Gov. Dannel P. Malloy shouldn’t have won re-election last week. With an unfavorable rating hovering around 50 percent, Malloy was more than vulnerable in an election year where Republicans across the U.S. were expected — and did — make significant gains in Congress and other gubernatorial races.
But here in the Land of Steady Habits, Republicans struck out again. Not only did Tom Foley lose in his rematch with Malloy, but he was defeated by a wider margin compared to 2010.
Political pundits on both sides of the aisle will point to various reasons why their guy did or didn’t win. But for Foley, the simple truth is his campaign lacked substance. He brought a very broad vision to the table — a call to cut taxes, trim government spending and reduce regulations — that was appealing to a wide swath of the electorate, particularly the business community. But he offered few, if any, details on how to implement his plans.
Foley’s focus was running against Malloy’s controversial record from the last four years. That’s fine to an extent, but at some point Foley needed to be more transparent about his own ideas and policies. He needed to establish credibility and gain voter’s trust, particularly in the midst of a nasty campaign where Malloy painted him as a rich, greedy businessman who didn’t care about regular, working-class people.
If you’re going to make a promise to cut taxes in the face of a $1.4 billion budget deficit, which the state faces next year, voters have a right to know how you’re going to make the numbers work.
Foley’s response was feckless. He said his business acumen would allow him to find “efficiencies” in the state’s large bureaucracy. He also said he’d be able to wring savings out of state employee healthcare costs. Beyond that, Foley was short on details. That, in turn, made it very difficult for a majority of voters to back a Foley administration. In fact, 55 percent of likely voters said they had an unfavorable view of or didn’t know enough about Foley, according a Nov. 3 Quinnipiac Poll, released a day before the election.
Foley blamed negative campaigning and the state’s democratic leanings for his defeat. Both certainly impacted the race, but Connecticut has a recent history of electing Republican governors (John Rowland and M. Jodi Rell), so playing the blue-state card carries limited weight. Also, Republican governors in other blue states, including Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois, notched victories last week.
Recent history should have taught Foley that his strategy to run strictly against someone rather than for something would be ineffective. Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney — who share’s an eerily similar pedigree to Foley — used a similar strategy in 2012 against President Barack Obama. Romney, of course, lost for a second straight time, even though there was pent-up anger with Obama’s job performance.
Malloy, for his part, ran on substance. Whether you agree or disagree with his policies, Malloy made some big decisions during his first four years in office and he stood by his record during the campaign. Voters, at the very least, knew where he stood on the issues, even if they didn’t take to his prickly personality.
As state Republicans lick their wounds and regroup they need to groom a new leader with a more substantive vision for Connecticut. They need a candidate who won’t just appeal to the base, but draw in independent voters who remain the state’s largest voting bloc. There appears to be some hope: Republicans did manage to gain some seats in the state House and Senate, narrowing Democratic majorities in both chambers.
Although they still don’t hold much power, Republicans have become a slightly larger opposition force. Let’s see if they can use that bit of momentum to craft a platform that resonates with more of the electorate.
