HARNESS THE WIND AT OUR BACKS | |
While the Trump express chugs along, it appears to be running into serious obstacles — and derailment may finally lie ahead.
Trump's approval numbers have been dropping month after month, according to multiple polls. Rising prices and his handling of the Middle East lead the list of voter grievances, and polls show there is nearly no issue on which a majority of voters approve of his performance. Republican voters in recent Kentucky, Georgia, and Texas races have stuck with Trump's designated candidates — but these results mask growing dissatisfaction among independents and traditionally Democratic voters who backed Trump in 2024.
The bad news is that we cannot rely on Trump's low approval ratings alone to enable us to take back Congress. With the midterms just five months away, we need to roll up our sleeves work hard for Democratic candidates at the state and national levels — with positive messages about what Democrats stand for.
Let's not waste energy debating whether the Democratic party needs to move left or center or re-litigate the wisdom of our past decisions. Our party is a broad coalition — and that breadth is a strength. Candidates will position themselves based on the communities they represent — as they should in a representative democracy.
But we do have core values: Ours is the party that looks forward rather than backward, seeking solutions that work for everyday people, not just the wealthy and the privileged. It is the party that believes in the rule of law, respect for institutions, the value of foreign alliances, and — yes — decency and compassion. We should debate which candidates have the best ideas, experience, and competence, and we should demand that our candidates not waver from our core principles.
Read on for ways you can be a positive force now. The wind is at our backs — let's use it.
With faith in the power of wind and muscle,
Your Faithful Editor
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In This Issue
- Governor Lamont Signs No-Excuse Absentee Voting Bill
- Democrats Nominate Candidates for State Offices
- Wins and Warnings: Secretary Thomas Talks to Salisbury Democrats
- Join a Stand-out Protest in Your Community
- Other Upcoming Events
- In Case You Missed It
- Get These Other Sources For Action
- Protest Comes in Many Forms
- Please Donate
- Did You Miss a Newsletter?
- Share Your News
- Tell Us What You Think
- Spread The Word
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GOVERNOR LAMONT SIGNS NO-EXCUSE ABSENTEE VOTING BILL
It’s official — Connecticut has finally joined the majority of states that allow any voter to request an absentee (mail‑in) ballot without needing to provide an excuse, such as disability, illness, or being out of town on Election Day. Governor Lamont’s signature marks the end of a long journey for this voting reform, which advocates have been working toward for more than a decade.
This is welcome news for supporters of expanded voter access. Voting by mail benefits everyone: working families, caregivers, older adults, people with disabilities, and students. One major advantage for everyone is the ability to review the ballot and research candidates from the comfort of your home. Even if you enjoy the tradition of voting in person, consider trying absentee voting — you can still drop your completed ballot off at Town Hall.
To receive an application for an absentee ballot, contact the Salisbury Town Clerk at (860) 435‑5182.
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DEMOCRATS NOMINATE CANDIDATES FOR STATE OFFICES
In May, Connecticut Democrats held a series of conventions to nominate candidates for state offices — an important part of our democratic process. The nominees are Ned Lamont (Governor), Susan Bysiewicz (Lt. Governor), William Tong (Attorney General), Stephanie Thomas (Secretary of the State), Sean Scanlon (Comptroller), Erick Russell (Treasurer), Aaron Zimmer (State Senate – 30th District), and Maria Horn (State Representative – 64th District).
Unfortunately, Democrats failed to nominate a candidate for Probate Court Judge, so any candidate to oppose the incumbent Republican will have to petition independently.
In the race for governor, although Ned Lamont was nominated by the convention, challenger Josh Elliott received 25% of the delegate votes — enough to trigger a primary election, the first time this has happened in a CT gubernatorial contest in nearly 50 years. The primary will take place on Tuesday, August 11.
Every one of CT's 169 towns and cities sent delegates to the conventions. Please thank the following Salisbury Democrats for taking the time to represent us: Cori Daggett, Barbara Friedman, Al Ginouves, Lee Greenhouse, Joanne Hayhurst, Charlie Kelley, Pam Kelley, Jane Kellner, Susan McQuillan, Mary O'Neill, Bill Riiska, Joanne Taber, Jen Ventimilia, and Roberta Willis.
