With Last Town Reporting, Contentious CT 35th Senate Race Is Done

HARTFORD, CT — Eastford's long-awaited tally came in Wednesday afternoon to finalize the numbers for the 35th State Senate race.

Though he claimed victory early Wednesday morning that last town gave Republican incumbent Jeff Gordon 52.57 percent of the vote.

The final numbers were Gordon with 28,189 votes and Democratic challenger Merry Garrett with 25,432, according to the secretary of the state.

"I am honored to be re-elected as the State Senator for the 35th District," Gordon said in a statement sent to Patch. "Wow ... Thank you to the people for the opportunity to continue working as your state senator."

Rhetoric flew throughout the campaign, both on neighbor posts on Patch submitted by the "Friends of Merry Garrett" and on television ads. One post stated, "Part of the problem is we haven’t had a committed, effective, responsive advocate in the state Senate. Our current state senator keeps voting against our best interests."

Gordon, a physician, was also blamed in the same post for cuts at regional hospitals amid a corporate tussle over the sale of the Eastern Connecticut Health Network.

Another post stated the 35th District gets, "the short end of the stick due to incompetent leadership that is unable to get the job done. "

Republicans have held the seat for some time. Gordon succeeded the popular Dan Champagne, who is also the mayor of Vernon and served in the Senate from 2019 to 2023 and the legendary Tony Guglielmo, who served in the Senate seat from 1993 to 2019.

Gordon took umbrage with the posts.

"I appreciate that they saw through the intense negativity thrown at me and recognized the positive campaign that I ran on the substance of the issues important to us all," Gordon said. "Working together matters. Listening to people matters. Working for people matters. Getting good things done matters. Integrity and character matter. Commonsense matters. I am here to represent everyone, something that I take seriously. Today, I continue my ongoing work as your State Senator. I look forward to it. I have faith in Connecticut, and I have faith in our communities. Again, thank you for re-electing me as your state Senator."