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Cohen Re-Elected to Second Term in 12th District Senate Seat

In a closely watched race for State Senate in the 12th District, Democrat Christine Cohen bested her first challenger as an incumbent, holding off Republican newcomer Joe LaPorta by a comfortable margin.

Preliminary numbers show Cohen receiving 32,859 votes to LaPorta’s 24,908, 56.9 percent to 43.1.

In a short statement posted to his Facebook page on Nov. 4, LaPorta said he had called Cohen to concede the race.

“While this is not the result I had hoped for, it was an honor to carry the torch for the Republican Party in this election,” he wrote.

Early on, Cohen was careful not to outright declare a victory with absentee ballots still being counted on election night, and in-person voting favoring LaPorta in many towns.

“With the incredible numbers of voters who chose to vote absentee, there are votes still to be counted, and I’m confident that we’ll expand our lead further once those come in,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

But by the morning of Nov. 4, it was clear that the overwhelming number of absentee votes were coming in for Cohen, with margins as high as 80 percent, and LaPorta called to concede the race.

“This one was different for some many reasons,” Cohen told Zip06.com via phone on Nov. 5. “We had a really great track record of what we had been able to accomplish...We delivered on our promises.”

LaPorta, an electrical engineer by trade with a small but dedicated campaign apparatus, focused his campaign on stopping tax increases and focusing on business-friendly policies to increase investment in the district, along with protecting the district’s high-achieving schools.

LaPorta did not immediately respond to messages from Zip06.com in the days following the election.

Cohen originally took the open 12th District seat in 2018 following the retirement of Ted Kennedy, Jr., winning a tight race against former professional baseball player Adam Greenberg.

A relative political newcomer with a background in business and time served on the Board of Education in Guilford, Cohen took 51.4 percent of the vote to beat Greenberg.

This election, Cohen said that while her campaign could assume she would be heavily favored by absentee voters, it was still a little nerve-wracking to see early returns favoring LaPorta.

Cohen also chose not to have any kind of an election night party, instead speaking to supporters virtually in the evening.

With results and ballot counting running smoothly in the district for the most part, Cohen also took time to thank all the town employees, volunteers, and poll workers who spent hundreds of hours preparing for and ensuring a fair and open election process during the pandemic.

“This was an unprecedented election, and took a lot of hands on deck to get it done,” Cohen said. “We got it done in a way that was uneventful in the district, which is good...Every vote was counted.”

Now with a full two-year term ahead of her, Cohen will now represent residents of the 12th District through the largest economic and health crisis in a century, with a divisive national political environment and conversations about equity and justice likely to alter the landscape.

Cohen emphasized to Zip06.com that she felt her record showed the ability to prioritize district resident’s concerns, from environmental policy including the founding of the Coastal Caucus, to health care, singling out a bill she co-sponsored in 2019 that expanded paid family medical leave in the state.

“That is why I think I was re-elected—I follow through on my promises to listen and bring to Hartford those voices and what is important to the folks of this district,” Cohen said. “And I will continue to do that. I think certainly right now the pandemic...is on everybody’s mind.”

Though the support she garnered might be considered more of a mandate than the tight race against Greenberg, Cohen said she had no intention of changing her approach to legislating, and that she felt bi-partisanship and a continued focus on varied constituencies would continue to define her leadership going forward.

“It’s still the same process of making sure that constituents have access,” Cohen said. “That includes voices that may be different from the majority, and figuring out a way to get all those people to the table...so we can move forward with one voice.”