CT Elections 2024: Three-Way Race For 1st Congressional District
As it is every two years, Connecticut's 1st Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is up for grabs.
And, as it has been since the 1998 mid-term elections, that seat has belonged to U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, an East Hartford native and current resident there.
Facing off against him are Republican challenger Jim Griffin of Bristol and Green Party candidate Mary Sanders of Hartford.
All three are on the ballots of 27 towns in the north-central part of Connecticut, with larger cities like Bristol, Hartford, and Torrington within the 1st District.
Patch reached out to all three hopefuls, with only Sanders' campaign responding.
Mary Sanders — Green Party
Sanders, 71, is a retired community services organization veteran, with the congressional bid her first attempt at elected public office.
According to Sanders, the two traditional parties don't represent the people's will.
"I am running for Congress as a member of the Green Party because I am an environmentalist and pro-peace activist," she said in response to a Patch questionnaire.
" I also believe that neither major party truly represents the will of the majority of the voters, and the voters deserve more choices."
Sanders said the Green Party has no corporate sponsors and is funded by small donations from grassroots supporters.
She said the biggest issues are housing affordability, climate change, and Connecticut's "dependence on the war industry."
"We need to ramp up construction of energy-efficient housing and make it affordable to families. We need to give adequate incentives to suburban towns to modify zoning laws and to build affordable housing," Sanders said.
"We need to rethink the strategy around public housing as the U.S. Dept of Housing stopped building decades ago. We need to do something with all the empty abandoned buildings around our cities to put them back on the rental market.
"To make matters worse, much of our public housing has been demolished and if rebuilt, it is then privatized, driving prices up higher and higher."
More information on Mary Sanders' campaign is available on her Facebook page at this link.
Jim Griffin — Republican
Griffin, 74, is a native of Waterbury and currently lives in Bristol.
According to the biography on his campaign website, Griffin's affinity for service started as an Eagle Scout.
A star athlete at Bristol Eastern High School in the 1960s, he went on to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point before embarking on a career in military intelligence after graduation with the U.S. Army in the 1970s.
In the 1980s, Griffin worked in the U.S. Senate and in U.S. President Ronald Reagan's administration.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Griffin worked in the public sector with upper management positions with Hartford-based Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Co. and then Colt Manufacturing Co.
According to his biography, Griffin is a former Democrat (inspired by John F. Kennedy) who switched to the GOP in 2016.
He said on his website "The Democrat Party is no longer Democrat, they are Marxist-Communist, not all the Democrat voters but rather the party apparatus, that continues to hide behind the Democrat name while operating a very sinister, America hating, America subverting agenda."
More information on Jim Griffin is available on his campaign website.
U.S. Rep. John Larson — Democrat
The East Hartford native/resident Larson, 76, has served in political office for decades on the town, state, and national levels.
A 1967 East Hartford High School graduate and 1971 Central Connecticut State University grad, Larson taught history at George J. Penney High School in East Hartford. (In 1985, Penney merged with EHHS, forming one school.)
In addition, Larson, according to his online biography, helped found the Larson & Lysik Insurance Agency.
