Election 2008: Surprises on all levels

  Two races will stand out for local Durham and Middlefield residents when looking back at the 2008 election. This is the year new ground was broken with the election of the first African-American president, and on a local level, this was the year that swept Durham and Middlefield's incumbent Republican Ray Kalinowski from his State Representative's seat.

The presidential election ended with gracious speeches by both the winner - Barack Obama - and the loser - John McCain.

Kalinowski's career in the legislature also ended graciously, as he thanked friends and supporters. "My consolation is that I have been able to help people in my six years in office," he said.

"After all," he continued, "I retired from the Secret Service in 1996 and never thought about politics. After two terms as First Selectman of Durham and three terms as a State Representative, it appears this chapter is also coming to a close. I have nothing but good feelings for all that this experience has afforded me," Kalinowski concluded.

Durham

Durham has two Congressional districts; most people live in the Second District of Democratic Congressman Joe Courtney, but another segment lives in the Third, represented by Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. Unlike almost everything else in this election, those faces will not change.

Courtney, whose race two years ago was the closest in the nation, prevailed over his challenger, Republican Sean Sullivan, 1,684-1,129, with Scott Deshefy of the Green Party taking 65 votes. In the Third District, DeLauro trounced GOP challenger Bo Itshaky, 672-330, with Ralph Ferrucci of the Green Party taking 31 votes.

The Second District, Durham's larger, brought out 3,055 of 3,645 registered voters for an 83.8 percent turnout. The Third District, with 1,386 registered voters, saw 1,139 come to the polls for a turnout of 82.1 percent. This is comparable to the turnout four years ago during a presidential election year.

Durham voters mirrored the national electorate when casting ballots for president, with 2,188 going for the Democratic Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket and 1,893 for the Republican John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket. In a statistical oddity, in the Third District, voters split 553-553 for the presidential tickets. Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez garnered 79 votes total.

In the state races, incumbent Democrat State Senator Ed Meyers handily prevailed over his Republican challenger Ryan Suerth, 2,281-1,559.

Favorite son Republican incumbent State Representative Ray Kalinowski thumped Democratic challenger Matt Lesser, 2,463-1,590, but it wasn't enough of an edge to carry him to victory with the margin Lesser built in neighboring Middletown.

In the non-race for registrars of voters, Republican Bob Schulte (1,750) and Democrat Karen Cheyney (1,994) will both serve.

And, on the ballot questions, Durham again mirrored state results, voting positively (1,692-1,019) on a constitutional amendment allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will be eligible to vote in the general election that the primary leads to.

Calling a constitutional convention was soundly defeated, with 1,718 Durhamites voting no and 1,027 yes.

There were 244 absentee ballots included in the totals above, and 50 presidential-only ballots cast.

Middlefield

It was a smooth election night at the Middlefield Community Center polling place. According to head moderator Mary Johnson, turnout was great all day and slowed down by early evening. "Lines went out the door in the morning," she said.

Johnson also noted that there were no critical problems with the ballot machine, unlike the difficulty Middlefield experienced in the past with the new voting machines. "The only issue this time was that we actually had to get a new machine because it was filled to the max with ballots," she said. This verifies that turnout was indeed successful. In fact, a total of 2,647, or 83 percent of the 3,167 registered voters of Middlefield came out to vote.

For the Presidential race, Middlefield gave 1,079 votes to the McCain/Palin ticket but favored Obama/Biden with 1,452 votes. Nader/Gonzalez trailed behind with 34 votes.

Democratic incumbent Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro won the vote for Representative in Congress with 1,788, while Rep. Bo Itshaky received 583 votes and Green party Ralph A. Ferrucci received 85.

For State Senate, Rep. Tim Lenox with 771 votes lost to incumbent Democratic Senator Thomas Gaffey with 1,602 votes. Finally, the State Representative went to incumbent Republican Ray Kalinowski with 1,324 votes while Democratic challenger Matt Lesser received 1,152 votes.

With 1,504 votes for question one, Middlefield voted "No" to a constitutional convention. However, the town voted "Yes," with 1,424 votes on question two to amend the constitution to allow any person who will turn 18 years old on or before the day of a regular election to vote in the primary for such regular election.

Middlefield absentee ballots were counted from 1 p.m. until 8:45 p.m., and totaled 226, but 19 were rejected due to the machine's inability to read them.