Submitted by Tina Duryea
“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can
Wondering if I’d get there quicker
If I was a man” – Taylor Swift.
I love this song because it reminds me of how much harder it is for women to run for office. And sadly, I’m not just talking about the general election but also in the Connecticut Democratic primaries.
I got involved in my local state party after the 2016 election because I knew I wanted to see more women in office. I knew that normalizing women in office was the only way I’d ever get to see a woman President. As a proud daughter of Ella Grasso’s state, I figured where better to do this work than in the state that elected the nation’s first woman governor in 1975. Boy was I wrong. Since getting involved in state politics, I have seen that virtually every single time our Democratic Party has had a choice between supporting a strong woman candidate and a man who is also interested in the seat, the Party members chose to endorse and support the man.
Once an early leader of electing women to office, CT is now lagging nationally, at 18th in the country according to 2024 data from the Center for American Women and Politics. Connecticut should, rightly, take great pride in leading the way to elect Democratic women to office in 1975, but our state has lost its claim to being a beacon of aspiring gender equality in government, as other states have surged past us and we have become more and more a state that doesn’t prioritize a balanced representation of women in office. Where women are currently represented at 37.4% of our legislature, Nevada’s state legislature is at 60.3%, Colorado’s 49%, and Arizona’s 47.8%, for example.
It sure feels like if a man doesn’t want to run then a woman will be fine, but when we Connecticut Dems get a choice between a man and a woman, we always seem to pick a man. And I wonder if we are about to do it again in CT State Senate district 36 by endorsing Nick Simmons over Trevor Crow. Given that this year is a Roe election and the 36th is an actual flippable district – as Trevor proved two years ago by campaigning vigorously to lay the groundwork for a razor thin election outcome – are we really going to give voters the choice, again, between two men? Or are we going to actually start supporting women, as I am sure Ella Grasso would like us to.”