Democrats in Fairfield had a very good Election Day, having completely flipped a former Republican stronghold, into a town fully represented by Democrats at the federal and state level.
Fairfield Democratic Town Committee Chair (DTC), Erin Lopez, said it was years in the making, to cheers at a restaurant in Fairfield on Election Night.
“We started with Cristin McCarthy-Vahey as our only Democratic representative,” Lopez said. “Nevertheless, the last 10 years, we've chipped away, and now we have full Democratic representation at every level in Fairfield.”
Lopez soon stepped aside as Rob Blanchard, who previously ran and lost against popular Republican State Sen. Tony Hwang in 2024, spoke in front of the crowd to more cheers as he flipped the 28th district state senate seat to Democratic control for the first time since 1974.
Blanchard wasn’t the only Democrat to have a good night. Michelle Embree Ku in nearby Newtown, flipped a Republican state representative seat.
Lopez is among those who say President Donald Trump’s unpopularity with Connecticut residents, a focus on local issues and even moving patterns from New York to Fairfield County, have helped the Democratic Party.
But Jonathan Wharton, who is a political science professor at Southern Connecticut State University, is skeptical of some of those claims.
Wharton said many residents moved to and from Connecticut over the last few years, and said it takes a while for transplants to integrate within their communities. Wharton said he’s not certain the numbers actually back that up throughout the state.
“It was a bump, but it wasn't anything significant per se,” Wharton said. “Maybe in some districts more than others, but I don't think it was such a wide ranging number that we saw this overall impact for the entire state.”
Wharton also mentioned unaffiliated voters have seen the most growth throughout the state, and according to registration statistics from the Secretary of the State’s office, the numbers back up Wharton’s assertions.
The number of active unaffiliated voters in Fairfield was over 700 in 2020. By 2026, the numbers had sharply risen to more than 17,000, compared to decreases for both registered Republicans and Democrats, with similar findings for Stamford and Newtown.
Blanchard said he won because he focused on affordability and hyper local issues such as the controversial UI monopole project.
“You can't just be a Democrat that says I'm not Trump; elect me,” Blanchard said. “You have to be a Democrat that says in Fairfield, for example, I'm going to stand up to the utilities and fight things like the monopole project.”
Blanchard also said voters in the 28th district were energized by national politics, and President Donald Trump's unpopularity.
Democratic State Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey,who succeeded Democrat Kim Fawcett, in 2014, who also flipped the seat during the 2006 midterms, said a focus on kitchen table politics helped many Democrats.
McCarthy Vahey said those local issues were impacted by federal policies, including cuts for social safety net programs.
“Here in Connecticut, we've seen $2 billion in cuts,” McCarthy Vahey said. “People understand that these impacts are having an effect on their day-to-day lives, on being able to fill their tanks, being able to heat their houses, being able to pay for food and medicine.”
Lopez also credits the Blue Wave across Connecticut in this election to the influx of liberal New Yorkers who moved to Fairfield and other parts of the county , especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“A lot of them came up to Fairfield, and I think that has made a difference with younger Democrats who maybe weren't as aware of the local politics, but were Democrats in Brooklyn, and became Democrats in Fairfield,” Lopez said.
According to Lopez many voters in the district are moderate and would probably vote for a moderate Republican, but she said that’s not what voters saw in this election.
“I think that this extreme version of MAGA has driven away a lot of people who are small c conservative, in a way, but are turned off by a lot of the social issue stuff or the cruelty coming out of the Donald Trump MAGA part of the party, ” Lopez
