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ANSONIA-DERBY – The race between state Rep. Kara Rochelle, Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti and Tom Egan has the potential to be the most competitive contest House District 104 has seen in 20 years.
Rochelle is the incumbent Democrat. Cassetti is the Republican candidate. Egan was nominated by the Independent Party.
The Connecticut House of Representatives’ District 104 covers all of Ansonia and much of west Derby. Elections for the seat are held every two years.
Election Day is Nov. 5.
Stop The Insults
With Election Day on Nov. 5, The Valley Indy reached out to 15 people in an attempt to gauge where the race is at and what strategies might be used in the final days. Five people were willing to go on the record.
Three people interviewed by The Valley Indy said they want to see the candidates concentrate on the issues in the final weeks and distance themselves from the mud-slinging happening between Cassetti and his supporters versus Rochelle’s supporters on Facebook, where everything from Rochelle’s personal life to Cassetti’s civil court cases involving credit card bills is brought up.
“It should not be about what’s going on in a marriage or who someone slept with, or any of that nonsense. It should be about the issues. It should be about each candidate’s track record,” said W. Kurt Miller, a former Republican First Selectman in Seymour and budget consultant for the Cassetti administration.
Who’s The Favorite?
District 104 has been dominated by Democrats for almost 60 years.
Since 1966, just one Republican has held the seat. Republican Tom Dudchik was elected in 1984. He only served a single one, two-year term. Otherwise, it’s been all Democrats.
Past election results in District 104 show that U.S. presidential races bring more people to the polls. This is a U.S. presidential year. Higher turnout has benefited the Democratic candidate going back to 1992.
The numbers show the U.S. presidential election helped Rochelle in 2020, when she was elected to her second term in Hartford.
Democrat Joe Biden was at the top of the ticket in 2020, defeating Republican incumbent President Donald Trump.
Voter turnout in Ansonia in 2020 was 79.3 percent. Voter turnout in Derby in 2020 was 81.8 percent.
In total, Rochelle received 5,910 votes, or 59.6 percent of the vote. In Ansonia, she received more votes than either presidential candidate.
Her vote total in 2020 was the highest a candidate received in District 104 since 2008 – another U.S. presidential year (Barack Obama vs. John McCain).
Voter turnout was high in the 2016 presidential election year, too: 82 percent in Ansonia and 84 percent in Derby, according to the Connecticut Secretary of State website. Then state Rep. Linda Gentile, a Democrat, received 4,880 votes, or 57.1 percent of the vote.
So, based on the big wins in 2016 and 2020, this year will be a cakewalk for Rochelle since she is a Democrat and it’s a U.S. presidential election year, right?
Not so fast, says Jim Gildea, a Democrat who has run with both parties in Derby, where he currently serves as chairman of the board of education.
Gildea said he’s worried because the 2022 race, which saw Rochelle defeat Ansonia Aldermanic President Josh Shuart, was too close. Now she’s heading into a race with Cassetti, a candidate with name recognition in Ansonia.
The vast majority of voters in District 104 live in Ansonia, where Cassetti is mayor.
“Kara won by 349 votes against Josh Shuart. She only won by 160 votes in Ansonia. Dave Cassetti, whether you like him or not, is a significantly tougher candidate than Josh Shuart,” Gildea said. “That’s where she can run into problems. This race comes down to one thing: who’s hungrier, who’s willing to work harder, who knocks on more doors?”
In 2022, Shuart beat Rochelle in wards six and seven, and won in ward three by one vote. Rochelle won all of Derby along with wards one, two, four and five in Ansonia.
Voter turnout in the Rochelle-Shuart race was 50 percent in Ansonia and 55.9 percent in Derby, steep drop offs from 2020’s U.S. Presidential year.
The 2022 Rochelle-Shuart race was the closest race in District 104 since 2004, when Gentile, running for the first time, defeated Republican J.R. Romano after incumbent Democrat Vin Tonucci opted not to run again.
Gildea
Gildea also pointed out Rochelle did not receive an endorsement from the Independent Party this year. The party endorsed Tom Egan instead.
Egan is a relative newcomer to politics. He ran for mayor against Cassetti as a Democrat in 2023 and lost badly. In the months after Election Day, news surfaced that the local Democrat Party leaders had a falling out with Egan and had stopped supporting his candidacy.
Ansonia Democrats alleged Egan was recruited by the Cassetti campaign to run. They point to the fact a Cassetti pal collected signatures for Egan, and several Cassetti family members signed the petition. Egan said he’s running to give voters an independent choice.
Rochelle’s name will still appear twice on the ballot – as a Democrat and as the Working Families Party’s candidate. But if the race is close, Egan could take some votes away from Rochelle, Gildea said.
Gildea said Cassetti is popular in Ansonia. Previous mayoral election results back him up.
Cassetti received 58.5 percent of the vote to unseat incumbent Mayor James Della Volpe in 2013, with 48 percent of registered voters casting ballots. Two years later he received 79 percent of the vote.
Since 2015, Cassetti has consistently netted at least 70 percent of the vote, though it dropped down to 63 percent in 2019 when he was challenged by Phil Tripp, a former ‘Team Cassetti’ Alderman who ran as a Democrat. The Dems didn’t field a candidate two years later.
Miller said incumbents such as Rochelle usually have huge advantages in elections. This race is different because Cassetti is so well-known in Ansonia, where most of the voters live.
“The name recognition of a mayor or first selectman is greater than a state representative or a state senator,” Miller said. “The average person might not have any interactions or involvement with their state rep, whereas with a mayor or first selectman, you’re constantly hearing their names.”
