Gauthier says talking to voters about their financial struggles was a key to victory
Nov. 6—By Wednesday morning, the dust had settled on an incredibly tight race for the 38th House district seat.
That's when unofficial results from the Office of the Secretary of the State showed a slim 174-vote victory for Democrat Nick Gauthier over five-term Republican incumbent Kathleen McCarty.
Voters in Waterford and parts of the Oakdale and Uncasville sections of Montville elected Gauthier by a margin of 7,274-7,100.
A close race had been expected as two years ago McCarty had beaten Gauthier by just 230 votes.
In fact at Filomena's Restaurant, the Republican headquarters, it initially appeared McCarty was on her way to a sixth term. When the unofficial in-person votes were tallied they showed her leading by about 700 votes. The room celebrated and she gave a speech, hopeful that the early voting results and absentee ballots results would follow a similar pattern.
But around 10 p.m. when the early voting results started coming in, Gauthier gained ground. Thirty minutes later he claimed victory. Celebrations and speeches were held again.
But this time for Gauthier.
Ousting a five-term incumbent
Gauthier, 37, said he had a strategy ― canvassing, doorknocking and organizing.
"We knocked on the doors we needed to. We identified the voters we needed to. We as a campaign persuaded and proved to voters that I am someone they can trust," he said.
Gauthier, who had the endorsements of statewide labor unions, said he showed voters he supported the working class. He said he spent no time holding campaign fundraisers but instead knocked on people's doors.
"Talking to them. Learning from them. Learning about the costs. The issues that they're struggling with every single day: housing costs, health care, rent costs, electric bills," he said. "I made those personal connections with people across the district. And I worked as hard as I could, and I think voters saw that."
Gauthier said he knocked on 4,000 doors, including in Montville, where two years ago he knocked on every door.
"When I showed up at their door they said 'Oh, you're a representative from Waterford but you came all the way here.' They really appreciated it," he said. "And that is my intention, to represent the entire district."
He pointed out that voters in the two Montville sections of the district, who historically have voted Republican, chose him, and furthermore, Democrat Nick Menapace, who ran in the neighboring 37th District.
"The question is ― why ― on a night when Donald Trump won the presidency and Republicans won the Senate and possibly the House, did southeastern Connecticut in suburban areas that had Republican incumbents ― go in the opposite direction?" Gauthier asked.
"The answer for me is that we both ran unabashedly pro-worker, pro-working family, campaigns in which we went door to door, person to person, and said here's what were going to do for you," he said, such as investing in public goods and services, taxing the rich and corporations and using those tax dollars to bring down costs for working people.
"A shock to all of us"
McCarty, 73, said in a phone interview Wednesday the election had been a tiring one. As others celebrated at Filomena's on Tuesday night, she had maintained an air of nervousness, having been in many close races before.
"I knew coming in it was going to be a challenging race for a number of reasons," McCarty said. "I'm very proud of the way I comported myself. It was a very positive-run campaign, and I'm very proud of that."
"I know he went to a lot of doors," McCarty said. "But also, I went to every event that I possibly could. So it's not that I was invisible. There were other factors at play."
She too pointed out there are more Democrats than Republicans in the district.
"That interrelated with the final result," she said.
Her campaign manager, Matthew Keatley, added the result was a "shock to all of us."
McCarty said she would have liked more time to explain her voting history to those in the district.
"I always considered myself much more a policy maker than a politician," she said. "I always tried to keep that on the forefront of my thinking, is this in the best interest of my community? I tried to live with that through all of my service."
Future plans
Gauthier said he intends to begin his work in the General Assembly by focusing on legislation that lowers every day costs, and making sure corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
He said he plans to resign from the Waterford Representative Town Meeting, where he is serving his third term.
McCarty said she's proud of what she was able to accomplish during her 10 years in the legislature, particularly in the areas of education and mental health.
"I really will keep an eye and be monitoring that. We really need to keep education a high priority in the legislature," she said.
