Dr. Amy Chai knows she is facing long odds.
Chai is trying to become the first Republican to defeat a Democrat in the 1st Congressional District in Greater Hartford since 1956.
The 27-town district has been redrawn through the years to favor Democrats, who have reliably won the district since the last Republican won the seat as part of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidential landslide. Many of the voters in the district — and the candidates themselves — were not alive when Eisenhower won the White House. Chai, 63, is facing 47-year-old Luke Bronin, the former Hartford mayor who defeated U.S. Rep. John B. Larson in a hard-fought primary in the Democratic-dominated district.
“CT-1 is the most difficult district, and that’s actually why I chose it because I am the candidate who has the most crossover appeal, and I wanted to make it about issues and not about parties,” Chai told The Courant in an interview. “A lot of the views I have, I’ve never really fit in either conservative or liberal buckets. My policies are entirely my own. I am not a partisan in any way.”
The sprawling, 27-town district covers municipalities in parts of Hartford, Litchfield and Middlesex counties that run as far north as the Massachusetts border. The district includes Hartford and nearby suburbs, such as West Hartford, East Hartford, Manchester, Windsor, South Windsor, Newington, and Rocky Hill.
Chai has spent her career as a medical doctor, but she decided four years ago to get into politics.
Living in North Haven, Chai lost as an independent in a four-way race to U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of New Haven in 2022. She is now running for the 1st District, even though she still lives in North Haven and does not reside in the district where she is seeking votes.
“I’m not even from Connecticut, OK?” Chai said. “I’ve lived here for 13 years, but I’m not from here. … Why does it matter where I live? It’s not relevant.”
Asked to describe herself in the way that some candidates view themselves as tax-cutting Republicans, Chai responded, “I am an anti-establishment pragmatist who wants radical transparency in government and wants to get rid of our complex problems that people profit off of. I’ve seen it all. I know that people profit off of our problems, and that’s on both sides of the aisle. …. Transparency, honesty, no gaslighting.”
In her professional life, Chai specializes in addiction, cognitive brain science, mental illness, and internal medicine. She has dealt with fentanyl-addicted patients with mental illness.
“That’s what I do,” Chai said. “I do it not from the psychiatry end. I do it from the internal medicine end.”
As the author of five books, she is working on another book called “Addiction Proof Your Kids” that she said would help parents prevent mental illness and addiction. With a master’s degree in epidemiology, Chai wants to improve healthcare.
“I’ve been very, very unhappy with the medical system,” she said. “I want to put the health back into the healthcare.”
As a political candidate, Chai says she has been subjected to the harsh rhetoric and online vitriol that has become more common in a sharply divided nation. She said she has had to endure threats, online harassment, and vulgar language.
“I’ve had people call my job and say that I botched their surgery,” Chai said. “I’m not a surgeon, and I’ve never done a surgery in my life. … I’ve had Republicans call me a leftist and had Democrats call me a right-wing word salad.”
As the campaign wears on, Chai says it can be difficult for a candidate.
“I don’t have to be doing this,” Chai said. “I’m so tired of this, actually. … I’m not a politician, and I never will be.”
Married to a surgeon she met in medical school, Chai homeschooled her two children over a span of 10 years and won the U.S. Presidential Teacher Award in 2011 for homeschooling from President Barack Obama’s administration.
Besides Bronin and Chai, the other candidates are Mary L. Sanders of the Green Party and independent Mark Stewart Greenstein as a write-in candidate.
Bronin
Bronin says there are bigger issues than Chai living outside the district.
“I’m less concerned about where she lives than the fact that she would be a vote for [House Speaker] Mike Johnson and a Republican-led Congress that continues to let Donald Trump trample our constitution, drive costs through the roof, and take corruption to levels we’ve never seen in this country before,” Bronin told The Courant in an interview. “We need Congress to re-establish itself as a co-equal branch of government, to stop the out-of-control corruption we’re seeing, and build an economy that actually works for working families and the middle class. That’s only going to happen if we get a Democratic majority that is willing to stand up to this president.”
He added, “I hope, for the sake of our country and for the sake of our kids’ future, that Democrats win as big as possible this fall because everything is at stake and we cannot afford to let this craziness continue.”
Besides a voter registration advantage, Bronin has a huge fundraising advantage — raising millions of dollars that increased his name recognition during the hard-fought primary. As of Sept. 30, Chai had $307 in cash on hand, while Bronin had more than 1,000 times more at $357,000, according to public records.
A well-known official in the Capitol region, Bronin served as Hartford’s mayor for eight years and wrestled with the city’s long-running financial problems.
Bronin was the highest profile challenger in years for Larson, who was vaulted into Congress by winning a four-way Democratic primary in 1998 over his main opponent, Miles S. Rapoport of West Hartford, and two other candidates.
A savvy political strategist, Bronin surprised some insiders when he won the Democratic convention nomination in East Hartford by narrowly defeating Larson among the delegates. But he then surprised analysts again by the size of the margin when he beat Larson in the Democratic primary by nearly 20 percentage points with 53.5% to Larson’s 33.7%. State Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford received 6.8%, while Hartford school board member Ruth Fortune tallied 5% in the four-way race.
Taking nothing for granted, Bronin’s campaign reached out to supporters even after early voting had started on Monday, Oct. 19.
“We’re knocking on doors, making calls, and reaching out to voters to make sure that they make a plan to vote and hear Luke’s message before they head to the polls,” the campaign said. “We’re not just asking people to vote; we’re giving them a reason to believe in this grassroots movement and Luke’s mission to bring new leadership to Washington, challenge the status quo, and deliver real results for working families and the middle class.”
Bronin is known for his high-profile resume: Greenwich Country Day School, Phillips Exeter Academy, Yale Law School, Rhodes Scholar, and Hartford mayor for two terms.
Bronin has scored a series of upsets during his career, including defeating Hartford’s incumbent mayor, Pedro Segarra, and coming from behind to defeat Larson to gain the Democratic Party’s convention endorsement for Congress. On the way to his upset victories, Bronin has repeatedly ignored the advice of insiders who told him he should take an easier path.
“When I ran for mayor, it’s true that most people didn’t think I could win,” Bronin told The Courant earlier this year. “But also, most people whose advice I trusted said, ‘Don’t run for mayor because there’s no way to be successful, and it will be the last political job you’ll ever have.’ ”
After serving for eight years as mayor, Bronin was directly warned again that he should not challenge Larson, a personable, popular politician who has served the district for 28 years in a longtime career that stretches back to his days as a state senator in the 1980s. The top leaders in the Democratic Party all rallied around Larson, including the Congressional delegation that serves with him in Washington, D.C. U.S. Sen. Chr