Incumbent DeLauro fights back in 16th race

A well-financed Republican candidate has made Rosa DeLauro’s 16th campaign for Congress one of the toughest in her career.

Both Republican Margaret Streicker and DeLauro, the congressional 3rd District incumbent have released contentious ads against each other.

DeLauro, 77, a Democrat whose winning percentage hasn’t fallen below 60 percent since her first two campaigns in 1990 and 1992, said this race reminds her of those years.

“I started with Tom Scott … and that was a mean and really nasty campaign,” she said. She won in 1990, 52-48 percent, and hasn’t looked back. Her largest margin was in 2008, which like this year was a three-way contest, when she won more than 77 percent of the vote.

“This is a race … where my Republican opponent has unlimited financial resources. She can pour into her campaign any amount of personal money that she likes,” DeLauro said. “For me, that means what we have to look forward to is what we are doing about campaign finance reform.”

“She’s done nothing but attack ads,” DeLauro said. Let me just be clear. My husband, Stan, and I inherited nothing but our education and our values, unlike my opponent, who has inherited millions of dollars.”

But the attack got more personal during Thursday’s debate, during a question about DeLauro’s support for removing the Christopher Columbus statue from Wooster Square Park, when Streicker addressed DeLauro in Italian. In an email Friday, Streicker said her words translated as, “Wait a second Rosa. What are you doing? After everything, you’ve forgotten where you come from.”

DeLauro, who grew up in the heavily ItalianAmerican neighborhood, shot back, “I would ask my Republican opponent to not impugn my sense of my Italian-American heritage. You have no idea nor are you competent to discuss my roots, my community and my feelings with regard to that community.”

Green Party candidate Justin Paglino stayed above

Contributed photo U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro