The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Once divided, 3 towns may now see eye to eye Bubbles amid the old stone walls
One’s a classic Connecticut farm town with a fresh influx of New York-focused young parents.
Another is a down-at-the-heels Naugatuck Valley city, a former mill town trying to remake itself for the 21st Century amid the ruins and remnants of the industrialized 20th.
The third is a shoreline city of mixed incomes divided, politically and culturally, by neighborhood proximity to Long Island Sound, the Boston Post Road and Interstate-95.
What Easton, Ansonia and Milford have in common is that voters
there were equally split between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race. And while the coronavirus pandemic has cut down on partisan public displays and potential confrontations, Ansonia and Milford have added more Registered Democrats than Republicans over the last four years; and Easton has lost Republicans as it picked up Democrats.
Election Day on Nov. 3 will show residents where they, and their neighbors, stand in the contentious campaign of 2020 and beyond.
Easton is known as a quiet old
agricultural community of about 7,500, with few traffic lights and only a handful of retail businesses.
Police are currently on the lookout for the perpetrators of a string of “Trump” graffiti tags spraypainted on the pavement at various intersections around town.
Another local controversy is over a proposed crosswalk at the intersection of Center Road and state Route 136, near the historic Congregational Church of Easton and the landmark Greiser’s coffee shop, antique store, gas station and post office, all of which share a tiny parking lot and rickety tan-painted 220-year-old building.
There’s no downtown to attract residents. Town Hall, the Public Library and Police headquarters are about a half mile from Greiser’s.
The town’s most famous resident, blues-guitar legend Johnny Winter, has become a bit of a permanent destination for fans who leave old recordings, harmonicas and other remembrances at the grave that he has occupied a hillside spot at the historic Union Cemetery, since his death in 2014.
With miles of old stone walls, multi-acre residential zoning and very little commercial activity beyond tree farms, nurseries and — this time of year — corn mazes, the town is necessarily spread out.
In the pandemic, the lack of public places to gather may have increased cultural and political isolation, so residents seem to be sticking close to their political tribes and media bubbles. In 2016, Donald Trump took 2,131 votes here to Hillary Clinton’s 2,203.
But First Selectman David Bindelglass says that a recent bump in home sales, with more young families moving from New York in the pandemic, may shift the demographic more than it has seen in recent years, with a likelihood of a bigger turnout for Joe Biden than for the president.
“We are a well-divided town in a number of ways, so the close vote in 2016 was not surprising,” said Bindelglass, whose 2019 election marked the first time a Democrat became first selectman in about 40 years. “Historically it has been heavily Republican, but it has changed fairly dramatically over the last decade.”
It’s a classic mix of old Yankee and exurbia. “We still have a lot of multigenerational farmers, but there are a lot of people with 10-year-old kids who work on Wall Street. We all love the rural character of the town, the farming culture.”
School funding always sets off “fairly strong” public debate. “We have great schools, but nobody ever wants to pay as much taxes as we pay,” Bindeglass said.
Adrienne Burke, a former New York City journalist who moved to town with her husband 10 years ago and converted the cluttered Greiser’s storefront next to the post office into a coffee shop, lunch stop, general store and art gallery, talked about how the pandemic has brought an influx of new residents.
“When we opened in November 2018 I just prayed we wouldn’t engage in political discussions,” said Burke, a member of the elected library board. “People talk when they come into Greiser’s. In the pandemic, some people, when they come in, they vent. There are dueling lawn signs. But it’s a small town and everyone has friends on the other side.”
She said the close vote in 2016 was surprising, but a sign of the changing demographics included the 2018 election of Democratic state Rep. Anne Hughes, one of the most left-leaning members of the Democraticdominated General Assembly.
Declining to say who she will support on Election Day, Burke said the some bubbles in town seem bound to burst.
And the shift in registration might indicate higher support for Biden. As of last month the town had 177 fewer registered Republicans than in 2016, and 193 more registered Democrats.
Mill town divide
It’s 4 o’clock on a weekday afternoon and Main Street in Ansonia is quiet, to say the least.
Toward the north loom the hulking brick ruins of the old metal fabricators that defined the bustling Naugatuck Valley of 100 years ago, whose legacy now is the expensive environmental cleanups that are obstacles to 21st Century economic development.
A short walk to the south, amid empty storefronts and a jewelry company with no customers, there’s a lone volunteer holding down the fort at Democratic headquarters amid a dozen tables piled with campaign literature for U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, state Rep. Kara Rochelle and Jorge Cabrera, who is challenging Republican state Sen. George Logan.
A man parks his car in front of Pooch Pizazz dog groomers, walks up to the door cradling his little Yorkshire terrier and puts it in the arms of the attendant, who takes it back inside.
The only real activity seems to be the occasional customer walking up or down the front steps of the historic U.S. Post Office. This city of 18,650 split nearly down the middle in 2016, with 3,532 votes for Clinton and 3,621 for Trump.
