Wednesday, November 08, 2006

General Assembly: Dems Gain Supermajority

Democrats are claiming a supermajority in both houses of the General Assembly this morning, which has to be unwelcome news for newly elected Gov. Jodi Rell.

Among the Democratic pickups:

Senate

Steve Berry (D) appears to have defeated Sen. Thomas Herlihy (R)
Andrew Maynard (D) has defeated Lenny Winkler in the 18th Senate District (vacated by Cathy Cook)

House

Jason Bartlett (D) has won over Phil Gallagher (R), winning a district he lost two years ago
Beth Bye (D) has won the seat vacated by Robert Farr (R)
Kim Fawcett (D) has scored a surprising victory over Rep. Cathy Tymniak (R)
William Tong (D) has defeated Rep. Donald Sherer (R)

On the Republican side, Sam Caliguiri (R) defeated Dave Zoni (D) in a closely-watched battle for the seat vacated by newly minted U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy (D).

There were some other notable holds by Republicans in close races. Sen. John Kissel (R) defeated Bill Kiner (D) again. Dan Debicella (R) defeated Chris Jones (D), and Rep. Ruth Fahrbach narrowly defeated Derek Donnelly (D).

More unofficial General Assembly results here.

MikeCT has more over at MLN.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

No longer state reps:

Heagney, Sherer, Tymniak, Jack Stone
Lone Democrat to lose: Roger Michele

Anonymous said...

Governor Rell, whose political war cry was that she reformed TRANSPORTATION in the state must have had an easy ride to work this morning.

We Nutmeggers know the beauty and ease of driving in the state. Everything is so direct and navigable.

The clueless have won. The inmates are running the asylum. Such is CT. Connecticut has officially gone republican. Bravo!

CC said...

As I predicted. The Governor helps no one, wins by 25, and makes her office irrelevant by her failure to help advance the party. Nicely done.

Anonymous said...

Hey Mike, where it counts, the governor and one senator, are republicans in sheep's clothing!

Anonymous said...

Has anyone seen Derek Slap and his boogie board? Or have they not washed up on shore yet?

Looks like the DeStefano campaign never caught that wave of change Slap was talking about last week --and DeStefano got CRUSHED -- not by the 12 points the "internal" polls the JD campaign was touting, but by double that!

His political goose is cooked. Now he gets to crawl back to New Haven and try to get re-elected again, pay off a huge debt and lick his very, very deep wounds from this race.

DESTEFANOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!

Anonymous said...

Is it me, or did Farrell sound a lot like Al Gore with her "we have to wait until all the votes are counted" statement. Of course, Gore actually had reason to wait because the votes were not counted. Farrell has no such excuse. She has done herself a tremendous disservice by her failure to conceed. Shays won because he is an honorable man. Farrell lost, despite the fact that she is likeable, because she did nothing but try to tear a good man down. It failed. Nancy Johnson lost, because, in the end, people didn't like her anymore. There is a message here and I hope everyone wakes up and gets it!

Anonymous said...

Well, Stratford was a disaster for Democrats last night. Despite the wave of Democratic victories throughout the state, Republicans won in Stratford.

Debicella defeated Jones by a narrower margin than anyone expected-- but he carried every town in the district (including Stratford). I think Chris Jones finally started a campaign in the last few weeks, but it was too little, too late.

Dave Mooney also lost to incumbent John Harkins-- and this was the real tragedy of the evening. Because unlike Jones, Dave ran a superior campaign to his opponent. I don't want to say that Mooney lost because of Jones (becuase honestly, I think Mooney lost by more than Jones did)....but I will say it was an all-around embarassment for our local party on a night that should have been ours.

At least I can share in some statewide and national Democratic glow.

Anonymous said...

Tom Herlihy won..

Anonymous said...

anon (10:49),

Can you point to a result on Berry-Herlihy? (No final AP result yet)

Anonymous said...

Do i really need to? Herlihy won.. lets just say i know.

Anonymous said...

There not in the process of a recount because no recount has been set by the Secretary of the State. The Registars might be recanvassing the machine and AB totals. The plurality is more like 500.

Anonymous said...

Tom Herlihy won by 367 votes... check the Secretary of State's website... experience wins out.

Anonymous said...

Senator Tom Herlihy won by 367 votes according to the Secretary of State's webiste. Experience won out.

Anonymous said...

Chris Jones Campaign had only about 6 active campaign workers and was out spent 2 to 1 and not on TV or Radio. Lost by only 1,500 votes. Not bad at all. These Jones people are certainly amazing and know how to run a tough uphill battle.

Congrats to Debicella and hats off
to Jones for a spirited fight.

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable... Chris.. now you're patting yourself on the back because no one else is. You give yourself away all the time.

Anonymous said...

Do Stratford Dems have any rising stars
for the future or is it all over for them?

Anonymous said...

Our party is actually pretty strong on the local level-- we took the first Mayor of Stratford (Jim Miron) and he is in for a four-year term.

Our focus in the short-term will be winning back the Town Council from the Republicans in 2007. We have numerous good candidates for that, but like most local elections these will be won one-at-a-time.

As for 2008, my guess is that Debicella will face a challenger from Stratford and Dave Mooney will run again for something (maybe against Harkins, maybe against Debicella)....but who knows. Way too early to start speculating.

Anonymous said...

Debicella will hold his seat as long as he wants it. He is and will continue to be too formidable a politician.

Stratford Democrats need to review their
options if any.

Anonymous said...

I am surprised that anyone decided to call the Senate 8 race for Berry with 18 of 22 precints reporting when the last 4 just happen to be from Simsbury. As it turned out, Herlihy carried his hometown by 1300 votes which put him over the top.