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WINS AND WARNINGS: SECRETARY THOMAS TALKS TO SALISBURY DEMOCRATS
Connecticut Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas came to Salisbury's Democratic Town Committee at its May 19 monthly meeting. Thomas, who is running for re-election, opened with a brief personal background: raised in an under-resourced New Jersey household but buoyed by strong public schools, she earned a scholarship to NYU and built an early career in nonprofit fundraising. She moved to Norwalk and got involved with the local DTC — but never imagined running for office until 2018, when she noticed Republicans running unopposed and felt compelled to act. She narrowly lost her first run for state representative but won in 2020 and then ran successfully for Secretary of the State in 2022 — a job she calls the best she's ever had, though one that became significantly harder after January 2025.
The bulk of her remarks focused on election security and voting rights. Thomas outlined federal pressures on state election systems, including efforts to obtain voter files, executive orders on voter ID and citizenship documentation, and federal interference with mail voting. She noted proudly that Connecticut joined 29 other states and the District of Columbia in refusing to turn over voter files, and that every Department of Justice case involving voter rolls has so far failed in court. She also warned that CISA — the federal cybersecurity agency that had provided election security monitoring — has been weakened, and that Connecticut is now paying out of pocket for replacement cybersecurity services through another election-focused security organization.
On a more positive note, Thomas lauded the signing of HB 5001, which expands absentee ballot access, along with new protections for polling places, drop boxes, election records, subpoenas, and election workers. However, the legislature allocated no funds for voter education, so her office will be relying on town committees — Democratic and Republican alike — and other organizations to inform Connecticut voters of their new rights. She emphasized that town committees are especially well positioned to reassure local voters about the protections keeping Connecticut's elections safe. As she put it: "Study after study has shown that people's trust in elections is not actually based on their experiences… It's based on how elections are talked about."
Important ask: Secretary Thomas's re-election campaign still needs individual donations to reach the threshold for public financing. Please donate here.
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JOIN A STAND-OUT PROTEST IN YOUR COMMUNITY
Keep building the pro-democracy momentum that's sweeping our country. Show up at one of the protests happening every week in our area. Bring a sign or a flag if you can—but what matters most is simply showing up.
Saturdays
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Salisbury - 11am-noon at the Salisbury Town Green at the White Hart Inn, 15 Under Mountain Road, Salisbury.
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Torrington - 11am-noon at Coe Park, 101 Litchfield Street, Torrington.
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Cornwall - 12 noon (now only 30 minutes) at the triangle intersection of Routes 4 and 7 South in Cornwall Bridge.
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New Milford - 12 noon (now only 30 minutes) - Protest and Food/Diaper Drive at the Old East Street School near CVS, 50 East Street, New Milford.
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Kent - 2-3pm - At 50 North Main Street, north of the Welcome Center.
Fridays
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Standout Protests in Sheffield (MA) - 4-5pm at Main Street (Rt. 7), across from Roberto’s Pizza. Contact Ricky Bernstein for details at rickypenrose@gmail.com.
Other Days
The Berkshire Visibility Brigade is holding standouts on the Mass Pike overpasses in Stockbridge, West Stockbridge, and Lee (MA) on Sundays, Wednesday, and Thursdays. Click for details and sign-up.
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OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS
Wednesday June 3 at 6:30pm - League of Women Voters of Litchfield County - Annual Meeting at the Litchfield Community Center. More information at https://litchfieldlwv.org/upcoming.
Thursday June 4 at 2-3:30pm - Postcarding at the White Hart. Saving Democracy will gather to write 900 postcards in support of Roy Cooper’s campaign for the open US Senate seat in North Carolina. Join your friends and neighbors in the Garden Room or pick up a packet to complete at home. This is a one-time event. Later this summer, postcard writing will resume on a regular twice-weekly schedule. To receive updates and future event information, join the Saving Democracy email list by contacting kathyvoldstad@gmail.com.
