November 05, 2024 6:03 pm
• Last Updated: November 05, 2024 8:34 pm

A Hartford Democrat shared with me a screenshot of a recent Facebook posting by Stonington Republicans, likening the coming presidential election to awaiting a pregnancy test.

“We either get a healthy baby boy or the daughter of Satan,” said the Facebook posting by the Stonington GOP.

Ouch. It’s hard to learn that any political leaders in the town you live in would say such a thing about the presidential candidate of the opposing party, the current vice president of the country.

I know national Republicans have called the vice president all kinds of names and assailed her politics, policies and intelligence. That’s campaign fodder, I suppose, although some of it has surely had a misogynist strain.

But daughter of Satan? Stonington Republicans think she’s evil? I thought maybe I lived in a more civilized, sophisticated town than that.

I kept thinking about that posting all Tuesday, during my usual Election Day tour through eastern Connecticut. I always enjoy using a road trip to clear my head from the turmoil of campaign season, to finally welcome the finality of what used to be voting day, now vote counting day.

It’s always a pleasure to drive through the magnificent scenery of this corner of Connecticut, usually resplendent in late fall. I generally meander up through North Stonington and Preston and end up in Sterling, at the northern reaches of one of our most sprawling state Senate districts, the 18th.

The Satan comment makes me wonder what will become of Connecticut Republicans after this consequential election. As I drove through the countryside, and as I write this before deadline, the final count is not in.

For those in our region who think of Kamala Harris as the daughter of Satan, a Trump loss might be unimaginable. Maybe those Republicans harbor a fantasy of Connecticut voters suddenly embracing in large numbers the tenets of the new national GOP, led by a felon who boasts of “my beautiful white skin,” robs women of reproductive rights and promises to vindictively lock up his enemies.

Good luck to them if they think that’s the future of their party here, even with a Trump win.

I’m quite sure, though, that many other traditional Connecticut Republicans have done their best to duck Trumpism, avoiding it like a passing cloud of radiation from a nuclear bomb.

They can’t admit to their base they are ducking Trump. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them even voted for Harris, hoping the Trump phenomena might finally pass by.

I actually ran across my own state senator, Heather Somers of the 18th District, when I pulled into the parking lot of the Sterling polling place.

Remembering my editor’s request to staff to snap a picture of any candidates at the polls, I tried for one of Somers, who was standing with a small group alongside the driveway.

My attempt at a simple candidate picture turned into a comical scene, as Somers hid from the phone camera, first turning away and then hiding behind the person she was standing next to. She was eventually escorted, hiding between two people, to the nearby building and someone drove her Cadillac, with its Senate 18th plates, from across the parking lot, so she could slip in at the front door, Lady Di style, without being photographed.

Sterling Republican Chairman Victoria Robinson later called an editor at The Day, saying that I was “very creepy,” following a candidate around and scaring them. Sterling Republicans posted a picture of me on their Facebook page and said I was stalking Somers, following her there from Mystic.

Somers has a history of ducking photographers Election Night, but her behavior Tuesday was incredibly strange, a state senator refusing to have her picture taken in public, outside a polling place on Election Day.

I suppose it could be extreme vanity. I suspect it might have more to do with not being pictured with all the Trump signs adorning the Sterling polling place parking lot, in the heart of Trump country.

She was there to court Trump voters, but not be photographed with them.

Trump may continue to haunt Connecticut Republicans, either from the White House or prison.

And I’m sure an ambitious politician like Somers doesn’t want a picture of herself near a Trump sign that might surface in the future.

Alas, my road trip ended badly when my 20-year-old Mini broke down on Interstate 395. I had a nice chat with the tow truck driver, who told me he never votes because the candidates are merely the puppets of the richest people in the world who manipulate them. The government could cure cancer, but chooses not to because it benefits from the money spent on treatments.

I thought maybe I should put him in touch with the Satan-fearing Republicans of Stonington.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com

There’s a lot at stake in the Electoral College in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut for the 2024 election.

When Americans vote in the presidential election, they are, of course, casting their ballot for the candidate of their choice. Those votes, in turn, govern how electors in each state vote in the Electoral College.

To become president, a candidate must win a majority of the electoral votes in the country. There are 538 in total, so 270 is the magic number to be elected president.

How many electors does each state have?

The number of electors for each state is determined by the number of representatives in the U.S. House and Senate. 

Therefore, in New York, there are 28 electoral votes. There are 14 electoral votes in New Jersey and there are seven in Connecticut. 

Altogether, that’s 49 out of 270 needed to get elected at stake in the Tri-State Area alone. 

In most states – New York, New Jersey and Connecticut included – all electoral votes are cast for the candidate that wins the state’s popular vote. Just two states, Maine and Nebraska, allocate electors based on the popular vote within each Congressional district.

Does the winner of the popular vote become president?

Because our presidential elections are not won by popular vote alone, sometimes the person who gets the most votes does not actually win the race. 

For example, in 2000, George W. Bush became president despite getting fewer popular votes than Al Gore. In 2016, the same thing happened: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but Donald Trump became president. There were three other similar situations, all during in the 1800s. 

While there have been many proposals to reform or eliminate the Electoral College altogether, none have succeeded, and doing so would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.