Perry Ends 1st District Congressional Primary Challenge

PHOTOS COURTESY JACK PERRY

This past summer, Southington Democrat Jack Perry made an announcement that took many in town by surprise. Rather than run for a potential third term on Southington’s Town Council, he would instead seek to represent Connecticut’s 1^st District in Congress – a quest that would mean challenging sitting Congressman John Larson in next year’s Democratic primary.

After launching his campaign in late July, Perry spent the next few months visiting Democratic town committees across the district – an oddly shaped region which stretches west from Hartford “like a pair of lobster claws,” as he put it, towards Torrington and Bristol.

Last week, Perry took stock of the progress his campaign had made and the state of the field, and made the hard decision to leave the race.

Since the 1^st District is considered reliably Democratic, Perry figured he would have had a good shot in the general election next November against any Republican opponent. The most daunting challenge was instead the Democratic primary. As an initial hurdle, he would have to convince at least 15 percent of the delegates attending next May’s statewide convention to put his name on the primary ballot – or, failing that, to submit a petition supporting his candidacy with 3,000 valid signatures.

After that, Perry would have to survive a primary runoff that would include, not just Larson, who has represented the District since 1999, but also Luke Bronin, the former mayor of Hartford, State Representative Jillian Gilchrist, and Ruth Fortune, who currently sits on Hartford’s Board of Education.

As he was gaming out the possibilities, Perry grew concerned that he would end up running a spoiler campaign that would actually help Larson by weakening his strongest opponent:

“We had a bunch of candidates,” he said. “Ruth Fortune was there before me, then Bronin jumped in, then Gilchrist. At the end of the day, I want to see change, the Democratic Party wants to see change, and I wanted to be part of that change, but I didn’t want to muddy the waters. Being in the driver’s seat would be ideal, but less competition was more likely to result in the outcome we all wanted. New energy is what I want to see. I don’t think Larson has served us badly, he has been a great representative, but – it’s time.”

Perry feels that this sentiment – that the time has come for a new Congressional representative – is widely shared among Democrats: “In the District, statewide, and at the national level, people in the Democratic Party want to see things change. A lot of people shared that with me. Democrats in the town committees, DTC chairs, they all wanted to see it.”

He believes that Democrats do better the more they listen to the wishes of their voters, and that their most recent successes can be chalked up to doing that: “We just saw what happened in the municipal elections: towns in the District flipped from red to blue with new mayors. Our messaging has changed. We need to stay on that.”

Ending his campaign now puts Perry in a position to help out one of the other challengers. He says that he would prefer any one of them to the sitting Congressman.

As for Southington, Perry at the moment has no specific plans to participate in politics aside from attending Town Council meetings to listen and comment when needed: “I’m stepping away from this race but I’m not stepping away from Southington. I will continue to go to the Council meetings. Southington is the town that made me who I am, and I plan to stay involved in any capacity.”

Perry, who has a five-month old daughter, says that the prospect of spending more time with his family was a welcome one.

Still, from his point of view, family is one of the factors that drives him to participate in politics, rather than remain on the sidelines.

“I have a five-year old,” he recounted, “and this past year he started watching the council meetings on video. I was at the Carousel restaurant when someone wished me luck with the municipal election. I told them I’m not running, and they said, ‘You’re not?’ Without missing a beat, my son proudly said, ‘My dad is running for CONGRESS.’ Setting the bar high was part of what I wanted them to see. You lead by example.”

Click here for video of Perry's announcement.