Thursdays June 4, 11, 18 & 25 at 3pm: What’s the Plan? Weekly Call with Indivisible’s Founders. The chaos coming out of the White House is a deliberate strategy to sow confusion and make us believe we are powerless to fight back. The antidote? Coming together as a community to cut through the noise and unite around strategies for resistance. Join Indivisible co-founders Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin each week for an hour to discuss what’s happening—and, more importantly, what's the plan. These calls can be very uplifting! Click for details and registration.
Tuesday June 9 at 7pm (rescheduled from June 16): Salisbury Democratic Town Committee. This regular meeting of the SDTC will be held at Town Hall and on Zoom. Please email Al Ginouves to receive a copy of the agenda and the link to the meeting. All are welcome.
Wednesday June 24 at 8pm: Greater Litchfield County Young Democrats - Monthly Meeting. Join fellow Democrats for this meeting on Zoom. For more information, please contact Daniela Larsson at nwctyd@gmail.com.
Friday, July 24 at 7pm: Concert by Sam Lardner and Barcelona Benefiting Vecinos Seguros 2, a volunteer group supporting our immigrant neighbors. The concert will be held at the Salisbury Congregational Church. Tickets are available from $5 to $250 (plus fees). Click to purchase tickets.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
A Crack in the Polling Floor Puts Trump in New Territory. Over the last decade, it’s often been said that President Trump’s support has a low ceiling but a high floor. In the latest New York Times/Siena poll, whether Mr. Trump really has a high floor is starting to be put to the test. Just 37 percent of Americans approve of his performance as president, a drop of four percentage points from the last Times/Siena poll in January and his lowest approval rating in any Times/Siena survey in either term. Read the takeaways in The New York Times.
‘We’ve Never Been This Bad.’ Eastern Pennsylvania’s Rising Costs Could Determine Election. With two swing districts where voters are expressing profound economic distress, the region from Scranton to Allentown could decide control of the House. This New York Times article offers a sobering preview of what's at stake in November — and a possible roadmap for how Democrats can win. In the Lehigh Valley and Scranton-Wilkes-Barre corridor, voters across party lines are struggling with rising housing costs, shrinking paychecks, and economic anxiety that has only deepened in recent months. The story is familiar across the country. The lesson from Pennsylvania is clear: when Democrats speak plainly about economic pain and field candidates with authentic working-class credentials, they have a real shot — even in districts that swung hard to Trump. Click to read the full story.
DOJ Wanted Our Voter Rolls. Courts Keep Saying No. Months ago, Trump's Justice Department proudly filed 31 lawsuits against 30 states and Washington, DC, demanding access to sensitive voter roll data. They bragged about their assault on every social media platform and podcast that they could. But lately, they've been very quiet. That's because they have come up empty-handed in every case in which there's been a ruling: California, Oregon, Michigan, Arizona, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine and Wisconsin. So far, eight judges — including four Trump appointees — have rebuffed the DOJ's demands, finding that they don't have the right to obtain states' voter roll data. Read more in Democracy Docket.
Get to Know James Talarico. The Texas State Representative is the Democratic candidate for US Senate after a closely watched primary fight this spring. A 36-year-old former school teacher, he has made a name for himself through viral social media moments drawing on his Christian faith as he spars with Republican colleagues. Watch him take on 20 undecided voters in this episode of the Surrounded debate series, hosted on YouTube by Jubilee Media, where he sat at the center of a circle to discuss his views on politics, the economy, immigration, the southern border, and healthcare. Click to watch this masterful performance on YouTube.
The Trump Administration’s Big Move to Limit Legal Immigration. The Trump administration has announced plans to end a decades-old immigration practice that has allowed eligible foreigners already in the United States — including spouses of American citizens — to apply for permanent residency without leaving the country. The change, which would require applicants to seek "green cards" through American consulates abroad, could freeze a large portion of legal immigration and separate hundreds of thousands of families. Immigration lawyers are scrambling to assess the implications of the policy, which would reverse a process that has been in place since 1952. Read the story in The Economist. To understand how this change would upend the lives, read this analysis from The Conversation.
