Republicans look to defeat Blumenthal but first they have to get through the primary

Connecticut Republicans say they have their best chance in years at defeating U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal in a crucial election cycle this fall, but they must first get past a potentially contentious primary that could slow down those efforts.

Republicans believe they have the wind at their backs with President Joe Biden’s sluggish poll ratings for the mid-term elections in which the party out of the White House traditionally makes solid gains.

But Connecticut Democrats are expecting three Republican candidates to verbally beat each other up in the coming months - draining time, energy, and money that could leave Republicans depleted after the Aug. 9 primary.

Among the candidates, frontrunner Themis Klarides of Madison has been tagged by some Republicans as too liberal for being in favor of abortion rights, gun control, and gay marriage.

Greenwich fundraiser Leora R. Levy and Fairfield immigration attorney Peter Lumaj are already battling each other over who is more conservative. Klarides won 59% of the party convention delegates recently, while Levy and Lumaj split the conservative vote with about 20% each.

Republicans are trying to learn a lesson from the past three party primaries for governor when the candidates spent huge amounts of money blasting each other. They were then forced to start over from scratch in mid-August with small bank accounts and eventually lost the general election twice to Democrat Dannel P. Malloy and once to Ned Lamont.

But state Republican chairman Ben Proto says he has been reminding the Senate candidates to focus their fire on Blumenthal, rather than clashing with each other.

Money and factions

“This forthcoming primary is fascinating because it will tell us which faction of the Republican Party in Connecticut is largely in control — and if it’s the Trump faction, then we know this party is moving more to the right,’' said Gary Rose, a longtime political science professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. “Or is it still a moderately conservative party? You really have very distinct ideological candidates, particularly between Klarides, Levy, and Lumaj on the far-right.’'

Rose notes that the candidates cannot lose their focus on the ultimate goal of winning in November. He describes Blumenthal as “the presumptive favorite’' with more than $8 million in campaign cash on hand and a long history of winning statewide elections for more than 30 years. He leads Klarides by 10 percentage points in the latest News 8/The Hill/Emerson College poll, while also leading Levy and Lumaj by 16 points each.

“You’ve got Ben Proto in the middle, trying to hold the [Republican] party together for the general election‚’’ Rose said. “He seems to be really walking a tightrope, quite frankly, with these two factions emerging against one another. As a state chair, he has to remain neutral. I think he’s facing a challenge more direct than some previous Republican chairs have had to face because this is becoming, to me, more stark — the factional dispute.’'

Proto responded that he is not concerned that the winning candidate in August will end up with little money for a cash-poor battle against the well-funded Blumenthal.

Instead, he says that national Republicans and Super PACs who oppose Blumenthal will be more than willing to contribute as word spreads that a candidate is within 10 points of a nationally known Democratic senator.

“If the Senate Republicans and the Republican organizations across the country think they can pick up a U.S. Senate seat in New England, they’re going to come in very strong on it,’' said Proto, adding that he has no control over Super PACs. “I think Mitch McConnell and [GOP Senate campaign chairman] Rick Scott already know about Connecticut, and they’re very interested in this race. ... If they see Blumenthal is in trouble, they’re going to come into the state and play.’'

Former state Democratic chairman John F. Droney, Jr. said that no one in the state Republican Party has enough power or stature to pull the party together and avoid a primary.

“If they did, they’d have a better chance of winning an election,’' Droney said in an interview. “Everybody’s got an opinion. They don’t seem to support one another on ideological grounds. They argue about who is the most conservative. It’s a self-destructive group.’'

Money will be a key factor, he said, but not the only factor for Klarides.

“She’ll have enough money to run a credible election,’' Droney said. “As we know from past Senate races, you could spend $50 million and still not overwhelm the Democratic candidate who’s got some gravitas like Blumenthal does. That’s already been tried. If Mrs. Wrestling couldn’t do it with $50 million, she’s not going to be able to do it.’'

Rose, the political science professor, said that other money sources — beyond what the candidates raise in Connecticut — will be a crucial factor in the general election battle.

