The first week of 2022 marks the start of a midterm election year and the anniversary of the stunning assault on the U.S. Capitol by protesters egged on by Donald J. Trump’s demonstrably false claim that the election was stolen.
Trump’s insistence the election was rigged and his animus to Republicans who say otherwise is a distraction that GOP candidates in Connecticut say they are intent on ignoring, while Democrats promise to make that impossible.
With polling consistently showing at least two-thirds of Republican voters saying Biden did not win, GOP officials who merely acknowledge reality do so at the risk of antagonizing significant elements of their base.
But Connecticut Republicans largely are avoiding equivocating or expressing doubts about Biden’s win, reasoning that to do only would keep Trump as an unwelcome wingman in 2022.
Trump may be on the ballot in 2024, but the Connecticut Republican state chair, Ben Proto, said his advice to candidates is to acknowledge Trump’s defeat in 2020 rather than engage in a fight that undercuts GOP campaigns in 2022.
“If we want to change things in Connecticut, if we want to take us out of the bottom of every important category that judges a state and get us back on track, then we need to change the people who are making the decisions in 2022,” Proto said. “Twenty-twenty-four will come around soon enough. But our job is to deal with 2022.”
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