“It’s a 50-50 shot for Biden or Trump,” said Mayor David Cassetti, a Republican who has led the city since the 2013 election. “I think Trump may prevail. I think the minorities are leaning toward Biden, and we’re currently 28 percent minority with 30 percent on fixed incomes.”
The divide in political support may be illustrated by the distance of homes up and away from the Naugatuck River, with the aptly named Hilltop neighborhood solid Trump supporters, Cassetti said.
Declining to say for whom he will cast his vote, Cassetti said that his administration has stressed “inclusion,” from the new statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., to seeking wider input on the direction of city business development.
Cassetti’s trying to help turn the faded city center into a regional restaurant destination. “We have the best Main Street in the Valley,” he said.
But the obvious divide is present in the compact 6-square-mile city straddling the Naugatuck River.
“People are very quiet about the election,” said Cassetti, who in his late teens and early 20s was a champion boxer, which taught him discipline and dedication.
“People are pretty civil,” he said of the coming election, acknowledging that the 2016 turnout illustrated the city’s stark, but seemingly peaceful separartion. “They have self-restraint,” he said about residents’ political activity. “I can’t be on either side. My vote is my own personal decision. I don’t have Trump stuff in my office.”
Republicans and Democrats both picked up registered voters over the last four years, slightly more on the Democratic side but not enough to swing the tally by much.
Out of the post office stalks a man, 40ish, in shorts, a musician who said that he can’t find work because he’s a Trump supporter. He adjusted his American flag face mask, swore a few times about Socialists, and got back into his car.
Down the post office steps came James Sherman, a 39-year-old machinist from Liberia who lives with his wife and four kids in an apartment complex near the Quillinan Reservoir. He agreed that people are civil. “It’s a peaceful city. People mind their own business.” He already cast his ballot by mail-in, and admitted that he doesn’t have any friends who are Trump supporters.
A resident of the city for five years, Sherman recalled that in 2016, Trump was essentially a blank slate. “People thought he was a neutral person, not a typical politician, so they voted for him, to try somebody from the outside,” he said. “Now that he’s president, his attitude changed. I used to like him. But once he got power, he turned against what he promised.”
Shoreline battle of signs
Kate Orecchio has seen a lot in the 44 years she and her husband Tom have lived on the Milford Green. Now 84, she was rescuing a wayward hosta the other day from the shade of the now-sprawling cherry tree that they first planted in front of their small house back when they moved in.
Orecchio was asked about the political makeup of this shoreline city of about 53,000, which is bisected by the Post Road and I-95.
A Biden supporter who had already mailed-in her ballot, she was worried that the final days before the election might bring out the worst in partisans. She was surprised that the 2016 election was so close, with 13,598 votes for Clinton and 13,383 for Trump.
“There are some people you can talk to and others you can’t talk to,” Orecchio said. “You talk a little bit and you can find out whether you can have a discussion with them, but at this point, not many people are willing to discuss it. Everyone has made up their minds, so to speak.”
A city resident of nearly 60 years, Orecchio believes that people mostly keep their politics to themselves, but the couple, in a vulnerable demographic in the resurging pandemic, mostly stays at home.
“I’m not going to pick a fight with anybody,” she said, grinning. “One of my good friends voted for Trump. I thought she had more sense, so we don’t discuss it. I think at this point, you’re just chasing dreams. Everybody has already made up their minds. I don’t think anybody is going to change their mind now, unless something even worse happens.”
A couple hundred yards away, across the historic green, is an empty former package store festooned with a variety of Trump election banners, echoing the GOP’s campaign promise to “Keep America Great.”
It’s all a short distance from scenic Milford Harbor, the home to hundreds of watercraft, both high and low-end that sets a cultural tone for what Democratic Mayor Ben Blake calls the longest coastline of any Connecticut town, at 17.5 miles.
“Milford has always been fiercely independent,” said Blake, in his ninth year in office. “It’s been a pretty conservative town.” He said that while Trump reelection signage proliferated early in the campaign, more and more displays for Biden have cropped up.
“The past five elections I ran, I was out-signed by 10-to-1, and while signs don’t vote, they are a sign of energy,” Blake said, quoting some data from city voting officials indicating a surge in mail-in voting from Democrats and unaffiliated voters.
Back before the pandemic, as many as 5,000 city residents took the train to their jobs every day. Now, with more working from home, the grim, 10-year increase in empty office space is finally turning around, as companies realize employees are prepared to work virtually.
North of the Post Road, which bisects the city, residential incomes are about $12,000 less than the side closer to Long Island Sound, which could indicate more support for Democrats.
This year there are 240 more registered Republicans than four years ago, but 1,000 more Democrats and 350 fewer unaffiliated voters.
Back on the green, Amy Riso, 52, another lifelong city resident, stopped on her bike outside a local bank, and said that outside of the partisan campaigns signs, there’s not much evidence of the city’s political split. She has volunteered to work on Election Day at the Harborside Middle School, which she hopes will be calm. She declined to say where her votes will go.
“I’m looking forward to a great election,” she said, cryptically.