Luke Bronin took an early fundraising lead among Democrats vying for Connecticut’s 1st Congressional District seat, currently held by U.S. Rep. John Larson, but some candidates are using new strategies in a race becoming increasingly skeptical of traditional ways of amassing donations.
Bronin’s money advantage in the most recent fundraising quarter was expected, as it was previewed before the filing deadline by the campaigns themselves. The former mayor raised nearly $1.2 million since announcing in late July, compared to Larson’s $809,000 haul over the past three months. But Larson has had more time to fundraise and has raised nearly $1.1 million this year.
The fundraising reports publicly released this week are the first real look inside what’s fueling each campaign, where the money is coming from and how much they’ll be working with in the fight for the nomination in the safely Democratic Hartford-based district.
Bronin and Larson are well ahead of most of the other candidates in fundraising, though Southington Councilman Jack Perry loaned his campaign $500,000. That gives him a boost over state Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford and Hartford school board member Ruth Fortune. But when it comes to individual contributions, Perry raised the least of any candidate.
Each of the five declared candidates needed to file a report with the Federal Election Commission by Wednesday that detailed the money raised and spent between July and September. Some of Larson’s challengers jumped into the race part of the way into the third fundraising quarter of the year.
The fundraising battle has largely centered around the origin of donations, particularly from Bronin on outside groups. Larson’s other challengers bemoaned the heavy emphasis on fundraising altogether, despite the reality of needing enough funds to afford advertising in the Hartford media market and boost name recognition competing against Larson, a 14-term congressman, and Bronin, a former two-term mayor of Hartford.
Bronin has sworn off campaign contributions from corporate political action committees, commonly referred to as PACs, and has taken multiple swipes at Larson for heavily relying on such money in past campaign cycles.
Bronin’s $1.2 million haul comes completely from individual contributions and no PAC money. Much of his fundraising comes from within Connecticut, though he still raised a lot of money from elsewhere, including Washington, D.C., and New York. The report shows he largely dedicated the last couple of months to raising money and spent only about $90,000. That leaves him with the biggest cash reserves of all the candidates.
Bronin’s campaign anticipates Larson could raise more than him in the future but said outraising the congressman in the past quarter reflects the appetite for the generational change that’s been at the center of Bronin’s campaign.
“John Larson has been in office for almost three decades, he’s taken millions of dollars from corporate PACs, and we still expect he’s going to out-raise us,” Bronin campaign senior advisor Amanda Sands said in a statement. “But outraising him this quarter without a cent of corporate PAC money shows that there’s a lot of enthusiasm for Luke, and there are lots of people who know it’s time for change.”
In the most recent fundraising quarter, Larson raised a substantial portion of his money from PACs — nearly $310,000 — including those representing businesses and corporations. But he raised more money from individual contributions — $495,000 — with the overwhelming majority of it coming from contributors in Connecticut. His most recent haul from individual contributions was far more than the past two fundraising quarters this year, before he had any competition.
Some of the PACs that donated higher sums of money to Larson during the past quarter include American Institute of Certified Public Accountants PAC, Boeing Company PAC, Cigna Corporation PAC, Employees of RTX Corporation PAC, and Eversource Energy PAC.
Larson also spent more money than Bronin and the rest of his challengers. But Bronin’s cash on hand outpaced everyone in the field, going into October with $1.1 million compared to Larson’s $879,000 in the bank.
Larson said he’ll continue to focus on his opposition to President Donald Trump rather than his Democratic competitors.
“At a time when President Trump and his allies are attacking our democracy, targeting immigrant families and labeling me an agitator for standing up to them, this campaign is powered by people who know what’s at stake,” Larson said in a statement. “This support — over $1.2 million raised this cycle — sends a clear message: the people of the First District are ready to fight back. I will continue to stand up to Trump’s authoritarian overreach and protect our community, our democracy, and the values we share.”
While he’s slightly behind Bronin, Larson’s fundraising has improved compared to earlier quarters this year, as well as previous election cycles. He’s already raised more in the first nine months of the year compared to the last off-year, in 2023, which was about $724,000 for that entire year.
The congressman also raised more in 2025 than in all of 2024, an election year. But he didn’t have any primary challengers, and raising money wasn’t as crucial.
In his fundraising pitches before the deadline, Larson’s campaign drew a lot of attention from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which added his name to a list of Democrats and groups whom the agency characterized as having “hateful and violent” rhetoric, specifically in regard to immigration enforcement officials.
DHS singled out Larson’s comments at an August press conference in Connecticut. In it, the visibly frustrated congressman shouted about the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and compared masked ICE agents, who are conducting raids and arrests across the U.S., to the “SS” and “Gestapo.”
