{"id":103987,"date":"2018-09-17T08:12:55","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T12:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=103987"},"modified":"2018-09-17T08:15:23","modified_gmt":"2018-09-17T12:15:23","slug":"why-are-there-so-many-lgbtq-republican-candidates-in-connecticut-this-election-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=103987","title":{"rendered":"Why are there so many LGBTQ Republican candidates in Connecticut this election cycle?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_103989\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180914-connecticut-state-capitol-building-al-1321_db2acd0c0035968d9ce661a1d2886424.fit-2000w.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-103989\" class=\"wp-image-103989 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180914-connecticut-state-capitol-building-al-1321_db2acd0c0035968d9ce661a1d2886424.fit-2000w-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180914-connecticut-state-capitol-building-al-1321_db2acd0c0035968d9ce661a1d2886424.fit-2000w-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180914-connecticut-state-capitol-building-al-1321_db2acd0c0035968d9ce661a1d2886424.fit-2000w-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180914-connecticut-state-capitol-building-al-1321_db2acd0c0035968d9ce661a1d2886424.fit-2000w-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/180914-connecticut-state-capitol-building-al-1321_db2acd0c0035968d9ce661a1d2886424.fit-2000w.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-103989\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Six gay people, five men and one woman, are running as Republicans for seats in the Connecticut General Assembly. Rolf Schulten \/ ullstein bild via Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h1 class=\"headline___CuovH f8 f9-m fw3 mb3 mt0 founders-cond lh-none f10-xl\">Six gay candidates are running in Connecticut \u2014 as Republicans<\/h1>\n<h3 class=\"dekSummary___GcgCT f4 f5-m f6-l f7-xl publico-hed lh-copy fw3 ls-normal mb3 mb6-m\">The vast majority of LGBTQ candidates run as Democrats, but political hopefuls are bucking the trend in Connecticut this election cycle.<\/h3>\n<p>NBC News<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0<a class=\" vilynx_listened\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/morning-joe\/watch\/-rainbow-wave-of-lgbtq-candidates-running-in-18-1295456323567?v=railb&amp;\">record number<\/a>\u00a0of openly LGBTQ candidates are seeking office across the country this election cycle, and the vast majority are Democrats. But there\u2019s one state that\u2019s bucking the trend.<\/p>\n<p>In Connecticut, six gay people are running as Republicans for seats in the state\u2019s General Assembly, underscoring the state\u2019s reputation for producing a \u201cdifferent breed\u201d of Republican. In contrast, there are only two openly gay Democrats running for office in the state.<\/p>\n<h5 class=\"medium___16lj6\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><picture class=\"theimg___1sY8s\"><source srcset=\"http:\/\/media2.s-nbcnews.com\/j\/newscms\/2018_37\/2566751\/180914-john-scott-ew-143p_309d8ac7d6d88695db6312f9f7332440.fit-560w.jpg\" media=\"(min-width: 1000px)\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media2.s-nbcnews.com\/j\/newscms\/2018_37\/2566751\/180914-john-scott-ew-143p_309d8ac7d6d88695db6312f9f7332440.fit-760w.jpg\" alt=\"John Scott, a Republican candidate for the Connecticut General Assembly's 40th District, talks to constituents.\" \/><\/picture><span class=\"mr3\">John Scott, a Republican candidate for the Connecticut General Assembly&#8217;s 40th District, talks to constituents.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"f2 ls-tight gray-80 ws-tight founders-mono dib\">Courtesy John Scott<\/span><\/h5>\n<p>The six GOP candidates \u2014 five men and one woman \u2014 are challenging LGBTQ political trends. According to a 2016\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2016\/10\/25\/lesbian-gay-and-bisexual-voters-remain-a-solidly-democratic-bloc\/\">Pew Research Center report<\/a>, 82 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual registered voters identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party, up from 79 percent in 2013. And an NBC News exit poll conducted during the 2016 presidential election found 78 percent of LGBTQ voters cast their ballot for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, while just 14 percent voted for Republican Donald Trump \u2014 approximately half the percentage that voted for John McCain, the Republican nominee in 2008.