Mansfield State Representative Race Heating Up After Debate

[Drew]

Sargent challenges Haddad on gun control at debate

Mansfield State Representative Gregg Haddad and challenger Mansfield Town Council member Mark Sargent debated fiscal policy, town-university relations and gun control at E.O. Smith High School on Wednesday night.

Sargent, who served as University of Connecticut student body president two years ago, described himself as a bold candidate for change in times of economic difficulty.

“What I hope to do is present your voices up in Hartford,” Sargent said. “Your voices who have been frustrated, who haven’t seen the economic recovery of the crash of 2007 and 2008. The individuals whose pockets have only gotten shallower as their property taxes have gone up and their home values are continuing to go down.”

Haddad focused on his past experiences holding office in Mansfield: as a town council member, deputy mayor, chair of the town Democratic party and most recently the past six years as state house representative.

“What I’ve tried to do in my time as a representative, and certainly before that on the town council, is to listen as closely as possible to the people in this community and find solutions that will work,” Haddad said. “Then I bring those solutions to Hartford and I work together on a bipartisan basis to advance solutions that will help address our challenges.”

I went to school with Mark- incredibly smart and talented guy. Had no idea he stayed in the area after school and was doing this. Pretty interesting read on the race going on in Mansfield.

 

[Stainmaster]

Even though I'm a Haddad supporter, I find Mark to be a very nice and genuine guy. Definitely the kind of person who should be involved in local politics. With that being said, the Campus is just trying to get clicks with this article -- this isn't a close race at all. Haddad is incredibly well-liked throughout the town and has better name recognition than most of the folks on the ballot at any level due to the length of his service. Contrastingly, Mark declared his candidacy for the State Senate less than three months after being elected to municipal office for the first time, realized he bit off more than he could chew, and switched to the House race shortly thereafter. If he were serious about mounting a credible challenge to Haddad, he would've waited until 2018 or 2020 and built up more of an actual record on the local level. Furthermore, the Daily Campus easily gives Mark more coverage and publicity than any other local official, even though he received the lower number of votes of any candidate on the ballot in the November 2015 Town Council election. I don't blame them, because as a former Student Body President his post-collegiate career is pretty relevant to university life. But to extrapolate the Campus's perspective to the district at large is fallacious. Again, he's a good guy, but extremely low name recognition and the image of disregarding local office as a stepping stone don't bode well for him.

If you're looking for an actual close race in the district, try State Senate -- John French is running in a rematch again Mae Flexer. It's been a very high-octane campaign and will most likely come down to the wire.