Gildea said west Derby is traditionally a Democratic stronghold. He said Rochelle needs to beat Cassetti there by some 400 votes if she’s to win the seat again. She beat Shuart by 189 votes in Derby in 2022. She beat Myra Rivers, her 2020 Republican opponent, in Derby by 393 votes.
“Dave has made enemies in Derby over the years, threatening to cut off salt for the roads in the winter, calling the Aldermen a bunch of bozos,” Gildea said. “But I don’t know if there are enough votes in Derby to offset a Dave plurality in Ansonia.”
Gildea went as far as to call Rochelle an underdog, albeit with a qualification.
“I don’t think she’s an underdog by much, but, yes, she is the underdog,” Gildea said.
The Valley Indy reached out to Dave Hannon, chairman of the Ansonia Town Democratic Committee, and asked about the influence of U.S. presidential election years versus Rochelle’s 2022 win over Shuart.
Hannon responded in an email saying Rochelle is simply better suited to be a state legislator than Cassetti, whether it’s work ethic, knowledge of the issues, or temperament.
“The people are sticking with Kara Rochelle because she is a highly effective legislator, who among other things, has delivered over $150 million in bonding, grants, and major state investment for the Valley. She gets things done and is unparalleled in her constituent services,” he said.
Strategies In The Home Stretch
Gentile, the Democrat who held the seat for 14 years before opting not to seek re-election in 2018, said the underdog mentality is what’s needed to win.
“If you stop looking at yourself as an underdog, you can get lazy or take things for granted. In politics that’s a big mistake,” Gentile said.
Gentile said in Ansonia it’s important to appeal to all voters, especially since there are so many not enrolled in a political party. She said she made it a point to knock on doors in Republican strongholds in Ansonia, such as the Seventh Ward, where Cassetti and corporation counsel John Marini live.
“I always made sure I concentrated on Ansonia Hilltop voters,” Gentile said. “Hilltop voters tended to pay attention to what was happening, they split tickets, they were savvy. I would do some of my deepest focus on the Hilltop area, the sixth and seventh wards.”
On the other hand, Gentile also said that given the deterioration in political civility since she left office, she’s not sure it’s possible to bridge the gap anymore.
Gentile
She said going door-to-door in person, not through a volunteer or campaign worker, is key.
“I made sure that I was the one knocking on doors. People want to talk to you. They want to see you, not a worker or a volunteer. It’s retail politics 101, you have to be accessible,” she said.
Gentile said messaging is also critical. Ansonia and Derby rely heavily on state aid to operate the government and the schools. She pointed out the Democrats hold the governor’s office and the majority in the state legislature.
“Think about this: as popular as Mayor Cassetti is, Mayor Cassetti is a Republican,” Gentile said. “If Mayor Cassetti walks into a Democratic governor’s office and asks for state assistance for Ansonia and Derby, I’m not saying he is going to be denied, but there is a big difference between that and a Democrat walking into his office. If we do not receive every dime that is going to have a huge impact on the city.”
Gentile said Cassetti is vulnerable on taxes. Multi-family property owners likely saw their tax bill increase after the Ansonia budget was adopted in 2023 because of revaluation.
Gentile owns a two-family house.
“My taxes went up more than $2,000, while there are people on the hilltop whose taxes did not go up at all. That’s not fair. A tax increase should be citywide. If you are going to sting people, sting everybody,” Gentile said.
Both Gildea and Miller said Cassetti can be polarizing – but both also said he’s a skilled retail politician. He’s good at going door to door. Engaging with voters is what he does best.
In the final days of the campaign, Cassetti will be doing just that, said Marini, the Ansonia corporation counsel who is volunteering on the mayor’s election campaign.
“Visiting voters door-to-door has always been a strength for the mayor because he genuinely loves meeting face-to-face with his constituents. In fact, Mayor Cassetti has become very well known for his accessibility and “open door policy” which sees him meeting with residents — scheduled or not — on an almost hourly basis,” Marini said in an email. “The mayor’s strategy is therefore to embrace his passion for the people of Ansonia and Derby by knocking on as many doors as possible before Election Day.”
When asked whether high voter turnout will favor Rochelle, Marini replied by saying “Mayor Cassetti does not see high turnout as a challenge, but rather as an opportunity to connect with as many voters as possible.”
When asked where Rochelle is vulnerable, Marini said Rochelle is an elected official who puts personal needs above public service and chided her for “not apologizing for improper receipt of public funds from Micheal DiMassa in the West Haven scandal.”
Hannon said Cassetti is rude to citizens and sold off the city’s sewer system to cover a budget deficit. His election would be a “disaster,” Hannon said.
“He can’t handle one job, let alone two,” Hannon said, referring to Cassetti’s plan to remain Ansonia’s mayor if elected to the state office.
Both Candidates Get Votes In Ansonia
Cassetti and Rochelle have never been on the same ballot. State legislators are elected in even-numbered years, while Ansonia’s mayor is elected in odd years.
But here’s a look at how each did in their last three election cycles in Ansonia alone, with the caveat this is not an apples to apples comparison.
Cassetti, 2023: 2,676 votes
Rochelle, 2022: 2,719 votes
Cassetti, 2021: 3,006 votes (no opponent)
Rochelle, 2020: 4,897 votes (U.S. presidential year)
Cassetti, 2019: 2,729 votes
Rochelle, 2018: 3,409 votes
The results cited in this article are from the Connecticut Secretary of State’s election database.
