Rep. Jahana Hayes could be the first incumbent Connecticut Democrat to lose in 22 years

As Republicans set their sights on recapturing a majority in the House, much of the focus of party leaders, activists, and political players is on battleground seats in states such as Nevada, Ohio, Michigan, and Virginia. But could an upset be brewing in the Democratic stronghold of New England?

Very few opportunities abound for Republicans in the Northeast despite the fact that Democrats have a monopoly on congressional seats in the region. Outside of perennially competitive races in New Hampshire and a culturally conservative upstate Maine House seat, an abysmal midterm elections political environment hasn’t been expected to stop Democrats from sweeping House races in the liberal bastions of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Connecticut.

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But after the GOP scored a top-tier recruit to take on Rep. Jahana Hayes in Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District, many Democrats are increasingly concerned that Hayes could become the first Democrat in the state to lose his or her seat in more than 20 years.

Connecticut has had an all-Democratic congressional delegation since the 2008 election cycle, when Rep. Jim Himes rode then-candidate Barack Obama’s coattails to unseat Rep. Chris Shays, widely regarded as a centrist Republican, in the New York City suburbs-anchored 3rd District. And the last time an incumbent Democrat lost his or her House seat to a nonincumbent challenger in the state was in 2000, when Rep. Sam Gejdenson, first elected 20 years earlier, was narrowly ousted in the eastern Connecticut-based 2nd District.

A Republican held Hayes’s own 5th District, centered in the northwestern corner of the state, until the 2006 elections, when Democrat Chris Murphy, now a senator, routed longtime Rep. Nancy Johnson as part of a wider purge of New England Republicans that year.

First elected to the House in 2018, Hayes succeeded Rep. Elizabeth Esty, who chose to retire after a scandal arose related to her handling of claims of sexual harassment and violent threats surrounding her chief of staff. An educator by trade, Hayes gained national prominence after she was named National Teacher of the Year in 2016, receiving the award in a ceremony hosted by Obama, then the president.

Propelled by the recognition, as well as a compelling life story — she grew up in public housing, gave birth to a daughter at age 17, and came close to dropping out of high school before working her way through college and graduate school — Hayes triumphed over a party establishment favorite in the Democratic primary and won the race to replace Esty in what marked her first run for elected office. Hayes handily dispatched a Republican challenger in 2020, winning reelection by a 55% to 44% margin, or roughly the same vote share that she earned in 2018. And President Joe Biden carried her district by the same margin over former President Donald Trump.

But Hayes’s status as a rising star in her party is at risk of being cut short after just four years in the House. State and national Republicans scored their preferred recruit in the 5th Congressional District with George Logan, an affable former state senator and businessman whose parents immigrated to the United States from Guatemala. Logan has hit Hayes for being a key supporter of Biden’s agenda in Congress while questioning her ethics after reports emerged that the congresswoman was keeping two of her children on her campaign’s payroll.

Former state Sen. George Logan is Republicans’ choice to take on Hayes in November.

Image courtesy of George Logan for Congress

In response, Democrats charged Logan with carpetbagging, alleging that he only recently relocated to the 5th District from his house in the New Haven-anchored 3rd District. But the Connecticut Democratic Party landed in hot water in May after posting a crude tweet that many observed amounted to a comparison of Logan, who is black, to Curious George, the fictional monkey from the eponymous book and television series. Hayes, who is also black, retweeted the post, which the state Republican Party chairman described as “at best…racially insensitive” and “at worst…racist.”

The Connecticut Democratic Party later deleted the tweet, maintaining that it had “been misrepresented” and apologizing for “causing offense,” but the state party chairwoman doubled down, accusing Republicans of “finding racism where there is none” and having “no opinion about actual racism in their ranks.”

While political analysts initially doubted the race’s competitiveness, giving Hayes a significant lead in her bid to win a third term, missteps by Hayes and state Democrats coupled with a worsening midterm elections outlook for Democrats have made Republicans increasingly bullish about Logan’s odds. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the third-ranking House Republican, recently announced her endorsement of Logan, and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel rallied with him earlier this year. Additionally, the National Republican Congressional Committee has placed Logan on a list of candidates it’s supporting, with spokeswoman Samantha Bullock telling the Washington Examiner that Hayes is a “completely untested incumbent” who is “fighting an uphill battle in a deep-blue district.”

Hayes’s enduring advantage lies in her demonstrated fundraising strength. She outraised Logan by a 3-to-1 margin in the first quarter of 2022 and ended the reporting period with almost $1.6 million in her campaign account, to Logan’s $214,477. But it’s common for challengers to lag incumbents in fundraising, and Hayes’s financial edge is being offset by significant investments from outside groups on behalf of Logan. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC closely aligned with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), has already pledged $1.75 million to underwrite television advertisements in the race.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, declined to say whether the DCCC would be investing more resources on behalf of Hayes in light of her seat’s newfound competitiveness. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, he argued that the race will come down to a “choice” between Hayes and a “MAGA Republican Party that’s extreme and dangerous,” saying that he is confident Hayes will be reelected on her own merits.

Dismissing Logan as a “MAGA Republican,” Maloney contended that if elected, the ex-state legislator would “take away people’s reproductive rights, do nothing about gun violence, and whitewash Jan. 6.”

“Voters [in Connecticut’s 5th District] think it’s wrong to take away 50 years of constitutional freedoms,” Maloney said, asserting that abortion would be a pivotal factor in the race.

Hayes seems to agree that abortion will be a defining concern for Connecticut voters. Earlier this month, she hosted Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for an event at a Planned Parenthood clinic in her district, where she called on Biden to declare a national public health emergency and expand access to abortion through executive action in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Election forecasters FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics list the seat as a toss-up, giving Hayes and Logan roughly equal chances of winning, while handicappers at the Cook Political Report and Politico have Hayes slightly ahead, rating the seat as “Lean Democratic.”

Gary Rose, the chairman of the government department at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, agreed that the gap between the two candidates had substantially narrowed recently, describing Logan as a “very good candidate” and pointing out Biden’s sagging approval ratings in the state.

However, he indicated that he thought Hayes continued to hold a slight edge in the race. Noting that she has “the power of incumbency on her side,” Rose said Hayes’s background as a teacher and her deep ties to teachers unions could be a big boost in highly educated Connecticut. “[She] has the teachers unions and other unions on her side, which in Connecticut is always beneficial to Democratic candidates,” he observed. “Teachers in the district’s local communities will be voting for her.”

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But Rose, a longtime observer of Connecticut politics, said he didn’t think “abortion and the reversal of Roe will be the premier issue” in the contest. He predicted a “competitive race,” telling the Washington Examiner that the election will be decided by independent and unaffiliated voters.

Hayes declined a request to be interviewed for this piece and referred the Washington Examiner to her campaign. Hayes’s campaign website does not list a press contact, and her congressional office has not responded to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.