A weekly newspaper in 5th District Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty’s hometown is backing Republican Mark Greenberg’s challenge to the first-term incumbent’s re-election bid.
Esty maintains her edge in newspaper endorsements as Tuesday’s election aproaches, however, adding the Record-Journal of Meriden and the Newtown Bee to previous nods from the Hartford Courant, New Haven Register, Register Citizen and Lakeville Journal.
The Cheshire Herald’s endorsement of Greenberg called Esty, a former Cheshire town councilor and state representative, a “run-of-the-mill politician” who has focused her campaign on negative attacks against Greenberg instead of making the case for a second term in Congress. “In an age where government spending has seemingly run amok, it appears Greenberg is much more likely to draw a line in the sand and say ‘no’ than Esty has been or would be in the future,” its endorsement said.
The weekly newspaper didn’t support Esty in her first bid for Congress either, instead endorsing former Sen. Andrew Roraback in 2010.
Greenberg also has been endorsed by the Republican-American of Waterbury.
The Newtown Bee endorsed Esty this week “largely for her laser-like attention to constituent service and notably her service in the cause of Newtown’s special needs” following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.
“Working with Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, Rep. Esty has helped the community secure millions of dollars in federal grants for services for students and staff at Sandy Hook School affected by the 12/14 shooting, to better equip Newtown’s first responders, for school safety measures, and for mental health counseling in Newtown,” the newspaper said. “She responded swiftly and surely to the enormous challenges faced by this community in the past two years. We hope the community responds to that service by supporting her re-election.”
In endorsing Esty on Thursday, the Record-Journal of Meriden criticized Greenberg for being “short on specifics about an array of topics.” It praised Esty’s work on advocating for gun control legislation in the wake of Sandy Hook. The Record-Journal also endorsed Esty in her first run for Congress in 2010.
Meanwhile, the New York Times weighed in on the 5th District race on Friday with a feature story calling it a matchup of two “well-to-do Ivy Leaguers.” (Esty attended Harvard and Yale Law School, while Greenberg attended Cornell.)
