5th District candidates Hayes, Sullivan condemn racist attack

The major candidates in Connecticut’s most competitive congressional district race agreed Thursday night that racial hate needs to be eradicated from its hiding places after U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes was targeted by racist Zoom bombers earlier this week.

Hayes, the first Black congresswoman elected in Connecticut, and GOP challenger David X. Sullivan, of New Fairfield, eviscerated the racist Zoom bombing during a debate sponsored by the NAACP branches of the 5th District.

“What happened to Jahana Hayes Monday was terrible and totally unacceptable,” said Sullivan, a retired federal prosecutor who teaches criminal justice at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. “I called for Wolcott police and Newtown police to investigate … to find the coward who did this horrible thing. Racism is not the American way.”

Sullivan was referring to the hijacking of a Zoom

meeting Hayes hosted on Monday for Newtown voters when a Zoom bomber said “shut up n-word” to Hayes. Hayes took the high road by smiling and apologizing to her constituents as her staff muted the attacker.

Then three more racist attacks came in what Hayes called “six minutes of vile disgusting…deplorable, hate.”

During Thursday’s NAACP debate, Hayes said leaders need to “stop blowing dog whistles” and using “code talk” that allows racism to live in the shadows.

“We hear so many people saying ‘all lives matter’ and ‘we are the same’ and that is true,” said Hayes. “But you can’t solve this problem if you ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist.”

The unified stance against racism was the only moment of solidarity between Hayes and Sullivan during the 90-minute debate about urban issues in the 5th District, sponsored by NAACP chapters in Danbury, Waterbury, New Britain and Meriden and Wallingford.

“When people ask me why I am talking about rioting, it’s because people want safety in their homes and in their communities,” said Sullivan, who has been campaigning for 15 months but lags behind Hayes by $1 million in fundraising. “We’ve had $2 billion in property damage and lives taken (due to civil unrest). The rule of law is rule of law.”

Hayes disagreed.

“One of the candidates here is asking to you stand with law and order and police or with social unrest — and the choice is not one or the other,” said Hayes, whose husband is a Waterbury police detective. “The Black community also stands with police but the Black community wants to be policed equitably and justly.”

Hayes, the 2016 national Teacher of the Year who is favored to win a second term by leading forecasters, is campaigning as a uniter who brings all voices to the table because she says she listens to everyone.

Sullivan, who is trying to be the first Republican since 2006 to represent northwest and central Connecticut, could also be the only GOP member of Connecticut’s all-Democratic congressional delegation if he pulls off an upset on Nov. 3.

Hayes and Sullivan are not alone in the race. Third party candidate Bruce Walczak, of Newtown, is waging an unfunded and last-minute campaign on the Independent Party line.

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