Swing State Project Rates CT-2 “Safe” for Democrats
Swing State Project today updated its race ratings–and the district with the closest congressional race in the entire country in 2006 is now being rated as “safe” for Democrat Joe Courtney:
CT-02 (Courtney): Likely Democratic to Safe Democratic
After Democrat Joe Courtney beat Rob Simmons by the closest of margins in this D+7.6 district in 2006, Republicans had hoped that Simmons could be convinced to try to reclaim his seat. Simmons passed on the idea, but national Republicans were initially high on Sean Sullivan, the former commanding officer of Groton’s submarine base, as an acceptable alternative. But Sullivan began his campaign with a resounding thud, refusing to devote serious time to fundraising and he quickly fell down - way down - the list of Republican targets. Sullivan’s most recent fundraising quarter was another dud, as he took in a mere $89K and is currently sitting on $155K cash-on-hand to Courtney’s $1.4 million. With no real resources in the bank and Courtney performing well for his district in Congress, it is difficult to imagine an upset in this blue district.
The amazing thing here is that this is pretty accurate. Sullivan can’t compete here this year, the NRCC isn’t sending him any help, and there doesn’t seem to be much dissatisfaction with Courtney in what’s shaping up to be a pretty Democratic year anyway. If Rob Simmons were running again, things would be different. People really liked Rob Simmons. But they have no idea who Sean Sullivan is, and they know and like Joe Courtney. So there you go. If you’d asked me a year or so ago what the story coming out of my home district would be, a safe Democratic seat would not have been what came to my lips. It just goes to show that this district is very, very hard to predict!
SSP also rates CT-05 as “Likely Democratic” and CT-04 as “Leans Republican.” Neither of those are a change.