John Larson

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories about the candidates in the First Congressional District race.

John Larson was nostalgic.

Standing in a community center named after his late mother, Larson took a sentimental tour of his old neighborhood at Mayberry Village, the federal public housing project where he grew up in hardscrabble East Hartford.

In those days, Larson lived in a tiny house in a family of eight children and two parents who shared one bathroom. Like the house, money was tight as Larson’s parents worked to feed and clothe the eight children.

“Imagine raising eight kids, having a part-time job at The Travelers, being an elected member of the East Hartford town council, and an active member of the Democratic Party,” Larson said of his mother, Pauline. “She still read to us at night, got us off to school in the morning and kept the house running. My father worked three jobs — for a house that I often remind my children is smaller than our garage in East Hartford.”

Larson later left the small home and began his career in public service, serving on the local school board and town council before heading to the state Senate for 12 years that included eight years in the top post as Senate president pro tempore. For the past 28 years, he has served in the U.S. Congress after winning 14 consecutive elections.

Now, with three Democratic opponents, he is facing his toughest election in decades.

“I’m not running for office because I’m trying to hold onto a spot,” Larson said. “I’m running for office because the people I grew up with desperately need the benefits of Social Security that haven’t been enhanced in over 50 years. Now, my opponents say that’s all I talk about.

“Well, you’re damn right that’s what I talk about. It’s not all I talk about, but I talk about it because for 40% of all people in this country, that’s the only benefit they have,” he said. “Think about that. Could you live on only Social Security? That’s the only benefit they have because Congress hasn’t acted in over 54 years.”

For nearly three decades, Larson has walked the halls of the U.S. Capitol as a member of Congress. During that time, he has routinely rubbed shoulders with giants in the political world, including presidents at the White House and national lawmakers like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Still, he fondly recalls his earliest days in his hometown, where he still lives.

“It is a federal housing project, but we wore that as a badge of honor and pride,” Larson said earlier this year. “To this day, the proudest thing anyone will ever say from East Hartford is I grew up in Mayberry Village. It was a badge of honor. Not only that, for all the rest of the town, they wanted to come through here. … They wondered what held us all together. It was community and a sense of pride about where we grew up.”

Now 77, Larson looked back more than 60 years earlier this year when he was endorsed at the Larson community center by state Attorney General William Tong, who has become a family friend.

Larson’s age and longevity in Congress have become issues as he battles against three younger opponents: former Hartford mayor Luke Bronin, 46; state Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford, 44, and Hartford attorney Ruth Fortune, 38. Many party insiders thought Larson would cruise to victory at the party’s nominating convention, but Bronin pulled a stunning upset that sent shock waves through the Connecticut political establishment. Now, four candidates are preparing for the Aug. 11 primary as Fortune secured the necessary number of petition signatures to gain a spot on the ballot.

Social Security clash

Larson has clashed chiefly with Bronin — rather than his other two opponents — during the campaign. Bronin has complained for nearly a year that Larson has accepted too many corporate PAC contributions to his campaigns through the years, and Bronin challenged Larson last summer to stop accepting the campaign money. Bronin has also charged that Larson would not be able to accomplish much on his signature issue, Social Security, as long as President Donald J. Trump remains in the White House for another two years. Bronin notes that Larson has not moved the issue forward much in the past 28 years.

But Larson counters that Democrats have had only four of the past 28 years where they controlled the White House and both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Two of those years were under President Barack Obama and two under President Joe Biden.

The problem, Larson said, is that Congress was highly distracted at the time with passing the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Under Biden, Congress was distracted with the coronavirus pandemic and the American Rescue Plan of 2021 that provided $1.9 trillion to help keep the economy afloat with increased unemployment benefits and grants after many restaurants, retail stores, and other businesses closed down during the peak of the pandemic.

In losing to Bronin at the convention, Larson suffered his most stunning political defeat since losing to liberal Democrat Bill Curry in 1994 in a primary for governor.

Larson immediately pivoted and started framing the primary battle as a contest between a fighter with a background in public schools and public housing versus an Ivy League graduate and Rhodes Scholar who grew up in Rye, N.Y., and later in Greenwich, two of the richest towns in the nation. Larson called himself “a project kid” as he spoke of his humble beginnings.

“Now I think it’s going to be very clear: it’s Mayberry versus Greenwich,” Larson said. “We’re in this fight on behalf of the working people that I have served for 28 years in the United States Congress. … My fight is going on now. It doesn’t wait until November. … Project kids don’t give up. Project kids just lean into a fight like this. I’m looking forward to it.”

Back at the community center, Larson stood in an auditorium that once served as a key gathering place before the local Roman Catholic church was built within walking distance.

“It’s great to be here. I’m somewhat overwhelmed with nostalgia,” Larson said as he looked out at a small crowd of supporters at a campaign event. “This room here was our church. This is where we went to Mass every Sunday. The Sisters of Notre Dame would be sitting right out where you are, monitoring kids. I can still see my father standing in the back and our family gathering here.”

John Larson steps up attacks on Luke Bronin in congressional race

Looking out the window from the community center, Larson said, “The little red schoolhouse was just up the street here, where St. Isaac Jogues is. My paper route was along this area. It was a time that every door that I knocked on and every Catholic home that I went into had a picture of Pope John XXIII and John Kennedy. It was a time that will be forever remembered.”

Humble beginnings

Tong, who has since become state attorney general, remembered trading stories with Larson’s brother, Tim, in the days when Tong and Larson both served in the state House of Representatives. Tong, who also had a hard-working, immigrant background, chatted often with the younger Larson.

“In the House chamber, Tim and I would compare our relative upbringings,” Tong recalled. “Tim would talk a lot about Mayberry Village — all of you crammed into one house with one bathroom. And then I would try to one-up him and talk about how bad it was in that Chinese restaurant on the Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield. We would go back and forth about how tough our relative upbringings were. I know how hard it was here. I know because not only did Tim tell me and show me, but John has told me and showed me so many times about how hard his parents worked and how much they gave to this community.”

Tong added, “So I don’t have to guess what John Larson is about, and I don’t have to guess what this campaign is about. It’s about the people that live here. It’s about the people who fight for every inch, every single day — people who are paying way too much right now for food, utilities, school supplies and gas. He’s fighting for people who come to Mayberry Village. He’s fighting for immigrants like my parents who walk around with a target on their backs every single day. That’s why I’m supporting John Larson.”

He added, “John Larson knows how the federal government works because he’s been there. He’s been in the trenches for years and years and years and we need him right now.”

As he wrapped up his remarks at the Lois Nolan Larson Community Center, Larson thought about his mother, who died in 2012 at the age of 87 and was known to everyone as Pauline.

“Thanks for allowing me a little sentiment as I stand here,” Larson told the crowd. “We were blessed. We had a fortunate life and parents who cared deeply about their community. They had just come through the Great Depression and saved the world, fought a war on two fronts and came back with veterans getting first options on these homes here in Mayberry Village.”

Larson added, “They made a great life for their children. My brothers and sisters will attest to how much we owe our parents. It’s great to be here in a building that bears my mother’s name.”

Christopher Keating can be reached at [email protected]