In Connecticut’s race for the U.S. Senate, one of the most talked-about issues is Richard Blumenthal’s long history in government. Leora Levy, who is running against him as a Republican, says that he is a career politician who always agrees with President Joe Biden. But the Democratic senator doesn’t try to hide the fact that he has been in office for decades.
Blumenthal is running against Levy for a third term in the Senate. His campaign is based on how he has voted and what he has done in the legislature. Levy has never run for office before, but she knows a lot about politics because she raises money for the Republican Party and is a member of the Republican National Committee.
Since he first got into politics, the senator has always worked hard and campaigned quickly. Blumenthal, who is 76, goes to multiple events every day all over the state, whether it is an election year or not. He is now one of the most well-known politicians in Connecticut because of this.
Blumenthal has been in office since 1984, and he easily won his last two Senate races, even though his first opponent spent tens of millions of dollars of her own money against him.
He said that his parents were the main reason he decided to work for the public good.
My dad came to this country in 1935, when he was 18, to escape persecution in Germany. In an interview, Blumenthal said, “This country gave him a chance to do well.” “All the time I was growing up, my parents told me and my brother that we had to give back to a country that had given us so much. They also showed us how to do it.”
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Before he was in government, Blumenthal went to law school and served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. When he was 31, President Jimmy Carter appointed him to be the top federal prosecutor in the state. But he has been a public servant for most of his working life.
From 1984 to 1991, he was a member of both houses of the Connecticut General Assembly. Then, for 20 years, he was the state attorney general. After that, he moved to the federal government.
Blumenthal said that, even though he is at a different point in his career, he has always focused on protecting consumers during his nearly 40 years in government.
Nobody knows how to get out the vote like New Haven!
Polls open in a few hours and it’s all hands on deck. pic.twitter.com/quIIyhu2qj
— Ned Lamont (@NedLamont) November 8, 2022
As attorney general, Blumenthal led a group of 46 states in a lawsuit against tobacco companies. They claimed that the companies were misleading about smoking, which led to a big settlement. Some of his other work was similar to what he did in the Senate, like making sure MySpace and Facebook were safe to use online and fighting Microsoft’s attempts to control the market.
From Connecticut to Washington
Blumenthal was first elected to the Senate in a year when Republicans won a lot of seats. In 2010, the Tea Party movement helped the GOP win back the majority in the House.
Blumenthal’s win was one of the few bright spots for Democrats that year, even though Republican Linda McMahon spent $50 million to defeat him. After he said the wrong thing about serving in Vietnam, his opponent also attacked him. He’s sorry that people misunderstood him.
In 2016, Blumenthal was re-elected by a larger margin of more than 10 points. This was another good year for Republicans, as Donald Trump was elected president. Blumenthal was the first person to get more than 1 million votes in a statewide race in Connecticut.
Polls for the Nov. 8 election show that Blumenthal is likely to win by a large margin again. However, the fact that he spent a lot of money against an opponent who had less money and had been off the air for weeks could be a sign that the race will be closer. Blumenthal says he works “like I’m 10 points behind” no matter what.
Blumenthal said that since he first got involved in politics and government, “one regrettable change” has been the growing divide between the two parties.
“When I was attorney general, we did many cases that involved more than one state. We never asked if the new members were Republicans or Democrats. All of them came from both parties,” Blumenthal said. “I’ve heard that the Senate used to be like that,” he said.
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The senator often talks about the work he has done with his Republican colleagues over the past two terms. This includes his efforts to get more help for Ukraine as Russia continues its invasion, to increase benefits for veterans who were exposed to burn pits and toxins while serving in Afghanistan and Iraq and to make social media safer for kids.
Blumenthal said, “I think we need to stop insulting each other and work to bring the country together.”
Senate Record
Blumenthal has been involved in both domestic and international issues since he joined the Senate. He worked for a bill to make guns safer that was led by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut. He has also spoken out against Russia’s invasion and Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut oil production. He is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In the last 12 years, Blumenthal has been a part of both the majority and the minority in the Senate. However, when Biden took office in early 2021, it was the first time he got to serve in a unified government, even if it didn’t have much power.
The 50-50 split in the Senate has made it harder and sunk many Democratic goals, but the party has also passed some of its most important bills. Blumenthal said it was “a bit of a political miracle” that the Democrats’ broad bill on health care, climate change, and tax policy, the Inflation Reduction Act, was passed.
Great to visit the NAACP convention today- proud to be fighting for you! #CTSen pic.twitter.com/dY6esD4lAH
— Richard Blumenthal (@DickBlumenthal) November 5, 2022
It is rare for the party in power to make big changes to the law months before an election, especially when the majority is in danger. But after a lot of talks and what looked like the end of the party’s economic plans, Democrats came together around the Inflation Reduction Act and passed it in August.