“For whomever wins this three-way contest, I do think that outside money could come to their rescue,’’ Rose said in an interview. “The SuperPACs will go to work, and that will alleviate some of that stress. That’s for sure.’’

Blumenthal has repeatedly declined to comment about his opponents, but he has been much more direct in fundraising appeals to his supporters.

“Democrats can’t take a single seat for granted this year – if we do, we’ll hand the Senate right back to Mitch McConnell,’' Blumenthal wrote recently to potential donors. “But the Senate GOP has already targeted me and has $44 million in the bank to flip this seat. ... I’ve dedicated my career to public service. I will always fight for the people I serve, and I will not back down.’'

He added, “I’ll continue fighting my heart out to force Big Pharma to allow generic drugs into the marketplace. I’ll call out Facebook and Big Tech to protect our children from internet predators. I’ll stand up to Big Oil and make them pay a windfall profits tax for their price gouging. I’ll keep fighting to suspend the federal gas tax.’'

Who is the most conservative?

At the GOP convention, Lumaj distributed a color flier that said, “Leora Levy says she’s a conservative, but her record proves otherwise.’'

The flier mentions an op-ed that Levy wrote for the Greenwich Time newspaper when she was supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as “the most qualified candidate’' for president in February 2016.

Levy blasted Trump in the op-ed before later endorsing Trump in the general election.

“He is vulgar, ill-mannered and disparages those whom he cannot intimidate,’' Levy said of Trump. “His modus operandi is to try to intimidate people, then call them names and calumniate about them and then if those tactics do not work, to sue them. That is how he has run his businesses, and that is how he is running his campaign.’'

After Levy later supported Trump, he nominated her to be U.S. ambassador to Chile. But the Senate never voted on the nomination by the time Trump’s term expired.

In a recent fundraising appeal, Levy wrote, “Joe Biden isn’t on the ballot in November, but his policies are. The way to beat back Biden is to beat Dick Blumenthal, and I’m the conservative candidate who can get it done.’'

Among Republicans, Klarides has been criticized for saying she did not vote for Trump in 2020. That led some Republicans to speculate that Klarides had voted for Biden, which Klarides says is false.

Klarides said she had voted for a write-in candidate for president — her friend, former House Republican leader Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk. Klarides said her vote in 2020 had never been publicly disclosed until a Courant reporter asked her directly whom she voted for.

With more than five months before the election, insiders say the odds still favor Blumenthal due to his large war chest and longtime winning streak in elections. In addition, Democrats continue a strong advantage in voter registration over Republicans and have won every Congressional and statewide race since 2006.

In a deep blue state, Republicans have not won a Senate contest since Lowell P. Weicker Jr. in 1982. Seats have instead been dominated by major Democratic leaders such as Chris Dodd, Joe Lieberman, Chris Murphy and Blumenthal.

A fourth Republican candidate?

Besides the three major Republican candidates, Trump supporter Robert Hyde of Simsbury told The Courant that he is in the process of collecting more than 9,000 signatures by June 7 in order to gain a spot on the primary ballot.

“I should have pulled a [Bob] Stefanowski and bypassed the convention and used the time to secure signatures like he did in 2018,’' Hyde said.

Known previously as a low-key landscaper in the Farmington Valley, Hyde was thrust into the national political spotlight in 2020 at the time of Trump’s first impeachment that was related to a scandal in Ukraine.

In text messages released by the U.S. House of Representatives, Hyde was linked to allegations of an apparent surveillance operation of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The text messages were released of his interactions with Lev Parnas, a close associate of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer. Parnas was convicted on federal campaign finance charges in October. But Hyde has repeatedly denied that he was ever involved in any surveillance of the ambassador.

Droney predicted that Klarides will win the primary, but will lose the general election to Blumenthal by 8 percentage points.

“I think Themis is a lot tougher than the other [Republican] candidates and will exchange blows with Blumenthal on a regular basis starting in August,’' Droney said. “I think Blumenthal has served the state well and earned the right to another term.’’

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com