One Republican who survived the recent electoral wipeout of the state GOP was Rob Sampson, the chairman of the conservative caucus in the General Assembly, not exactly someone you’d have expected to weather a perfect blue storm.
Sampson won big. He won by about 5,650 votes, or 13 percent of votes cast, and he moved up from House District 80 (Southington, Wolcott), a seat he has held since 2012, to Senate District 16, adding Prospect and parts of Cheshire and Waterbury to his constituency.
In contrast, the GOP lost every statewide contest, all six federal contests and 115, or 61 percent, of 187 legislative contests, including a House seat held for more than a century and a Senate seat held since 1932.

Red Jahncke is a nationally recognized columnist, who writes about politics and policy. His columns appear in numerous national publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, USA Today, The Hill, Issues & Insights and National Review as well as many Connecticut newspapers.