Sen. Chris Murphy has announced he will seek a third term as a U.S. senator representing Connecticut.
Murphy posted a video on his Twitter page vowing that his 2024 election campaign would not accept corporate donations or political action committee funding, insisting that he was “not going to raise money for this campaign the way that Washington says that I”™m supposed to” while adding this move was “a risk, especially with the gun industry and other special interests that are going to be breathing down my neck. But just like the fight against the gun lobby, it”™s a risk worth taking to change a very broken status quo.”
However, the CT Mirror reported that Murphy can afford to take that risk because he ended 2022 with nearly $4 million for his campaign. The Democrat Murphy is also running in a state where the last Republican to win a U.S. Senate race was Lowell Weicker in 1982. In his two previous Senate campaigns, Murphy won by double-digit margins against Republican challengers Linda McMahon in 2012 and Matthew Corey in 2018.
Compliments to Senator Murphy. It is worth remembering long time Wisconsin Senator Bill Proxmire who ran for re-election many times with essentially no donations. Perhaps this is an extreme model but worth citation. Imagine if nominees could campaign for office with no acceptance of large donations from PACs. Is public financing worse than financing your campaign from special interest groups? Bill Proxmire would never do what Sen.Sinema does.