Republicans in northwest-and-central Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District are in an increasingly bitter fight for the nomination to face 4-term incumbent Rep. Jahana Hayes in November. Primary Day is Tuesday (and early voting continues through Sunday).
GOP-endorsed Chris Shea, a firefighter and former Navy SEAL, calls opponent Jonathan De Barros a political arsonist, citing social media posts attacking other influential state Republicans. Shea is also reminding voters that De Barros spent 19 years in prison for a shooting that killed one young man and wounded another—although De Barros claimed self-defense and eventually received a pardon.
“There’s two people in the race,” says Shea. “One has the history, myself, of serving the country, serving my community… just a record of service, and he has a record of serving time.”
De Barros claims that Shea and the state Republican Party fear he might win the primary, so they’re going beyond reasonable bounds to take him down. He’s suing four party activists for what he calls a “smear campaign” at this year's state Republican convention, claiming they falsely referred to him as “a murderer.”
“They lied about me at the convention,” says De Barros, “to sway some of the delegate vote away from me, and I still ended up with 22 percent of the vote (enough to qualify for the primary).”
“They had no problem with me door-knocking for them, helping their candidates get elected, taking my money. But soon as I decided to be a candidate myself, everything that they say that the Democrats are going to do with me in the general election, they’re doing to me.”
The winner will take on Hayes, who’s won four straight close elections in the closely-divided 5th District. Shea describes her as too liberal for the area she serves.
“One of the key things to know about Jahana is that she kind of poses herself as a moderate,” explains Shea, “but if you look at her voting record, they rank her three to the left of AOC—418 out of 435—that doesn’t sound like a moderate to me at all.”
De Barros, who is Black, says he’s been campaigning in cities including Waterbury, Danbury and New Britain and says he’s the right man to successfully influence urban voters to vote Republican in November.
He also believes he can win Tuesday and says the criticism leveled at him from within the Republican Party will help him prepare to challenge Hayes, saying, “I have no problem with the attacks that the Democrats have planned for me. The training ground right now is my own party attacking me.”
The Republican nominee will face an uphill climb in the general election. The Cook Political report rates CT-5 as “solid D,” meaning Hayes “shouldn’t be in any danger of losing reelection.”