The New Carried Interest Battle. For years, the debate over carried interest — the billions of dollars in profits paid to many kinds of investment executives that is taxed at capital gains rates — has followed a predictable script. Critics call it an unfair loophole. Private equity and venture capital titans argue that it’s vital to incentivize long-term investment. But now there's new math. The Budget Lab at Yale recently dropped a bombshell report: Closing the carried interest loophole could rake in an estimated $87.7 billion over a decade. That’s significantly higher than previous projections from nonpartisan congressional scorekeepers. Battle lines in Congress are forming. Read the entire story in The New York Times Dealbook. (Click and then scroll down.)
Don’t Worry — Trump Has Not Forgotten About Greenland. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry — who serves as President Trump's special envoy to Greenland — recently admitted that the administration still wants to take over the Arctic territory, this time offering a new rationale: oil. After an uninvited visit to Greenland, Landry claimed the island could be producing two million barrels of oil a day within 10 months. "Think about what kind of pressure that would relieve in the Strait of Hormuz. Think about what kind of leverage that would give the Western hemisphere and America.…" Read more in The New Republic.
| | GET THESE OTHER SOURCES FOR ACTION | |
Because we publish only once a month, there are many events that never make it into our pages. To keep informed about those events, we strongly suggest that you subscribe to some of the excellent, more frequent sources that are listed below.
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Robert Hubbell's Today's Edition provides daily analysis and commentary on the latest political happenings and practical suggestions for what citizens can do. He started the newsletter in 2017 to provide hope and perspective to his family after the unexpected results of the 2016 election. Over time, his family email was shared among friends and became of community of like-minded citizens devoted to preserving American democracy. Click to read his latest posts and subscribe.
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5 Calls - Elected officials really do care what their constituents think. That's why calls to officials' offices are impactful. Every day staffers compile and report on all the calls that their offices receive. Making a call takes just a minute using the short scripts on key issues and telephone numbers they provide. 5 Calls researches key issues, drafts scripts, and provides contact info for elected officials. Go to the 5 Calls website and choose an issue you care about. Enter your zip code and the system will provide you with the telephone numbers of your senators and representatives along with the relevant scripts. Subscribe to 5 Call’s weekly newsletter for emails with the latest updates.
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Jill Drew’s Today's Action Daily Blast – This twice-a-week email suggests a single, focused calling action to our public officials each day, most often providing carefully-researched sample scripts along with the contact information for calling US Senators and Representatives serving Northwestern Connecticut and the adjoining area of New York’s Hudson Valley. To sign up email jill@jilldrew.com.
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Saving Democracy email - Indefatigable activist Kathy Voldstad provides announcements of actions for people in and around Salisbury and elsewhere. Kathy's emails also provide inspiration that we all need in times like these. To sign up, email kathyvoldstad@gmail.com.
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Jessica Craven's Chop Wood, Carry Water – This is one of our perennial favorites. Activist Jessica Craven provides daily suggestions on easy actions that each of us can take. Read it here and subscribe free for her daily dose of actions.
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PROTEST COMES IN MANY FORMS
Watch this short dance performance by First Amendment Troop. ResistDance vs Redaction portrays Jane Doe 4's testimony, which allegedly went missing from the released Epstein Files. Created by director Bryan Buckley and choreographer Matthew Steffens, this performance is the second dance piece by the First Amendment Troop, who previously went viral for their dance portrayal of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, which they performed at the Kennedy Center, igniting a national conversation, an official White House response, and over 50 million views. Learn more about the dance activism of the First Amendment Troop.
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PLEASE DONATE
Thank you to everyone who responded to our annual appeal. Your support of our work is so gratifying and urgent at this time, when democracy is under attack.
If you have not yet given, you can still do so by check or click to donate by credit card or use this QR code.
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DID YOU MISS A NEWSLETTER?
The entire archive of past newsletters is available at the Salisbury Democratic Town Committee website.
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SHARE YOUR NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Please send us any news or announcements that you would like us to share with our community. We publish on the first of each month, so please send us any submissions at least one week in advance. Please submit to the editor at salsdemsnews@gmail.com.
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TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
We love hearing from you, our readers. Every edition of our newsletter is created with you in mind — to inform, engage, and inspire. But your feedback helps us do our job better. Drop us a note — even a few lines can make a big difference. Reach us anytime at salsdemsnews@gmail.com.
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