CT 2024 election takeaways: Ballot question, early voting, Harris’ margin

Donald J. Trump will return to office as the next president of the United States, but Connecticut voters clearly supported Vice President Kamala Harris — albeit with smaller margins than President Joe Biden received from the state in 2020.

Meanwhile, a ballot measure passed, incumbents were reelected, and the state saw strong early voting turnout.

Here are some takeaways from the 2024 election in Connecticut.

Harris’ margin of victory in Connecticut appears to be smaller than President Joe Biden’s.

Connecticut voters favored Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, over Trump by around 14 percentage points with 97% of votes counted, data from the Associated Press shows.

That’s a smaller margin of victory for Democrats than in 2020, when President Joe Biden carried the state by 20 percentage points. But it’s similar to 2016, when Trump received 41% of the Connecticut vote, losing the state to Hillary Clinton by almost 14 percentage points.

Harris had led Trump by 16 percentage points in a Sept. 23 Connecticut Mirror poll.

Voters approved the no-excuse absentee voting constitutional amendment.

Connecticut voters paved the way for universal vote-by-mail by amending the state constitution to allow for so-called “no-excuse” absentee voting.

The ballot measure passed with around 57% of votes in favor, according to unofficial results. Its passage means the Connecticut legislature can change the state’s absentee voting law, which currently states that residents can only vote by mail if they meet certain requirements, such as being sick or traveling on Election Day.

That change would put Connecticut in line with most U.S. states. Currently, 28 other states and the District of Columbia already allow no-excuse mail-in voting, and eight more states have all-mail elections, in which every eligible voter is automatically mailed a ballot.

The ACLU called the ballot measure’s passage a “resounding victory,” while Connecticut Republican Party Chair Ben Proto said the move was unfortunate and unnecessary.

Rep. Jahana Hayes fended off a challenge from George Logan.

Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5^th District, won a fourth term representing Connecticut’s most competitive U.S. House district, defeating Republican challenger George Logan in a closely watched rematch.

In 2022, Hayes beat Logan by just over 2,000 votes, and the race was too close to call on election night. This year, with a presidential race on the ballot, Hayes’ margin of victory was larger, at just under 23,000 votes with 97% of votes counted.

But much like in 2022, the district was flooded with national attention and money, as the candidates sparred over abortion rights, immigration and the economy. The tone was noticeably more heated this time around, both at their debate last month and in the campaign ads that flooded the airwaves.

Connecticut’s other four congressional district races were much less competitive, and ended with the reelections of Reps. John Larson, Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro and Jim Himes.

Early voting turnout was strong.

More than 740,000 people — or around 30% of registered voters in Connecticut — cast ballots during the state’s first early in-person voting period, Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas said.

Early voting began on Oct. 21 and ran for two weeks leading up to the election. Some towns, such as Norwalk, West Hartford and Stamford, had more than 17,000 early votes each.

Voters cast ballots throughout the early voting period largely without issue, but in North Stonington, more than 1,100 ballots were mistakenly cast without signatures after voters were incorrectly told not to sign the envelopes containing their ballots when they voted early between Oct. 21-31. 

While the majority of these voters returned to their local polling station before Election Day to correct their ballots, the town was still trying to locate about 200 voters when polls opened on Tuesday. Election officials said that if those voters could not be located in time to address the mistake with their ballots, their votes would be discounted.

State Republican and Democratic party officials had worked throughout Election Day to put together a lawsuit, but polls closed before it could be filed.