In swing districts, CT House members must outperform top of tickets

The last two presidential cycles have been challenging for down-ballot Democrats in Torrington, a Litchfield County city of 35,500 where Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden lost handily to Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020, respectively.

To win reelection with 51% of the vote in each of those years, Rep. Michelle Cook, a moderate Democrat elected in 2008, had to outperform Clinton by 14 percentage points and Biden by 8. In 2022, a non-presidential year, Cook was unopposed.

On the other side of the state is a Republican with a similar challenge: Rep. Kathleen McCarty of Waterford won with 51% of the vote in each of her two last elections. Biden won her hometown, the biggest part of her district, by 15 points.

Cook and McCarty are on a relatively short list of vulnerable House incumbents in swing districts, places where the margins of victory are small —and winning reelection likely will require doing better than the top of their tickets.




https://ctmirror.org/2024/10/17/ct-house-election-swing-districts/