Blumenthal has wanted for a long time for Medicare to be able to negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs, which is a big part of the bill. It will be used for the first time on 10 drugs in 2026, and the number will grow each year until 2029. Starting in 2026, these out-of-pocket costs will be capped at $2,000 per year. Eventually, he wants to make this law apply to more people than just seniors.
In 2010, that was a big deal for me. Before that, it was a big deal for me. Many of us have thought about it a lot over the years,” Blumenthal said. “And, finally, getting Medicare negotiations done is a big deal,” she said.
But other things might have to wait. If Blumenthal is re-elected, but his party loses either or both of its majorities, Republicans will make it hard for Democrats in Congress to get much done.
Many legislative efforts are likely to be slowed down by a divided government. Republicans can block bills or stop them from coming up, and Biden can veto them.
Levy Playing Catch-up
On the campaign trail, Blumenthal mostly talks about himself and doesn’t say much about Levy. But in an interview with CT Mirror and during the only Senate debate, he spent a lot of time pointing out the differences between them, whether it was about abortion rights, gun reform, or spending cuts that could hurt Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Levy has said bad things about her opponent’s policies on everything from crime rates to the cost of living to the safety of the border. At the debate on Wednesday, she said that Blumenthal was a “rubber stamp” for the Biden administration and that voters wanted a new face.
The two candidates’ styles are very different, and they have different views on most issues. She has been on the campaign trail much less than Blumenthal. The fact that they both live in Greenwich is one of the few things they have in common.
WWII vet William Marinara was a true hero—a son of Waterbury who fought in North Africa, Italy, Normandy & Germany, receiving 7 battle stars & numerous medals & the Presidential Unit Citation. I was proud to join Waterbury vets in presenting a medal case to his widow Lauretta. pic.twitter.com/9ZwaFNDhot
— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) November 5, 2022
Levy, who is 65 years old, worked as a commodities trader before she got into politics. During the Castro regime, her Jewish family left Cuba in the 1960s. She was also nominated by Trump in 2019 to be the U.S. ambassador to Chile, but the Senate, which was then controlled by the GOP, never took a vote on it.
In the past few months, Levy has done a better job of raising money, but Blumenthal has had a long time to raise money. Levy has put her own money into the race and borrowed almost $1.2 million from herself. But it is only a tiny part of what the Republican candidate in Blumenthal’s 2010 race paid for himself.
Levy has gotten support from some national party leaders who could run for president in 2024, like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, but it doesn’t look like their political action committees are spending money to promote her.
A super PAC that backs Levy’s campaign gives her the most help, even more than her own campaign. Since she won the primary in August, Connecticut Patriots PAC spent almost $2 million on TV ads, digital ads, and direct mail in the last month of the general election to help her win.
My opponent has been a politician since 1969 when Nixon was in office. “He is a career politician who doesn’t care about real people,” Levy said in a statement. “Connecticut is ready for new leaders with new ideas to take over in Washington, and they know I represent a return to common sense. I will fight to stop wasting money, bring down the prices of food and energy, and make life affordable again.”
Still, Levy has a hard time winning the race because the last time a Republican won a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut was in 1982 when Lowell Weicker was re-elected. In 2020, President Biden beat Trump by 20 points in this state.
Because the former president is running, some analysts don’t see it as a traditional vote for or against the party in power. Blumenthal has made a similar point by pointing out that Trump and Levy both back each other.
Levy has tried to make less of the fact that Trump backed her a few days before the Republican primary. Trump hasn’t gone to Connecticut to campaign for her, but he did hold a fundraiser for her at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to help her raise money in the last few weeks. But Levy says that people will vote for Biden in the end because of his policies.
A political science professor at the University of Connecticut, Paul Herrnson, said that the political climate is unusual for a midterm election. “It’s a little different because, in a way, former President Trump has put himself on the agenda,” said some voters.
“It seems like they’re choosing between what the Trump administration is in charge of and what the Biden administration is in charge of,” he said. “But since Biden is president, he owns the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Blumenthal’s Political Future
Will he keep running? Blumenthal won’t say anything about what’s going to happen next.
Blumenthal said that he is focused on “this campaign” when asked if this will be his last run or if he will run again.
If Blumenthal wins on Nov. 8, he will be 82 years old when his six-year term is over. But lawmakers are staying in office for longer. On average, senators are 64 years old.
“I’m going to keep working as if the lives of the people of Connecticut depend on the outcome,” he said. In some ways, they might.
Blumenthal hopes to leave his mark on Washington in the next six years, but some people see his career as a whole as someone who thinks the government can help people.
Herrnson said, “In a way, his legacy may be that the government is here to make people’s lives better.” “No, not socialism, but the idea that the government can do good things.”
