MAGA touts state Republican candidate
GOP faction raising money for Logan’s run against US Rep. Hayes
The hard-charging Republican leading the push for the investigation of Hunter Biden and the impeachment of President Joe Biden is coming to Connecticut in hopes of flipping a U.S. House seat.
U.S. Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is coming to Greenwich in two weeks to raise money for Republican George Logan. Logan is locked in a tight rematch against U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Democrat who defeated him two years ago by less than 1 percentage point in the closest Congressional race in Connecticut.
The Hayes-logan race has attracted national attention among political insiders as Republicans seek to retain their razor-thin majority in Washington, D.C. and Democrats try to wrest control and the speakership back once again. Due to the importance of the race, the candidates in Connecticut are expected to see surrogates on both sides in the same way that Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to New Britain two years ago to speak on stage about abortion rights with Hayes.
As a regular guest on Fox News, Comer has repeatedly criticized the Biden family as his committee continues to investigate. Democrats say that Republicans have failed to generate credible evidence that would support the impeachment of Biden, but the bitter battles in Washington, D.C., are expected to intensify between “Make America Great Again” Republicans and liberal Democrats as the 2024 presidential election approaches.
Comer, a Kentucky Republican, is coming to Greenwich on Feb. 26 for an event hosted by Leora Levy, a conservative Greenwich fundraiser who won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in 2022 after being endorsed in the final days before the primary by former President Donald J. Trump.
The top ticket price in the “sponsor” category is $9,900, while “hosts” will pay $6,600, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by The Courant. Individuals can attend the Comer fundraiser for
$500, and the location will be provided upon RSVP, the invitation says.
Longtime political science professor Gary Rose of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield questioned the choice of Comer, saying that the 5th Congressional District is not Trump country or Maga-country. Both Hillary Clinton and Biden defeated Trump in the presidential races in 2016 and 2020 in the 5th District.
With a high voter turnout expected in 2024, Democrats believe they have the wind at their back in a district where Democrats have won the seat every two years since Chris Murphy defeated longtime Republican incumbent Nancy Johnson in a stunning upset in 2006.
Rather than conservatives, Rose said that Logan needs to reach out to moderate and independent voters.
“It seems like there could have been a better choice of individuals to help Logan,” Rose said of potential fundraisers. “Comer is very much associated with the MAGA Republicans, and I’m not sure that the MAGA Republican image, if that sticks with Logan, is going to help him. Maybe it’ll be good for raising funds, but I’m not sure it’s going to be good for voter mobilization. … When Logan was running the first time, he said he was going to be his own man. He never suggested that he was going to be part of a faction down there, which was appealing to a lot of voters.”
With no competitive primary, Logan does not need to steer his message toward conservative voters and instead needs to reach independents in the general election. The only other Republican in the race is a relative newcomer named Michelle Botelho of Danbury who has been publicly testing the waters for the race. A conservative, she ran unsuccessfully for the seat last year and has 421 followers on Twitter, now known as X.
“This is not strategic,” Rose said of Comer’s fundraiser. “Jahana Hayes is going to try to paint him, as she somewhat did last time but this time it becomes more severe, as a right-wing tool of the MAGA faction.”
Rather than Comer, Rose said that Logan should be holding major fundraisers with moderate Republicans like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who is on national television on a regular basis in her ongoing primary battle against Trump.
“Nikki is a household name now,” Rose said. “She has tremendous stature.”
Fundraising fourth quarter
Logan’s supporters were encouraged when he outraised Hayes in the fourth-quarter fundraising race with about $420,000 compared to about $282,000 for Hayes. But Hayes had been raising money for many months before Logan got in the battle in October 2023, and Hayes has about $1 million in campaign cash.
Democratic state chairwoman Nancy Dinardo said Democrats are keenly aware that Hayes is in a competitive race.
“It shows you that he really is a MAGA Republican,” Dinardo told The Courant. “In Connecticut, we have always rejected MAGA politics. The last time he ran, he boasted of the endorsements of the leadership in the Congress. … He is a Trump supporter. He will say he isn’t. … We will be focusing on and directing people to go and volunteer or make phone calls for Jahana so people realize how important it is that we re-elect her along with our Congresspeople, but focusing on Jahana will be emphasized.”
But Republican state chairman Ben Proto said Logan is accepting campaign contributions and support from his base, as well as swing voters and “weak Democrats who are no longer interested in hearing the stuff that is coming out of the mouths of Joe Biden and Jahana Hayes.”
After Logan’s loss by less than one percentage point, Proto is predicting that Logan will win the rematch.
“If Chris Shays were coming in to raise money for George Logan, Nancy Dinardo would have a problem with it,” Proto said. “Jahana Hayes is in trouble. Jahana Hayes will not be a member of Congress come January 2025.”
Comer on national stage
Known for harsh comments about the mainstream media, Comer said on the conservative Newsmax television outlet that CNN has a “low-iq audience” and that the long-running news network “is a wholly owned, unprofitable subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee.”
Comer has called for Hunter Biden to be found in contempt of Congress for failing to answer a subpoena by Comer’s committee. After extensive back-and-forth, Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear for a deposition on Feb. 28, two days after the Greenwich fundraiser.
During the clashes over Hunter Biden, Comer has issued joint statements with Rep. Jim Jordan, the House Judiciary Committee chairman who is among the nation’s most ardent Trump supporters.
“Hunter Biden … defied lawful subpoenas, and we will now initiate contempt of Congress proceedings,” Comer and Jordan said in December. “We will not provide special treatment because his last name is Biden.”
Rematch
Logan is challenging the three-term Democratic incumbent in the sprawling 5th Congressional District that stretches from Simsbury andnewbritaintosalisbury and Danbury in the important 2024 presidential cycle.
The candidates have been raising money behind the scenes in a swing district that has been targeted by national Republicans and Democrats as they battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
When he announced his campaign, Logan rejected a comment by Hayes that he is an ally of House Republicans who should be blamed for the dysfunction in Washington.
“She’s making my case in point,” Logan said. “She’s one of those partisan hacks that need to go from Washington.
… I want to work with folks on both sides of the aisle. That is what we need down in Washington. That’s the rhetoric that you’re going to get from the incumbent, and that’s what needs to change.”
A former two-term state senator from the hardscrabble Naugatuck Valley, Logan prided himself on working across the aisle in Hartford. That tradition has become less common in highly polarized Washington, where all House Democrats joined with eight conservative Republicans last year to oust Speaker Kevin Mccarthy for the first time in American history.
Logan and other candidates had been photographed with Mccarthy two years ago during the Speaker’s fundraising tour in Connecticut. Two days before Mccarthy was ousted, Logan said he favored the California Republican.
A former national teacher of the year, Hayes won races for the seat in 2018 and 2020 by 12 points each time as Republicans fared poorly in Connecticut in those cycles under Trump, before she won the narrow victory in 2022.