony Afriyie. Can the Dems flip the seat and keep a Stratford resident there or does the GOP maintain control with a Shelton resident in the seat. The answer is just 5 weeks away.
Right now, these 2 candidates are beating the bushes to raise the $13,000 necessary to get the $93,000 CEP grants. It will be interesting to see who donates and how the money gets spent in such a short window of time. Between CEP and the cost of early voting days and election day it will be hundreds of thousands of dollars and if Perillo wins the same process will start again for his seat in the 113th maybe Jim Feehan will run for the spot.
Hopefully these 2 can meet face to face in community forums in Stratford, Shelton, Seymour, and Monroe. Mailers, lawn signs and internet ads don’t really a good picture and I doubt there will be much door-to-door interaction this time of year. This election being held in February could create the best chance in generations for a Democrat win or it could just stay in GOP hands like it has for generations.
My research did should that CEP makes elections more expensive and whoever gets the most votes wins.😉
