Good morning and welcome back to the Tip Sheet, a weekly newsletter from Tom Dudchik’s Capitol Report written by Mike Cerulli.

What a weekend for Connecticut!

UConn’s men’s and women’s teams both secured Final Four berths, with Braylon Mullins reaching state hero status in the final seconds of a thrilling second half against Duke.

Of course, this is the Tip Sheet, and we’ll always find the political angle…

Gov. Ned Lamont, State Sen. Ryan Fazio and Erin Stewart were all quick to fire off social media posts after Mullins drained the game-winner.

For the incumbent, the very real prospect of UConn winning a pair of championships during an election year is undoubtedly a positive development. Lamont’s re-election thesis – indeed, the self-mythology of his entire tenure as governor – revolves around a “comeback” narrative and a sense of state pride. Final Four appearances and, possibly, a national championship or two fit with those themes.

This weekend’s wins also help to nudge a rather negative bit of basketball news off the front pages of the state’s news outlets. On Friday, ESPN reported that the Connecticut Sun will move to Houston and join the Fertita family’s sports empire.

The Tip Sheet is told that Lamont will jet out to Arizona on Friday to watch the women play. Travel plans for the men’s game on Saturday have not yet been finalized but it’s looking like it’ll be a busy Easter weekend for the governor, lest he miss the opportunity to be seen on the hardwood celebrating national champions during an election year.

Ok, enough sports analysis.

This week, we’re discussing the latest news out of two closely-watched State Senate races. Plus, the first internal poll numbers in the battle for the 1st Congressional District have been released.

Let’s dive in…

Blanchard lines up another run

The shape of the race for the battleground 28th State Senate District is becoming clearer. Last week, Steve Sheinberg, the now-former chair of the Fairfield Democrats, confirmed that Lamont communications director Rob Blanchard is again seeking to flip the Republican-held seat.

Sheinberg made the comments in his farewell address to the Democratic Town Committee. Erin Lopez was elected to succeed Sheinberg, who is now working to whip delegates for the Lamont campaign in the lead-up to the state party convention.

Blanchard has yet to formally create a campaign committee, but he hasn’t exactly been hiding his plans. He’s been increasingly visible around the district in recent months, posting pictures of himself visiting Democratic Town Committee events. He recently sent out a flurry of posts on his Instagram story highlighting legislative seats flipped by Democrats. 

Blanchard has a penchant for telegraphing moves on social media. In the lead-up to Lamont’s re-election announcement, he changed his Twitter profile picture to the infamous photo of Kobe Bryant celebrating the Lakers “three-peat” in 2002.

After the author of this newsletter mentioned Sheinberg’s comments during a segment on News 8’s “Capitol Report” show, Blanchard posted a clip to his Instagram story with three emojis of a man running.

There is another Fairfield Democrat, Dave Rock, who is seeking the party’s nomination for the seat. But Blanchard appears strongly positioned to roll into the district convention with a commanding majority.

It is unclear if State Sen. Tony Hwang, the Republican incumbent, is angling for another run after being trounced in a special election to be Fairfield’s first selectman. Hwang easily dispatched Blanchard to win re-election in 2024, despite aggressive Democratic campaigning. This year, his path to re-election would involve first navigating a bruising Republican primary. Amybeth Laroche, a Newtown finance board member, is campaigning for the GOP nod with the backing of many prominent conservatives.

It’s no secret that many Republicans have their gripes with Hwang. The support for Laroche’s candidacy is widely seen as a manifestation of those frustrations.

Hwang is expected to make some sort of announcement this week. What he might say is anyone’s guess. The various theories about his plans range from an independent bid for his State Senate seat to a retirement followed by another run for first selectman in 2027.

Blanchard’s entrance into the race will create a hole atop Lamont’s communications office, though insiders expect that the governor will continue to lean on the practiced political instincts of his longtime advisor.

Khan makes McCrory challenge official

State Rep. Maryam Khan officially jumped into the race for the 2nd State Senate District, transitioning from an exploratory effort into a full-fledged challenge to the embattled State Sen. Doug McCrory.

Khan becomes the second Democrat to enter the race to unseat McCrory. Ayana Taylor was the first to jump in. Both Taylor and Khan are Windsor residents.

Larson touts new polling. What does it show? Depends on who you ask.

If it’s not already abundantly clear, John Larson is in a fighting mood. On Friday, the congressman’s campaign fired a shot directly at the field of younger Democrats seeking to unseat him.

The Larson campaign released the results of a recent internal poll. The survey found the 27-year incumbent with 49% support among likely Democratic primary voters compared to 26% for Luke Bronin and 9% for State Rep. Jillian Gilchrest. 15% said they were undecided or “other.”

Unsurprisingly, Larson’s team presented the results as proof that the congressman is the favorite to win the race. A one-page memo detailing the findings of the poll said Larson has 92% name recognition and 76% favorability. Message testing of various age-based attacks on Larson were not successful in taking the lead away from Larson, the campaign said. They did not provide the results of those questions nor did they release the poll’s crosstabs.

Bronin’s team framed the results as evidence of Larson’s weakness.

“Their own poll shows that less than half of Democrats support the 30-year incumbent seven months before primary day,” Amanda Sands, a Bronin advisor, said. “More people support a challenger or ‘don’t know’ than support him.”

Sands went on to say that polling conducted by the former mayor’s campaign found effective lines of messaging that could evaporate “whatever lead Larson has.”

The Bronin campaign did not release any numbers from their polling.

Gilchrest told News 8 she was encouraged by the poll results.

“When you’ve got Congressman Larson who’s been in for 30 years, you’ve got Luke Bronin who’s been running for governor for 10, I think I’m doing pretty good,” she said.

That’s all for this week. We’ll be back next week with another edition of the Tip Sheet!