Larson said earlier this month he didn’t see the remarks as hateful and said they were “intended to make a point.” He’s raised concerns about the raids carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the 1st Congressional District.
The congressman has also highlighted the support he’s getting from colleagues in Washington who have worked with him for years.
He held a formal event last weekend to announce the endorsement of his colleague U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who has been a national figure for being an outspoken Trump critic and a fundraising juggernaut.
Murphy’s own political action committee, American Mobilization PAC, contributed $5,000 to Larson’s campaign, according to his FEC report filed this week.
Larson has also benefited from support from past and present House Democratic leadership. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and one of his deputies, Pete Aguilar, both donated to Larson’s campaign in the past few months. Larson also got a donation from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The two worked together closely when Larson served in House Democratic leadership from 2009 to 2013.
For Bronin, he’s been trying to distinguish himself from the Democratic establishment in Washington, even as a two-term mayor of Hartford who worked in the Obama administration.
Calls for generational change and new candidates throughout the Democratic Party have grown since across-the-board losses during the 2024 elections.
Bronin’s team highlighted that sentiment with an interview between former President Joe Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki and Democratic strategist Lis Smith, who questioned why Democrats aren’t “lifting up” the next generation. They specifically mentioned Bronin and the primary for Larson’s seat.
“This constant circling of the wagons, I think, is what is so frustrating to people. Why are you afraid of change? Why are you afraid of this? And so I think they’ll get a wake-up call in the Larson race,” Smith said in an interview Thursday on MSNBC.
Perry, Gilchrest, Fortune taking different approaches
Because the 1st Congressional District is a safe district, securing the Democratic nomination virtually means the candidate is on a glide path to victory. That’s why candidates need to raise enough funds over the next few months to afford things like television ads and securing their name on the ballot for the primary.
Perry loaned his campaign $500,000 in the past fundraising quarter. He is the former owner of a waste hauling and recycling business, HQ Dumpsters, that he sold to a larger competitor. He only raised nearly $29,000 from individual contributors, but he goes into the final months of the year with a decent cushion because of the loan.
Perry, who serves as a town councilman in Southington, said he doesn’t plan to keep self-funding but wanted to show that he has a serious campaign that is viable. He noted that federal campaign finance regulations are very different from Connecticut’s, where more money can come into play. And he said a lot of the support right now in the state should go to the local municipal races that are coming up.
“It takes time to build the infrastructure, and we’re trying to fundraise, but [at] the same time, I don’t want to also make it that we have to focus on just asking people for money,” Perry said in an interview. “I think the balancing act — yes we need to do fundraisers, reach out and raise money, but it’s also important that we can talk about the issues, listen to the issues that the working and middle class are facing, because I feel the Democratic Party has failed all of us right now.”
Gilchrest’s contributions are mostly from donors in Connecticut, with a mix of nonprofits, state legislators and government staffers, attorneys, those in health care, religious institutions and teachers and professors. She raised more than $54,000, spent almost $10,000 and has almost $45,000 cash on hand. Some of her biggest spending of the quarter was on texting and phone banking services through a political consulting firm in Avon.
Gilchrest said she’s been more focused on outreach and building relationships with voters who in turn would consider donating to the campaign — something she said takes time. She expects to turn more attention to fundraising over the coming weeks and months. More recently, she has spent time meeting with voters at coffee shops, playgrounds and Democratic Town Committee events.
She’s been critical of the reliance of congressional candidates on fundraising, particularly in this primary. But Gilchrest acknowledged she’ll need more money to compete and said she views it “as a marathon versus a sprint.” She said she was told a candidate will need at least $1 million to $1.5 million “to get my message out.”
“I just feel like if the race is decided because of fundraising numbers, we’ll get the exact same kind of ineffective Congress we’ve had for years,” Gilchrest said in an interview. “I think people are very frustrated by the constant onslaught of fundraising texts and emails that they receive and then no action on the part of the politicians they elect. And so we need to do politics differently, and I need to build those relationships with folks before they’re willing to invest in the campaign. And that makes sense to me.”
Gilchrest, who noted she doesn’t come from a wealthy background, said what she raised in a month is more money than many people earn in a year.
Fortune offered a similar sentiment about her own fundraising. She was the first person to enter the race for the Democratic nomination and raised about $41,000 and spent about $5,600.
“I raised more money this quarter than my mother ever earned annually and spent $5,644.60 as a first-time candidate who built a campaign from scratch. Yet, the two well-funded candidates in this race spent a combined $283,000 this quarter, and it’s not their first rodeo,” Fortune said, referencing the combined spending over the past few months by Bronin and Larson. “Every year, campaigns spend more money than it would take to end homelessness and hunger in America.”
The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation.
This story was originally published by The Connecticut Mirror.
