Democratic Representative Chris Murphy, who won his seat in 2006 and reelection in 2008, currently holds the state of Connecticut’s fifth congressional district. Murphy is now seeking his second reelection against Republican nominee Sam Caligiuri. This is a race to watch, because even though Caligiuri is the clear underdog, there is a seemingly large chance that he may win election. There things that are working in favor and against both candidates, and for that reason it is hard to call the race as of right now
For Representative Murphy it is easy to see what is helping him run for reelection, the major thing in his favor is that he is an incumbent. While this helps him it also works against him a bit as there is an anti-incumbent movement. Another thing working in the favor of Rep. Murphy is that as of June 30th he has raised almost $2.1 million, but also at the same time has only spent a small amount of his funds.
The same goes for Sam Caligiuri, there are also factors working in his favor one being the rating of the Democratic party in the polls and Rep. Murphys voting history, with the Democratic party’s approval rating dipping down and Rep. Murphy voting with the party 98% of the time this can only help Caligiuri by backing up his claim that he is going to bring change for the fifth district. A major thing working against Caligiuri is the fact the he has yet to raise half the funds of Rep. Murphy has. In my opinion if Caligiuri wants to overcome the incumbent factor in favor for Rep. Murphy he needs to out spend him.
In all there are many reasons as to why we should keep an eye on Connecticut’s fifth congressional district. The main reason being that both candidates have factors working in their favor like for Rep. Murphy, were almost 90% of all incumbents are reelected, and for Caligiuri the thing working in his favor is that he is change from the increasingly more unpopular Democratic Party. With polls being so close Rep. Murphy 41% and Caligiuri 39% this is a district to keep an eye on to see if Connecticut will get a Republican representative.
I grew up in the 5th district of Connecticut and so am very interested in following this race. Murphy has always seemed charming and he does have the incumbent advantage so it should be interesting to see if he is able to hold his seat yet again, particularly because this is projected to be such a big year for Republicans. I look forward to following this blog!
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