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I talked with Eliott Hughes on Friday. Eliott’s the Republican running for state Senate in the 3rd District — East Hartford, East Windsor, Ellington and South Windsor — against the incumbent, Democrat Saud Anwar. He’s an engineer and executive, close to 30 years at places like Northrop Grumman, Hartford HealthCare and Aetna/CVS, and he’s raised three kids in South Windsor. Right now, though, he’s just a guy knocking doors.
And at one of those doors, a voter told him flat out they couldn’t vote for a Republican. Why? Because Trump has to lose the House and the Senate.
Sit with that for a second.
First, let’s do the plumbing. Connecticut doesn’t even have a U.S. Senate race this year. Richard Blumenthal isn’t up until 2028, Chris Murphy not until 2030. And a seat in the state Senate has exactly zero votes in the United States Congress. Eliott could win by a thousand votes or lose by a thousand, and nothing in Washington moves. Not an inch. So that voter was ready to hand two more years of control over their property taxes, their electric bill and their kid’s school to the same people who’ve had it for years — to send a message to a man who isn’t on the ballot, through an office that can’t reach him.
That’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. I’m not saying that to insult anybody. I’m saying it because a whole lot of good people in this state are making the very same trade and don’t even notice.Here’s the psychology, the way I see it. Washington is loud. Trump is loud. Every night on cable there’s a fight you can join from your couch, and voting against the guy you can’t stand feels like doing something. Hartford? Hartford is quiet. Nobody’s cutting a viral clip about the spending cap, or the public benefits charge. So the national grudge gets the vote and the kitchen table gets the bill. People punish the man who doesn’t run their state and rehire the folks who do.
So let’s talk about who does run it.
Democrats hold 102 of 151 seats in the state House and 25 of 36 in the Senate. That’s two-thirds of both chambers. They don’t need a single Republican to pass a budget. Whatever’s going right, or wrong, with the things Connecticut government controls, there’s one return address on the envelope.
And what does it control? Your state and local tax burden, for starters. The Tax Foundation pegs Connecticut at 15.4 percent of income, second-worst in the country behind only New York, and $12,151 a person, the highest per-capita bill of all 50 states. Our effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes is 1.36 percent, fifth-highest. South Carolina’s is 0.44. Tennessee, 0.46. North Carolina, 0.62. Our income tax runs from 2 percent up to 6.99. On January 1, North Carolina finished cutting to a flat 3.99. Florida, Texas and Tennessee don’t tax your paycheck at all.
Now the electric bill. Federal data for July has Connecticut homes paying 24.16 cents a kilowatt-hour. National average, 18.31. Florida and North Carolina, about 15. To be fair, ours came down from 27.60 a year earlier, and the Governor’s been happy to take credit. But don’t take my word on how deep the hole is. Take his. Ned Lamont, Sept. 8: “We’ve had the highest electric prices in the country going back 50 years.”Fifty years. Is that Trump too?
Because listen to how they talk these days. In January the Governor told reporters, “We still have a three-alarm fire,” and “We’ve got a federal government, we’ve got a White House, that can pull the plug on virtually no notice at all.” In May, on his Federal Cuts Response Fund, $500 million carved out of our reserves: “We created this fund to provide a safety net for the people and businesses being harmed by the Trump administration.” In August, at a brewery in North Haven, talking Canada tariffs and what they could do to electric prices, he said he was “just trying to give people a sense of context where these costs are coming from.”
Ryan Fazio, the man running against him, answered that in one sentence: “neither I nor the governor are running to hold positions with power over trade policies.”
That’s the ballgame, folks. Now, I’ll grant the Governor this much: tariffs cost something. But tariffs hit every state in the union. So does the Fed, so does the national debt, so does whatever comes out of the White House on a Tuesday. If the man in Washington were the reason Connecticut is so expensive, every state would be living what we’re living.
They aren’t. And this is where it stops being an argument and turns into arithmetic.
