U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in a public domain photo from 2016.
VALLEY – President-elect Donald J. Trump won each of the five towns in the lower Naugatuck Valley except in Ansonia, a city with a dominant local Republican Party who control the mayor’s office and the Board of Aldermen.
Voters in Ansonia, Derby, Oxford, Seymour and Shelton cast a combined 57,484 votes for U.S. president in this election.
The winning Republican ticket of Trump and J.D. Vance scored about 57 percent of the votes in the five towns. The Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz got about 41 percent.
Trump won each of the five towns except for Ansonia. Harris won there by just 22 votes.
The national Republican ticket got a larger share of the vote in each town than it did in 2020, except in Oxford (which still leaned heavily Republican).
In Seymour and Shelton, Trump enlarged his winning share of the vote from 2020. He went from 55 to 58 percent in Seymour, and from 53 to 55 percent in Shelton.
In Derby, Trump lost in 2020, but his ticket rebounded this year to claim a narrow victory over Harris.
In Ansonia, the Democratic ticket won for the second time in a row – but this time, by only 22 votes.
In Oxford, the Trump campaign took home 60.08 percent of the vote, slightly down from the 60.11 percent he won in 2020.
Trump also won the Valley towns of Beacon Falls and Naugatuck.
Down-ballot, Democratic candidates outperformed the presidential ticket.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, won the statewide election, but lost in the Valley – taking home 46.88 percent of the vote here to Republican challenger Matt Corey’s 51.30 percent.
Murphy’s campaign did better in the Valley than the Harris/Walz campaign.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro – a Democrat who was on the ballot in both 2024 and 2020 – won a larger share of the vote in Ansonia, Derby, and Seymour than she did in 2020.
In Ansonia and Derby, she beat her Republican challenger, while she lost to him in Seymour and Shelton.
(Note: DeLauro’s Congressional district was redrawn in 2022 to include much more of Shelton, which makes comparing her 2024 and 2020 performances there impractical.)
In state House District 104, incumbent Democratic Rep. Kara Rochelle beat Republican challenger David Cassetti by about nine percentage points in Ansonia, and nearly 18 percentage points in Derby. It should be noted that the part of west Derby in that district skews more Democratic than the city as a whole.
And in state Senate District 32, which includes Oxford part of Seymour, Republican incumbent Sen. Eric Berthel faced a rematch contest against Democratic challenger Jeff Desmarais.
Berthel won handily and expanded his lead by half a percentage point in Seymour compared to four years ago, but he made smaller gains than Trump in the town. In Oxford, he won by a slightly smaller margin than he did in 2020.
Voter turnout in Ansonia, Derby, Seymour, and Shelton was the lowest it’s been in a U.S. Presidential year since 2012, according to data from the Secretary of the State’s office.
Derby and Seymour each saw a three-percent decrease in turnout between 2020 and 2024, while turnout in Ansonia decreased by about six percentage points. Shelton’s turnout decreased by about five percent.
Oxford was the only town to have a larger turnout this year – up to 87.47 percent, from 87.37 percent in 2020. Turnout has increased there in every U.S. Presidential election year since 2016.
Takeaways
Nationally, voter turnout was near 2020’s record highs in battleground states, according to a story by The Washington Post.
Connecticut, which is not a battleground state, had lower turnout closer to 2012 levels – in line with voting trends in Ansonia, Derby, Seymour and Shelton.
That’s reflected in the vote totals.
The Trump/Vance ticket picked up Derby this election cycle – all while receiving 17 fewer votes there than it got in 2020. The Democratic ticket, meanwhile, lost 382 votes there compared to 2020.
Similarly, DeLauro lost hundreds of votes in Ansonia, Derby, and Seymour this year, while getting a higher percentage of the vote in each one than she got in 2020.
A dropoff in Democratic votes also aided Republican campaigns nationally.
Derby continued its streak of voting for the winner of the nationwide election. Derby has voted for the winner of the U.S. presidential election in each cycle going back to 2000, when it voted for the losing Democratic ticket of Al Gore and Joe Lieberman.
Since 1972, Derby has only voted for the losing presidential candidate twice – in 2000, and in 1992.
Derby was the only city out of the five to switch its presidential vote between 2020 and 2024. Ansonia voted for the Democratic ticket in both elections, while Seymour, Shelton, and Oxford voted for the Republican ticket in each one.
The Numbers
The following numbers regarding contested races are from the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s website.
Voter Turnout By Town, 2024
Ansonia: 73.09%
Derby: 68.69%
Oxford: 87.47%
Seymour: 78.31%
Shelton: 79.35%
2024 U.S. Presidential Election (Ansonia + Derby + Oxford + Seymour + Shelton)
Kamala Harris/Tim Walz (D): 23,730 votes (41.28%)
Donald Trump/J.D. Vance (R): 33,011 votes (57.43%)
Others: 743 votes (1.29%)
Ansonia, 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Harris/Walz (D): 3,860 votes (49.42%)
Trump/Vance (R): 3,838 votes (49.14%)
Others: 113 votes (1.45%)
Derby, 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Harris/Walz: 2,581 votes (48.04%)
Trump/Vance: 2,732 votes (51.28%)
Others: 60 votes (1.12%)
Oxford, 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Harris/Walz: 3,327 votes (38.74%)
Trump/Vance: 5,160 votes (60.08%)
Others: 101 votes (1.18%)
Seymour, 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Harris/Walz: 3,680 votes (40.35%)
Trump/Vance: 5,296 votes (58.06%)
Others: 145 votes (1.59%)
Shelton, 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Harris/Walz: 10,282 votes (43.58%)
Trump/Vance: 12,985 votes (55.04%)
Others: 324 votes (1.38%)
U.S. House 3rd District (Ansonia + Derby + Seymour + Shelton)
Rosa DeLauro (D): 17,436 votes (48.80%)
Michael Massey (R): 18,291 votes (51.20%)
U.S. Senate (Ansonia + Derby + Oxford + Seymour + Shelton)
Chris Murphy (D): 24,468 votes (46.88%)
Matt Corey (R): 26,780 votes (51.30%)
Others: 946 votes (1.81%)
State House District 104 (Ansonia + Derby)
Kara Rochelle (D): 5,042 votes (54.00%)
David Cassetti (R): 4,176 votes (44.73%)
Thomas Egan (I): 118 votes (1.26%)
State Senate District 32 (Seymour only)
Jeff Desmarais (D): 2,349 votes (41.88%)
Eric Berthel (R): 3,260 votes (58.12%)
State Senate District 32 (Oxford only)
Desmarais: 2,922 votes (35.64%)
Berthel: 5,276 votes (64.36%)
