Retiring state senator, 27, hopes he inspired next generation
WILTON — Sitting in his dorm room during his senior year at Georgetown University, Will Haskell heard President Barrack Obama’s farewell address and was inspired into action.
As his career as a Connecticut senator has ended and he turns his attention to law school, Haskell, 27, hopes he inspired the next generation.
“I was sitting in my college dorm room when President Obama gave his farewell address and he said, ‘If you’re disappointed in your elected officials, grab a clipboard, go get some signatures and run for office yourself,’ ” Haskell said. “Those words spoke to me.”
In the same way that President Obama’s words perked the ears of a 22-yearold college student, Haskell is calling the next generation to action.
“For you young people, if you are feeling frustrated about the state of our politics, we need your voices. We need you to do more,” Haskell said. “We can’t just complain about the problem, we also have to roll up our sleeves and get to work on solving it.”
And for a lot of those younger people listening to Haskell’s words, he hopes that means they make the “scary decision” to run for public office. And Haskell knows a few things about being scared to run for public office, even after winning.
Despite already having lived in the nation’s capitol for four years while studying at Georgetown, when it came time to to run for office, the Wesport resident knew he had to return home.
“If you’re interested in going into politics because you want to make your community better, you want to improve life for your family, your friends, your neighbors, your town, the best place to do that is your state capitol,” Haskell said. “While I loved D.C., I came to realize that where I could make the biggest impact was actually in Hartford.”
While Connecticut is often thought of as a blue state, Haskell said, he specifically examined issues like free community college, paid family and medical leave and strong gun laws that he wanted to change in the state.
Haskell returned home and started collecting signatures to run in the 2018 midterm elections. Admittedly, he wasn’t sure winning was possible.
First, he had to earn the backing of the local Democrats to secure a primary nomination. Then, he would need to go up against a seasoned politician in Toni Boucher who had held the seat since 2008.
“It was never a huge concern for me that I might lose because I actually thought that I was probably going to lose,” Haskell said. “But it was important to run anyway.”
That didn’t fully quell the internal and external doubts that compounded on the shoulders of a young man who had just tossed his graduation cap a few months earlier.
“To the broader topic of my friends and family, and my own inner voice, saying this isn’t realistic and that nobody would vote for a 22-year-old, my faith was kind of restored, to be honest, by the volunteers who came out for our campaign,” Haskell said.
He noted his excitement at the range of ages who came out to support the movement. While there were many young volunteers who saw themselves in Haskell since he was a member of their generation, he was also appreciative for the older volunteers who were hitching themselves to his wagon. In his initial 2018 campaign, Haskell said, he had one volunteer who was 14 and another who voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt.
But after defeating Boucher in the 2018 election by more than 3,500 votes, that’s when the nerves really set in for Haskell.
“The morning after Election Day, I was in full-on panic mode, because I had been in such a singular mindset of running for office, knocking on doors, texting voters, sending out postcards and all those things, I hadn’t stopped to think, to really think, about what it would look like to win and all of a sudden the weight of this responsibility came crashing down on on me,” Haskell said, admitting that his first few weeks in Hartford were overwhelming.
Having to get his footing quickly, Haskell set out on passing bills on the issues that were the reason he started campaigning. His first big victory, he said, was “fighting like crazy” to help pass a bill for free community college tuition.
Meeting those students throughout his two terms has been one of the most rewarding experiences of his tenure as state senator, he said.
While Haskell felt an obligation to his younger constituents, he said this also helped his older constituents by making the state more appealing for their children and grandchildren who were either thinking about leaving Connecticut or enticed them to return.
After retaining his seat in the 2020 election, Haskell said one of his biggest challenges was adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it was aiding schools and small businesses in attaining personal protective equipment and Plexiglass separators, or helping residents with rental assistance and small business loans, the key was being accessible and responsible to his constituents.
One positive that stemmed from the pandemic was the ability to have more residents participate in public meetings.
“Fairfield County is only an hour away, but it feels like a world away from Hartford and very few of my constituents traditionally would come up and testify in public hearings,” he said. “But now, all of a sudden, they could testify from the comfort of their own home, their desk at work or their kitchen table.”
While the gig was never easy, Haskell said he never disliked his job. He was enjoying it, every aspect, which made the next step so hard.
As he planned to propose to his girlfriend, Haskell had to rethink his engagement to the thousands of other people in his life that demanded his daily attention. He also wanted to go back to school and study law, something that was always one of his goals.
“I wanted to gain a new skillset even though it meant, sadly, that I had to take a step back from I job that I loved and was enjoying and one that I was getting better and better at,” Haskell said.
Haskell will also look to start a new venture along with his law school stint — raising money to support Gen Z public office candidates.
He isn’t closing the door completely to a return to politics, but the timing isn’t right, he said. In saying that, the timing might be exactly right for another hungry college student or young adult looking to make a difference.
“It’s about getting young people on the ballot. They may be scared, God knows I was, but that’s OK,” Haskell said, adding that he wants to see more people of color and young women running for office, “And if they win, oh my God, if nobody else in the capitol has the same experience that you do, all the more reason that you need to speak up loudly and speak up clearly to the many, many, many people in the electorate who probably do have that same experience or same perspective that you do.”