Blumenthal Beats McMahon; Women Doomed Her

(Updated 8:10 p.m.) Despite spending more than $40 million, Republican Linda McMahon Tuesday failed to stop Democrat Richard Blumenthal from becoming the state’s new U.S. Senator — because she couldn’t persuade women like Ann Cresswell to vote for her.

McMahon began losing Cresswell on the ​“qualifications” question — then blew it altogether with all those robocalls.

Cresswell, a voter from New Haven’s Westville neighborhood who registers as an independent, voted for Republican McMahon’s Democratic opponent, Richard Blumenthal, in Tuesday’s election for Connecticut’s U.S. Senate seat. She was part of what pollsters identified as a yawning gender gap that McMahon struggled to close in the campaign’s final weeks.

Minutes after the polls closed at 8 p.m., networks began projecting Blumenthal the winner.

What was it about McMahon that turned off women — even after spending nearly $50 million getting her message out?

Pundits had theories galore as polls showed Blumenthal with double-digit leads among women. Monday’s Quinnipiac Poll showed Blumenthal leading McMahon among likely female voters by an astonishing 25 percentage points. McMahon, who made her fortune running World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), led among men by 4 percentage points. Preliminary exit polls by the Associated Press Tuesday evening showed Blumenthal winning three out of five female votes.

If McMahon had engendered even a little bit less animosity among female voters, this election might have been a cakewalk.

We asked dozens of women who voted in cities and suburbs across the state for their take on the gap. Like the Q Poll, our unscientific survey found Blumenthal overwhelmingly taking women’s votes, even when the same women voted for Republican Tom Foley for governor.

The word ​“wrestling” came up often — as an epithet. So did ​“commercials.” And ​“qualifications.”

“Maybe men are more taken in by the appearance. Maybe men really like that wrestling stuff,” Ann Cresswell (pictured) said. ​“I can’t stand it.”

Cresswell runs a mental health project in Derby. She said she leaned toward Blumenthal because he had a good record as Connecticut’s attorney general, whereas ​“I don’t see that Linda McMahon has any qualifications whatsoever to be a senator.”

Then came the robocalls.

“I got a phone call from her campaign every day,” Cresswell complained. ​“I called. I asked them to stop.” They didn’t stop.

“I don’t like her husband [WWE’s] Vince McMahon,” said Florence Ritchie (pictured). And ​“she was too busy slinging dirt.”

Ritchie, who’s 72, is precisely the kind of voter McMahon needed most: She’s independent. She lives in East Haven, a bellwether community in state elections. (McMahon put her regional campaign office there and stopped there Tuesday afternoon.)

Ritchie voted for a Republican candidate for state representative. She couldn’t decide between the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor until she went into the voting booth at Overbrook School. (She reluctantly voted Democratic in that race.) Voting for Blumenthal, on the other hand, was an easy call. She didn’t like McMahon — or her ads. ​“The only thing she did that was good is she came on TV to thank people.”

Other independents and ticket-splitters cited McMahon’s torrent of advertising.

“I thought she was rude, putting down somebody else instead of telling us about her values,” said a Republican who split her ticket for Blumenthal and Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley at A.W. School in Guilford. She declined to give her name. So did a female registered Democrat at the same polling place who split her ticket the same way. ​“Blumenthal made me nervous with his ​‘misspeaking’ [about serving in Vietnam] but I think the other candidate just doesn’t have enough experience,” she said.

Nancy Owen of Derby, a registered independent, said McMahon’s ads were what made her decide to cast her ballot for Blumenthal.

“I didn’t like any of McMahon’s ads,” she said. ​“Her ads just turned me right off.”

“Too much ​‘me,’” a female registered Republican in Hamden said in explaining why she voted against her party’s candidate.

“Over the top,” Blumenthal voter Sandy Wood of Manchester (pictured) — who was holding a sign for a Republican probate judge candidate—said of McMahon’s ads.

“All that bickering and carrying on was a turn off,” said Janus Clark (pictured), who split her vote between Blumenthal and Foley at New Haven’s Woodward Avenue fire station in the Annex neighborhood.

Allison, a retired teacher in Westville who preferred not to have her last name published, is a Democrat who voted for Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell in the past. To her, the problem with McMahon’s campaign wasn’t gender, it was idiocy. ​“I’m not sure she does well with intelligent male voters, either,” Allison said.

“Down To Earth”

To be sure, many of the Democrats voting against McMahon did so out of party loyalty and outlook. And many Republican women voted for McMahon, with enthusiasm. Some called her ​“down to earth.” A ​“girl power” rally with female state legislative candidates whipped up enthusiasm Monday night in Guilford. One-on-one on the trail, McMahon charmed everyday people.

“I think she’s strong,” said Republican Grace Halsey (pictured), who pulled the McMahon lever at Edgewood School. ​“I don’t think she’ll cave to lobbyists. My sisters-in-law think I’m crazy for voting for her. They think World Wrestling is a crock of baloney. But it’s jobs for people. It’s not real blood on people’s hands.”

“What I like about McMahon is that she’s a regular person. We have enough lawyers in the Senate; we need businesspeople to turn things around,” said Kathleen Allen, a 54-year-old registered Republican and state social services supervisor who voted for McMahon at Ansonia’s First Congregational Church. A registered Democrat, 43-year-old Gina Wilkinson, also pulled the McMahon lever there. (She said she votes the way her husband, a registered Republican, does.)

But, as Q Poll’s Doug Schwartz observed, the images projected in all the millions of dollars in advertising didn’t warm some people to her. Something about that image, campaign strategy, and biography backfired.

“It got to the point where I was so sick of the vicious attacks on Blumenthal — we’ve been listening to this since last Spring. I would turn the television off or turn it to mute when she came on,” said 70-year-old Dorellen Sullivan (pictured), who runs a religious education program at Our Lady of Assumption in Woodbridge.

“I think she’s offensive to women. Women tend to be more diplomatic and prudent.”

“I don’t like the ads. I don’t like all the money,’’ said Shirley Womack, a South Windsor Democrat who said she felt McMahon was attempting to use her immense fortune to buy the election. ​“Nobody can buy my vote. I’m a retired teacher, and I worked too hard, and I’m not going to be sold out,” Womack said.

“When Linda McMahon came out saying he [Blumenthal] sues small business people,” said voter Judy Goldberg (pictured) in Hamden, she thought of the time she spoke to him personally on the phone. She had called the attorney general’s office to complain about a contractor who took her money for some work on her home and he didn’t finish the job. A while later she got a panicked call from the contractor, who told her he’d go to jail if didn’t finish the work or refund her money, and he made good on the work.

Allan Appel, Sharon Bass, Jeff Kiely, Jeremy Lent, Laura Marris, Hugh McQuaid, Frances Taylor, Gwyneth Shaw, Christine Stuart, and Melinda Tuhus helped reported this story.