Though many residents already took advantage of early voting, a steady stream has been going to the polls throughout Election Day this Tuesday. Polls are open until 8 p.m. Candidates The Sun spoke to in the 112th District and 22nd Senatorial District expressed a mixture of excitement and confidence as their contested races head toward the finish line.
State Rep. Tony Scott, R-112th, the incumbent for the district covering Monroe, Easton and Trumbull, spoke to voters at the polls earlier in the day.
“I’m excited the day’s here to give everyone a chance to have their voices heard,” he said in a telephone interview just after 1 p.m. “I feel very confident based on all the conversations I’ve had leading up to today, but also the interactions I had at the polls this morning.”
“You could aways do more, but I think I’ve done more than enough to show the people of the 112th District that I deserve another two years in Hartford,” he said.
Beth Cliff, a retired business woman from Easton, is the Democratic Party candidate challenging Scott. She is also endorsed by the Connecticut Working Families Party and the Independent Party of Connecticut.
Cliff, who stood outside the polls at Masuk High School Tuesday morning, greeted a woman walking by on her way to vote. “Spread the word!” Cliff called out.
“Oh, I will,” the woman replied.
“It’s what we need,” Cliff said with a smile.
During the campaign, Cliff vowed to give Monroe “a seat at the table” in Hartford, as an advantage of having a member of the majority party working to bring more funding to the town and the district. She has also campaigned on women’s issues, including reproductive rights.
“It’s clearly affordability,” Scott said of what he sees as the key issue in the 112th District. “I focus on talking to the voters about what I can do and will do to try to help make their lives in Connecticut more affordable. I did not focus on hot topic national issues. It seems like that is not what the voters will be voting on in my specific election here.”
Cliff has also made affordability for families a focus.
“I really feel good that we did all we could to make sure people have a choice this year,” she said. “I feel very good about the way we conducted ourselves. At the end of the day, the voters will speak. That’s democracy at work. That’s one of the reasons I ran. If I didn’t run, Tony Scott would have been unopposed. That just doesn’t give voters a choice.”
Cliff also expressed her belief that, if elected, she would be the better representative and a “more active, vocal, persuasive and firm advocate” for the district’s towns.
Early in the afternoon, Scott’s wife , Jennifer, and teenage daughters, Lauren and Addison, held campaign signs outside Monroe Elementary School.
“I was at Fawn Hollow this morning and it was great, a consistent, slow, steady stream,” Jennifer said of the voter turnout. “We are always proud of the hard work Tony does for the three towns and for all he does. People can easily reach out to him by phone, email and text messages.”
Friendly foes
There is a three-way-race for State Sen. Marilyn Moore’s 22nd District seat, representing Trumbull and portions of Monroe and Bridgeport, due to the Democrat’s retirement.
Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox is running for the Democrats, Chris Carrena for the Republicans and Robert Halstead, a former Bridgeport City councilman, is running as an Independent.
A top priority on Halstead’s platform is bringing in more funding for Bridgeport’s schools.
The Sun caught up with Carrena and Gadkar-Wilcox at Tashua Elementary School in Trumbull late Tuesday morning.
Carrena, who runs his family’s business, Carrena Property Management and Realty in Bridgeport, showed up with a big campaign sign displayed on the back of his vehicle. He greeted voters outside the school with his wife, Rosalie, and his mother-in-law, Kim Aquino, by his side.
He had already visited six of eight polling places in Bridgeport and planned to stop at Trumbull’s seven locations and the two in Monroe.
“I’m feeling great,” Carrena said. “I’m feeling optimistic. I think today will be a great day for Republicans across the board. I’ve been getting a lot of good feedback.”
Gadkar-Wilcox and Carrena have run positive races.
“I saw my opponent earlier today at Blackham Elementary School in the north end of Bridgeport,” Carrena said. “We both said our hellos and expressed that we’re both mutually grateful and happy that we ran a good race together.”
At noon, Gadkar-Wilcox arrived at Tashua School to vote and walked up to Carrena. They exchanged friendly greetings and posed for a photo together.
“May the best man or woman win,” Carrena said with a smile. Gadkar-Wilcox agreed with the sentiment.
“At the end of the day, you have to care about all people, regardless of what their views are,” Carrena said. “It’s definitely a surreal feeling,” he said of Election Day being here. “I’m honored to be the Republican candidate for this district. I made a lot of friends and relationships along the way. At the end of the day, I gave it my all.”
A chance at history
If elected, Gadkar-Wilcox, whose father emigrated from India, said she would be the first South Asian woman and the first Indian-American to be elected as a senator in Connecticut.
“I’m feeling good,” she said. “I’ve been in the community. This is exciting,” she added of the chance at making history.
Gadkar-Wilcox, an attorney who teaches human rights and constitutional law at Quinnipiac University, said, “this is the most important thing to me. I love the district. I care. Getting people engaged in the district is my goal.”
Gadkar-Wilcox’s father Ashok, mother Sheela, husband Wynn and daughters, Ishika Ruth and Aksita Labelle, were at Tashua School with her.
New voters
The town of Monroe’s voters took advantage of early voting this year with just over 39 percent turnout before Tuesday.
On Tuesday afternoon, Paul Soulier, the moderator at Monroe Elementary School, said in-person voting has been steady.
“I don’t think there’s a time when we haven’t had a voter,” he said as a few more walked in.
Inside the Council Chambers of Monroe Town Hall in the morning, Elizabeth Edgerton, a volunteer for same day voter registration, already held a stack of forms for the 22 people who had registered as of 10 a.m.
“The majority are first time registrants who haven’t voted before,” Edgerton said. “About a half hour ago, we had a new U.S. citizen. She obtained her citizenship just last week.”
The woman was from Latvia. Edgerton, who also volunteered for early voting for three days, recalled seeing four new U.S. citizens coming in to vote, including a woman from Uruguay.
“I just love to see people who come in and embrace our democracy and are proud to vote in this country,” she said.
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