GOP’s Berthel narrowly holds on in District 32 special state Senate election

State Rep. Eric Berthel with Derick TeeKing, a childhood friend from Southbury who was visiting from San Fransisco, awaiting results of the 32nd District state Senate special election Tuesday in Watertown. State Rep. Eric Berthel with Derick TeeKing, a childhood friend from Southbury who was visiting from San Fransisco, awaiting results of the 32nd District state Senate special election Tuesday in Watertown. Photo: Scott Benjamin /The News-Times Photo: Scott Benjamin /The News-Times Image 1 of / 11 Caption Close GOP’s Berthel narrowly holds on in District 32 special state Senate election 1 / 11 Back to Gallery

State Rep. Eric Berthel (R-Watertown) beat back an aggressive challenge by Region 12 school board member Greg Cava of Roxbury Tuesday night to win the special election for an open 32nd District Connecticut state Senate district.

Berthel defeated Cava 9,931 and Cava at 8,121, offsetting a Democratic victory in another special election in the Hartford area and keeping the state Senate evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

The 32nd District has been in Republican hands for nearly a century, and former Sen. Rob Kane, who resigned to take a job as a state auditor of accounts, beat Cava by a much larger margin, 66 to 34 percent, in November.

President Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the district, 57 to 43 percent, but opponents of the actions he’s taken since assuming office, including local women who were involved in the March on Washington the day after his inauguration, mobilized in support of Cava.

Petitioning candidate Dan Lynch of Middlebury, an unaffiliated voter who ran on a $1,000 budget, finished a distant third in the district, which stretches from Bethlehem to Oxford and includes such metro Danbury towns as Southbury, Washington, Roxbury and Bridgewater.

Republicans have held the seat for more than a century. The last Democratic senator was Charles Lymon of Washington - elected in 1891.

State Senate co-President Tempore Len Fasano (R-North Haven) attended Bethel’s victory celebraton.

Berthel, who was first elected to the House in 2014, said he believes that Cava’s campaign made a mistake in trying to appeal to “anti-Trump” voters, a reference to those who are disappointed in the president’s first month in office.

In a prepared statement, Lindsay Farrell of the Working Families Party, which supported Cava, congratulated him on his showing in the Republican stronghold.

“This illustrates how motivated voters have become by a terrifying and unjust Trump agenda and by local Republicans who have turned a blind eye to Trump’s assault on our democracy,” Farrell added.

“This is a district that elects Republicans, and the voters focused on the state issues, such as addressing the governor’s budget proposal, which will cut a lot of municipal aid to these towns,” Berthel said.. “[Cava’s] efforts backfired. The people saw through that.”

He also was critical of Cava accepting $50,000 of support from Wolf-Pack, which he called a “media hack political action committee.”

Cava was unavailable for comment Tuesday night.

Berthel, who addressed about 50 supporters at the Watertown Golf Club at 8:35 p.m., said he was able to prevail in the seven-week campaign as a result of “hard work, lots of phone calls, targeted mail, and lots of digital ads.”

The new senator, who is the vice president of strategic outreach at Hartford Healthcare Federal Credit Union, said he will be sworn in Friday. There will be a special election later this spring for his current seat in the 68th state House District.

He said his chief concern will be addressing Gov. Dannel Malloy’s proposed two-year $40.6 billion budget, which would collectively reduce municipal aid to the 10 towns by $11 million. He said Oxford would lose $4 million Watertown $2.3 million and Southbury $1.2 million.

“There are only a handful of Democrats that support the governor’s proposal,” Berthel said. “It’s very unfair because they’re primarily penalizing towns with the lower mill rates that they think have the better ability to pay. This is not the way that we should balance our budget.”

He said the legislators need “a further explanation on where the governor is going to get $700 million in concessions over the next year from the state employees.”

He said the state should seek “efficiencies” in its operations, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean layoffs of workers.

He said he also is concerned about discussion last fall about closing two of the state technical high schools to offset the budget crunch.

“We need those schools so we have workers for Sikorsky in Stratford and Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford,” he said.

Lynch said in a phone interview that “money makes a difference in campaigns, and I couldn’t market myself the same way as the other candidates.”

Cava and Bethel each qualified for a $72,000 grant from the state Citizens Election Program. Lynch had a limited campaign committee that didn’t even have an official treasurer.

“I learned a lot of new things, and I’m always thankful for that,” Lynch said. “And I met a lot of great people in the district, some of whom came to Dunkin Donuts in Southbury on election night to be with me.

Lynch, a technology and marketing consultant, said he would continue to testify before the General Assembly on issues related to mental health and judicial review.