Branford Man Who Tried To Unseat Chris Murphy Isn’t Discouraged

BRANFORD, CT – If you are expecting Branford’s Dominic Rapini to be down over his losing the Republican nomination for Senate, well, then you don’t him very well.

“I’m just getting warmed up,” Rapini, a business executive said in a recent interview. “I’ll also paraphrase that well known quote: 'You are not defined by your failures but instead you are defined by how you respond.'”

Rapini, who has been a youth football coach in Hamden for decades, lost the GOP primary to challenge the well-known Democrat incumbent Chris Murphy this November to fellow Republican Matthew Corey.

Corey now faces the formidable task of trying to unseat Murphy, who has both name recognition and lots of money to finance his re-election campaign.

“All incumbents have an incredible advantage in running for Congress,” Rapini said. “They have their war chests build up. To beat an incumbent you to be either a millionaire or a celebrity - or run for an occupied seat.”

But again Rapini isn’t afraid of giving politics another run, though he said it is too early to talk about what position he has his eyes on next.

Again he called entering politics a “learning experience.”

“You have to learn how to be a candidate,” Rapini said. “You have to spend a lot of time developing an investing team - investors and donors. But I’ve done that now and I plan to continue building relationships. I won’t have to start from scratch if I run again.”

Rapini, when he announced his run for Senate said his platform would be: a new, simplified tax plan, less regulations on business, and, what he termed "real immigration reform policy."

In an interview with Patch when he announced his candidacy, Rapini described himself as "proudly conservative.” He said then said his background as a youth football coach in the town of Hamden would serve him well in working with Democrats if he was elected to go to Washington.

"I've been a youth football coach for 30 years," Rapini said. "I've been a coach in Hamden. Hamden has the widest range of demographics you can imagine in one state.

"When its 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning and I have to pick up an 8-year-old kid on Newhall Street and step around a drug addict and a pitbull and take him to his aunt's house because he left his equipment in the trunk of her car that gives me a perspective that nobody else has," said Rapini.

Rapini said one thing the Republican Party in Connecticut has to do to defeat well-known incumbents such as Murphy and Senator Richard Blumenthal is support whose running.

“Our party needs to get behind its candidates like the Democrats do,” Rapini said.

Rapini hopes that one of those candidates will be himself.

“Oh yeah,” repeated the affable Rapini. “I’m just getting warmed up.”

Photo by Jack Kramer