From the gold cupola of the Connecticut state house one can sketch a picture of a divided America on the eve of the final elections of the Obama era. In one direction, the gleaming towers of the insurance industry, the aerospace firm United Technologies, and Republican-leaning suburbs and rural areas beyond; in the other, the immigrant neighbourhood of Frog Hollow, where glassy-eyed men loll on street corners, and other Democrat-leaning neighbourhoods.
Less than a mile away in the basement of the state armoury, Democrat governor of Connecticut Dannel Malloy could be found answering questions about a Yale student undergoing tests for Ebola in a local hospital. The issue offered Malloy TV time to reinforce his crisis-leadership credentials, but it cost him the one thing he may need to win re-election next month: a campaign visit from President Barack Obama.
It’s rare for anyone to need Obama nowadays. Languishing at 40% approval ratings, he’s been virtually absent from the midterm election season. Yet there are a few places where he is needed, and one of them is here in the blue-collar heartlands of Connecticut, where Malloy is tied in the polls with the Republican challenger and former US ambassador to Dublin, Tom Foley.
Was this postponement, as the White House said, because Obama needed time to craft a response to the unfolding health crisis with his cabinet or, as Republicans like to gossip, to shield Malloy from the president’s unpopularity? If so, it would be a dramatic turnaround from 2010, when the president’s visit to Bridgeport in the waning days of the campaign was credited with squeezing out a half-percentage point win over Foley.
The public is believed to be largely apathetic to the midterm elections on 4 November but their outcome could be crucial to the remaining years of the Obama administration – and to the US in a post-Obama era. Republicans stand a better than even chance of winning control of the Senate, and there are another dozen competitive governors’ contests.
Following a TV debate in New London on Thursday, Malloy – down by six percentage points as recently as two weeks ago – told the Observerthat he had no misgivings about a visit from the president – to the contrary, in fact. “There’s appreciation in Connecticut for his support of the middle class, support of education and housing, and acknowledgement that we implemented Obamacare better than any other state. All of those things I’ve done with help from Washington – and I’m happy to share that message with the president.”
Still, the president’s travel docket includes visits to just five gubernatorial races – contests considered less sensitive to national political mood-swings – and only a single appearance, in Michigan, at a Senate or congressional race.
“Whether the president of the United States comes here or not is not going to make a lot of difference,” considers Foley. “People are going to vote on Malloy’s record.”
A defeat for Malloy next month in this typically blue northeastern state would set a frightening precedent for Democrats in 2016. But shifting demographics suggest they stand a chance of winning in the so-called “new coalition” of typically Republican states in the south-east. Conversely, if Republicans can’t win in blue states now, with low voter turnout typical of midterm elections, when will they?
No surprise, then, that the Clintons, Bill and Hillary, are beating a path to Connecticut. So too are members of the Republican leadership, including governors Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Chris Christie of New Jersey.
The Malloy-Foley rematch stands out in its own right. It’s an unusually bitter contest even by contemporary political standards, with candidates trading accusations of electoral fraud and tax dodging, political manipulation of state financial records, and with the parents of children killed in the Newtown shooting drawn into the debate over gun control. Then there’s the issue of a luxury yacht named Odalisque that’s become a symbol of the extreme divide between rich and poor in the state.
Republicans argue that Malloy’s record is one of high taxation, stagnant economic growth and missed opportunities. In the wake of Newtown, they claim, gun owners have been punished by new restrictions.
But there are two competing visions of Connecticut’s economic performance. Foley says the state, once a leader in industry and education, is falling behind; Malloy claims 60,000 jobs have been created in his term. “If you think Tom Foley has a plan, you’re probably foolish enough to vote for him,” counters Malloy.
In public debates they’ve jabbed and taunted each other. Foley raised the issue of a corruption investigation into $505,000 of building work on Malloy’s holiday home. (The governor was exonerated.) Malloy raised the question of a night Foley spent in jail after a car crash in the Hamptons in 1981 (police dropped an assault charge) and contrasted Foley’s record as a taxpayer with his evident wealth. “I’m talking about his record, about how poorly the economy is doing,” Foley says. “He’s a prosecutor, so it’s in his personality, but his ads have been unfair.”
Malloy, who overcame dyslexia to become a successful Brooklyn prosecutor, portrays Foley, a private equity investor who was rewarded with a diplomatic post after serving on a President Bush-appointed board advising on the economic reconstruction of Iraq, as a tax-dodging, yacht-owning rich guy who axed thousands of jobs at the companies he managed and is out of touch with the common man.
“They’re defending their constituencies in an evenly divided race,” says Gary Rose, a scholar of Connecticut political history at Sacred Heart University. “Democrats are defending the cities and the minority vote, and the Republican challenger is depending on rural and suburban areas.”
In Connecticut, with its rivers and coastline, boats count. Even Malloy has one – a 28ft powerboat he says hasn’t been in the water in two years.
But Foley’s 116ft yacht Odalisque, which flies the flag of the Marshall Islands and is moored in Palm Beach, Florida, provides an indelible image of what life must be like in the Gatsby-esque mansions of Greenwich. “The world must look different from a $5m yacht,” announces one Malloy TV ad, as pictures of the vessel flash on the screen.
Critics have asked why Foley, who owns two British fighter jets, paid no income tax between 2011 and 2013. Losses from other investments offset his income, Foley said. But that did not prevent Malloy from quipping in the debate: “I don’t own a $10m house, a $5m yacht, a $1m plane and not pay taxes.”
Rose said: “The governor is waging class warfare by trying to mobilise animosity against this millionaire that’s challenging him. It’s distressing how low the bar is.”
Still, the question of wealth, or its distribution, cuts through Connecticut politics. Attitudes appear to be hardening. “Our country was built on capitalism,” commented an audience member at the TV debate. “You work for it, you earn it, and you should not be penalised. If you don’t work, don’t expect a handout.”
On Hartford’s Farmington Street, residents said they’d noticed it, too. “Obama’s delivered. He’s kept his promises,” said Lloyd Horton. “But the rich are still getting richer. The poor, poorer. So what do they expect? A revolt?”
With less than three weeks to go, Obama will be back on the campaign trail, albeit on safe ground including his home state of Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Maine and Michigan. A rescheduled stop in Connecticut should help Malloy, who needs votes in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford to win. Perhaps, in his last round of campaigning, he’ll be able to touch the electioneering highs he reached in his momentous campaign for the presidency in 2008.
“I am not on the ballot this fall,” he said earlier this month. “But make no mistake: These policies are on the ballot – every single one of them.”
