WASHINGTON (AP) — Connecticut Republicans will choose nominees in the state’s primary on Tuesday to take on two longtime Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Jim Himes.
The leading GOP candidates for each seat won the party’s support at the state and county conventions, but the margin was not large enough to definitively secure the nominations.
In the U.S. Senate primary, Gerry Smith and Matt Corey are vying for the Republican nomination. Smith is the first selectman for the city of Beacon Falls and is also an insurance agent and a former small business owner. Corey is a bar owner and Navy veteran. He was the Republican nominee against Murphy in 2018 and also challenged Democratic U.S. Rep. John Larson in the 1st Congressional District in 2012, 2014 and 2016. In 2020, he was the Republican nominee for a seat in the state Senate. Smith received a majority of the delegate votes at the state convention in May, but Corey cleared the 15% vote threshold needed to force a primary. Democrats unanimously nominated Murphy at their state convention, eliminating the need for a primary.
In the 4th Congressional District, Republicans Bob MacGuffie and Michael Goldstein are both hoping to defeat eight-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Himes. MacGuffie, a former insurance executive and Tea Party activist from Barack Obama’s presidency, narrowly won the party’s endorsement at the district convention in May against Goldstein, a lawyer and physician who unsuccessfully sought the nomination for the 4th District in 2020 and 2022.
Neither seat is a top target for national Republicans hoping to win control of the Senate or retain control of the House in November. Murphy won re-election in 2018 with 60% of the vote, while President Joe Biden won the state in 2020 with 59%. Himes took 59% of the vote in his 2022 re-election bid, while district voters favored Biden over Republican Donald Trump by a nearly two-to-one margin in 2020.
Connecticut voters will also decide a handful of state legislative races. Democrats have contested primaries in four state Senate districts and 11 state House districts, while Republicans are running in one district in each chamber. All state legislative seats are up for election in 2024, though most do not hold primaries.
Connecticut’s elections are held at the municipal level, rather than the county level. All 169 cities will hold Republican primaries in the contested U.S. Senate race. With Murphy already re-nominated for his statewide seat, much of the state will not hold Democratic primaries.
Here’s what to expect on Tuesday:
Primary day
Connecticut’s primary election is Tuesday. Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.
What’s on the ballot?
The Associated Press news agency will announce the voting results and declare the winners of the contested primaries for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, state Senate and state House of Representatives.
Who can vote?
Only voters registered with a political party may participate in that party’s primary. Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may not participate in either primary.
Decision notes
The largest cities in Connecticut are Bridgeport, Stamford, New Haven, Hartford, and Waterbury, each with over 100,000 residents. Bridgeport and Stamford are located in the 4th congressional district in southwestern Connecticut.
Corey and Goldstein’s previous campaigns offer some points of comparison for Tuesday’s contests. In the 2018 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, Corey won the nomination with 77% of the vote, carrying all 169 cities along the way. He had margins of 50 points or more in 137 of the state’s 169 cities. In Goldstein’s previous run in the 4th District in 2022, he lost the district-wide vote with 40% of the vote, winning only Easton, Greenwich and Oxford by narrow margins and losing the district’s other 14 cities, notably Bridgeport and Stamford.
The AP does not make predictions and will only declare a winner if it has been determined that there is no scenario in which the trailing candidates can close the gap. If no race has been declared, the AP will continue to report on all newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make it clear that no winner has yet been declared and explain why.
Recounts in Connecticut are automatic if the vote margin is less than 0.5% of the total votes cast, but not more than 2,000 votes. Recounts are also automatic in races where the margin is less than 20 votes. The AP can declare a winner in a race eligible for a recount if it can determine that the margin is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
What is the turnout and how early is voting allowed?
As of October 2023, there were nearly 2.5 million registered voters in Connecticut. Of those, 36% were Democrats, 20% Republicans, and 42% independent or unaffiliated.
In the 2022 midterms, turnout was 4% of registered voters in the Republican primary. There was no statewide Democratic contest in that election. Turnout in the 2018 Democratic primary was about 9% of registered voters.
In 2023, Connecticut passed an early voting law that was first implemented in the April presidential primaries. In those contests, 26% of Democratic primary voters and 17% of Republican primary voters cast ballots before Election Day. By comparison, about 5% of Republican primary voters in the 2022 midterms and 6% of Democratic primary voters in 2018 cast ballots before Election Day.
As of Wednesday, more than 6,100 votes had already been cast ahead of the primaries, about 54% in the Democratic primary and about 46% in the Republican primary.
How long does it usually take to count the votes?
In the 2022 midterm primaries, AP first reported results at 8:08 p.m. ET, or eight minutes after the polls closed. The election night count ended at 12:52 a.m. ET with more than 99% of the total votes counted.
Are we there yet?
As of Tuesday, there are 84 days left until the November general election.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