Same president. Same Washington. Same tariffs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says Connecticut’s unemployment rate in August was 5.1 percent, a full point above the national 4.1 and up from 4.1 a year ago — the biggest over-the-year jump of any state in America. Over that same year North Carolina went from 3.9 down to 3.5. South Carolina, 4.6 down to 4.1. Tennessee’s sitting at 3.4. North Carolina added 65,600 payroll jobs in twelve months, South Carolina 38,600, Texas 159,400.And look at where the people went. Between July 2024 and July 2025, the Census Bureau says North Carolina gained 84,064 residents from other states. Texas gained 67,299. South Carolina gained 66,622 and grew faster than any state in the country. Tennessee gained 42,389. Connecticut lost about 6,000 to domestic migration, mostly out of the southwestern part of the state.
Look, it’s not some alternate universe down there. They’ve got the same president you’ve got. They just don’t have the same government.
The money follows them, too. The IRS tracks moves by tax return. In the latest year it’s published, Connecticut lost a net $810 million in adjusted gross income to Florida alone, about $147 million to South Carolina and $143 million to North Carolina. Go back to Trump’s first term and it’s the same story: roughly a billion dollars a year in net income headed to Florida. Different presidents, different parties. The moving trucks kept pointing the same direction.
Here’s the part my side doesn’t always want to say out loud: Democrats are leaving too.
The UNH Nutmeg State Poll in July found 40 percent of Connecticut residents say they’re likely to move out within five years, and 84 percent say the state isn’t affordable. Conservatives were the most likely to go, around 65 percent. But roughly 29 percent of moderates, liberals and progressives said it too. Sacred Heart’s September poll put it at 27 percent of registered voters who may leave, including nearly one in five Democrats. And the top reason, by a wide margin, was the high cost of living.
Think about that. Plenty of folks voting to send Trump a message from Connecticut are going to be doing their next voting from the Carolinas.So what did Hartford do with the money this year? The legislature passed a roughly $28 billion budget in May. No rebate. No broad tax cut. The CT Mirror reported it slid under the spending cap by $600,000 — after the cap was raised $85 million and more than $960 million in hospital payments got moved outside the formal budget. Senate Republicans offered a $750 million income tax cut on the three lowest brackets. Party-line vote, 25 to 11. Dead. And Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney held up the whole package as Connecticut’s answer to Washington: “It is our own ‘One Big Beautiful Bill.’”
You can’t make this up. Even the brag was about Trump.
About $55 million of that GOP tax cut would have been covered by ending state-funded health coverage for children and postpartum mothers without legal immigration status. Connecticut pays the full cost of that program, no federal match. The state estimated $41 million for fiscal 2025. When it launched, officials predicted 4,250 kids would sign up. By April 2024 it was 11,000. You can think that’s compassionate, and plenty of good people do. But you can’t call it something Trump did to you. Hartford chose it, Hartford funds it, and when the chance came to trade it for a tax cut for lower- and middle-income filers, Hartford said no.
That’s the accountability case. It isn’t complicated. You punish the people who are in power and responsible for what’s hurting you. Not the guy you’re mad at on TV.
If your electric bill has been among the highest in America for 50 years, look at who’s been writing the energy policy. If your property tax is fifth-highest, look at who sets the formulas and the mandates. And if your kids are getting priced out of the town they grew up in? Ask who’s been holding two-thirds of the legislature. A protest vote aimed at Washington lets every one of them off the hook. They know it, too. Why do you think so many of these press conferences end with the word Trump?Now, in fairness, the Comptroller’s office says Connecticut’s GDP grew at a 3 percent pace this spring, seventh-fastest in the country. The Labor Commissioner calls our economy “steady and stable.” Okay. So which is it? A three-alarm fire set by the White House, or steady and stable? If it’s steady and stable under this president, then this president isn’t why your family can’t afford to stay. And if it’s a fire, the folks in Hartford have been holding the hose a long, long time.
The folks who listen to me know I don’t care what party you’re registered in. I care whether your vote does what you want it to do. When Eliott Hughes or somebody like him shows up at your door, ask yourself one question: who actually sends me the bill? Hint: they don’t work in Washington. They work in the building on Capitol Avenue.
Vote for the kitchen table. Your kids would like to live here too.
Stay in the fight.
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