<\/p>\n<section class=\"embedWidget medium___Qn3DV\">\n<div class=\"usePresentation___EGHVR\">\n<div id=\"embed-20180914-exit-poll-trump-lgbt\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/dataviz.nbcnews.com\/projects\/20180914-exit-poll-trump-lgbt\/index.html?initialWidth=560&amp;childId=embed-20180914-exit-poll-trump-lgbt&amp;parentTitle=Six%20gay%20candidates%20are%20running%20in%20Connecticut%20%E2%80%94%20as%20Republicans&amp;parentUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Fsix-gay-candidates-running-connecticut-republicans-n909701\" width=\"100%\" height=\"472px\" frameborder=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>Most of the gay Republican candidates come from the northern and eastern parts of Connecticut \u2014 traditionally conservative areas \u2014 including John Scott of Mystic, 48, who served one previous term in the Connecticut General Assembly. Scott is again running for the state\u2019s 40th District, which covers Groton and Mystic on the state\u2019s eastern coast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot once was I ever discriminated against in the Capitol; both parties were open and affirming,\u201d Scott said. The Republican minority leader of the Connecticut House of Representatives, Themis Klarides, even announced Scott\u2019s marriage on the floor, which led to a standing ovation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always said that Connecticut Republicans are just a different animal, a different breed of Republicans,\u201d Scott told NBC News. \u201cWe are fiscally conservative and socially liberal; we want a state that people can afford to live in and afford to stay in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scott\u2019s platform is focused on Connecticut\u2019s growing budget deficit and the \u201cmass exodus\u201d from the state.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.courant.com\/business\/hc-biz-connecticut-population-20171221-story.html\">According to The Hartford Courant<\/a>, 22,000 people moved out of the state from July 1, 2016, to July 1, 2017, while the population grew by 499 people, compounding the state&#8217;s budget woes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn order for me to be successful, I need other small businesses to form and be successful in the state of Connecticut, and that\u2019s what we need to change,\u201d Scott said. \u201cLast year we lost over $600 million in tax revenue because people are leaving the state of Connecticut.\u201d<\/p>\n<h5 class=\"portrait___DEdHw medium___16lj6\"><picture class=\"theimg___1sY8s\"><source srcset=\"http:\/\/media1.s-nbcnews.com\/j\/newscms\/2018_37\/2566756\/180914-aj-kerouac-brooklyn-ew-141p_309d8ac7d6d88695db6312f9f7332440.fit-560w.jpg\" media=\"(min-width: 1000px)\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media1.s-nbcnews.com\/j\/newscms\/2018_37\/2566756\/180914-aj-kerouac-brooklyn-ew-141p_309d8ac7d6d88695db6312f9f7332440.fit-760w.jpg\" alt=\"Connecticut General Assembly Republican candidate for District 50 AJ Kerouac.\" \/><\/picture><span class=\"mr3\">A.J. Kerouac, a Republican running in Connecticut General Assembly District 50.<\/span><span class=\"f2 ls-tight gray-80 ws-tight founders-mono dib\">Courtesy AJ Kerouac<\/span><\/h5>\n<p>A.J. Kerouac, another openly gay Republican candidate, is running for the state\u2019s 50th District in the state House. Kerouac, a distant relative of novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, hails from Brooklyn, Connecticut, a town in the state\u2019s far northeast known as the \u201cquiet corner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kerouac, 31, was just 15 when he founded his high school\u2019s Gay-Straight Alliance chapter. He attributed Connecticut\u2019s accepting culture, in part, with enabling him to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Kerouac, who previously served on Brooklyn&#8217;s Planning and Zoning Commission, said he decided to run for state office because of the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nhregister.com\/connecticut\/article\/Jack-Kerouac-relative-seeks-political-office-in-11316974.php\">disastrous policies<\/a>\u201d coming out of Hartford, the state\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s to the point where you look at something and you say, \u2018I know that I can do better than this,\u2019\u201d he told NBC News.<\/p>\n<p>As for running as a Republican, Kerouac, like Scott, said politics are different in Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe majority of our Democrats are a little more conservative than most Democrats in the country, and most of our Republicans are a little liberal than most of the Republicans in our country,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo we really can find that middle ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Connecticut\u2019s other openly gay candidates include Ken Richards of Groton, Mary Fay of West Hartford, Robert Smedley of New Britain and Shaun Mastroianni of Stonington.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats currently have a slim majority in the Connecticut General Assembly, but Gregory T. Angelo, president of the national conservative group Log Cabin Republicans, is optimistic that the LGBTQ Republican candidates will fare well in November \u2014 especially considering the unpopularity of the outgoing Democratic governor, Dannel Malloy, and the state\u2019s budget woes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only thing that has kept Democrats in power in Connecticut in those circumstances is identity politics,\u201d Angelo said. \u201cWhat the Connecticut GOP has brilliantly done in aggressively recruiting a full slate of gay Republican candidates is cutting Democrats off at their knees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/feature\/nbc-out\/six-gay-candidates-running-connecticut-republicans-n909701\">http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/feature\/nbc-out\/six-gay-candidates-running-connecticut-republicans-n909701<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}