---
section: ahm
correspondence: correspondence
publicUrl: 'http://andoverct.info/reports/ahm/disavowal/'
pageTitle: 'A Question for Five Candidates — Eastern Connecticut, 2026'
title: A Question for Five Candidates
subtitle: "Connecticut 2026 · Governor, Congress 2, Senate 4, Senate 19, House 55 · One question asked of five Republican candidates, and a public record of the answers"
attribution: 'A personal project by Scott Sauyet · scott.sauyet@gmail.com · I co-chair the Andover Democratic Town Committee; this page is my own work and not an official document of any committee, town, or campaign'
footer: 'Personal work of Scott Sauyet · Compiled September 10, 2026, and updated as answers arrive
Contact addresses from candidate committee filings with the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission and from the campaigns’ own websites. Not an official town document.'
pdf:
author: Personal work of Scott Sauyet · scott.sauyet@gmail.com
footer: 'andoverct.info/reports/ahm/disavowal/ · as of {asof}'
sectionLabels:
- - overview
- Introduction
- - the question
- The ask
- - part 1
- Who was asked
- - part 2
- The record
- - part 3
- Standard
- - part 4
- Background
- - part 5
- Precedent
- - summary
- At a glance
- - key observations
- Takeaways
- - does not show
- Limits
- - sources
- Documentation
- - other formats
- Download
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---
A Question for Five Candidates
==============================
*On September 10, 2026 I sent the same question, in the same words, to four
Republican candidates on Connecticut ballots this November, and on
September 11 to a fifth. This page records
who was asked, at what address, on what date, and what each has said in
response. Any answer I receive will be published here in full and unedited,
whether I like it or not, with the date it arrived. Contact addresses come from
each committee's registration with the State Elections Enforcement Commission or
from the campaign's own published website, and each is cited below. Where
this page says no answer has been received, that is a statement about my inbox
on the date shown, and nothing more. I am a Democrat and I co-chair the Andover
Democratic Town Committee. I am asking anyway, and readers can weigh that as
they see fit.*
Overview
--------
I have one question for the Republicans asking for my vote this year, and I
would rather put it to them directly than guess at the answer. The question is
whether they will publicly disavow Donald Trump: a statement in their own name
that he does not represent them and does not have their support.
That is not a question about a policy, a bill, or a vote in Hartford. It is a
question about the head of the party whose banner every one of these candidates
runs under, and every one of them has had a decade to decide what they think of
him.
Five candidates were asked, in the same words: four on September 10, and George
Austin, the Republican nominee for Congress in the 2nd District, on
September 11. Four of the five appear on my own ballot in Andover. The fifth
lives in a town that shares a House district with mine. The four running for
state office are participants in Connecticut's Citizens' Election Program with
grants awarded, meaning each asked the public to finance his or her campaign,
and the public agreed. Mr. Austin, running for federal office, is outside that
program.
The first answer arrived on September 13. Jenn Jennings, the Republican
candidate in the 4th Senate District, replied that she will not disavow Mr.
Trump, "past, present or future," and said the question is the wrong one to ask
a candidate for the state Senate. Her letter is published below in full, and her
objection is taken up in Part 5.
Nothing has arrived since. As of <% correspondence asof %>, Ms. Jennings's
letter is the only reply received, and no correspondence of any kind, from any
of the five campaigns, has come in during the <% correspondence quiet %> since
that exchange. The other four letters remain unanswered. That is a statement
about an inbox on a date, not a verdict on anyone.
This page is the record. It will be updated as answers come in, through Election
Day on November 3, 2026. There is no deadline. An answer at any point gets
added.
The question, as sent
---------------------
The body of all five emails was the same but for the salutation, the sentence
identifying the district, and the paragraphs noted below. The question itself
read:
> Will you publicly disavow Donald Trump? By that I mean a statement in your own
> name that he does not represent you and does not have your support. Not a
> comment on a single policy, and not a statement about the party in general.
Each letter disclosed that I co-chair the Andover Democratic Town Committee,
offered to publish the reply in full and unedited, offered to link an answer
given anywhere else instead, and invited correction if the candidate had already
answered publicly and I had missed it.
One paragraph appeared only in the letter to Sen. Fazio, noting that he has
discussed his own past votes for Mr. Trump and has said he would welcome Mr.
Trump's endorsement, and that the question here is whether he will disavow him
now.
Two paragraphs appeared only in the letter to Mr. Austin. The first noted that he
has written in praise of Mr. Trump and Secretary Kennedy, and has criticized the
"big beautiful bill," and said that the question here is whether he will disavow
Mr. Trump now. The second told him that this page quotes his earlier statements,
and invited him to correct anything quoted wrongly or out of context.
Each letter is published in full, exactly as sent, in the Correspondence
section below, where it sits in order with everything that followed it.
Part 1 — Who was asked, and where
---------------------------------
| Candidate | Office sought | Address used | Source of address |
| ------------- | ------------------ | -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------- |
| Ryan Fazio | Governor | info@ryanfazio.com | Campaign contact page |
| George Austin | U.S. House, 2nd | george@votegeorgeforcongress.com | Campaign website |
| Jenn Jennings | State Senate, 4th | jennjennings4senate@gmail.com | Campaign contact page |
| Jason Guidone | State Senate, 19th | jason.guidone@proton.me | SEEC committee registration (Form 1A) |
| Steve Weir | State Rep., 55th | steve@steveweirforct.com | SEEC committee registration (Form 1A) |
> **Notes:** The letter to Rep. Weir was copied to his legislative address,
> Steve.Weir@housegop.ct.gov, because I am one of his constituents and that is
> the address his office staffs. The letter to Sen. Fazio was copied to
> press@ryanfazio.com, the second address listed on his contact page. The four
> state committees are Citizens' Election Program participants with grants
> awarded, per the Secretary of the State's 2026 candidate registration list.
> Mr. Austin's committee, George for Congress, files with the Federal Election
> Commission, and his address is the one published on his campaign website.
> The letter to Mr. Austin was copied to contact@votegeorgeforcongress.com, the
> media contact listed on his campaign's press releases.
Part 2 — The ledger
-------------------
<% correspondence ledger %>
> **Notes:** This table is the whole point of the page, and it is deliberately
> boring. A dash means no reply had reached me as of the date in the column
> heading. It does not mean the candidate has never spoken about Mr. Trump, and
> it does not mean a reply was not sent. Anyone who believes a row is wrong
> should write to me and I will correct it within 24 hours.
Correspondence
--------------
Everything sent or received, in the order it happened, starting with the five
opening letters. Times are the sender's local clock. Each entry links to the
message as formatted for reading, with the original source alongside it: raw
headers for email, and a link, screenshot, and archive copy for anything
published elsewhere.
<% correspondence log %>
> **Notes:** Replies will be published in full and unedited, whatever they say,
> with the date received. Anything a candidate says publicly elsewhere in
> answer to this question will be added here too, with a link to the original
> and an archived copy in case it moves.
Part 3 — What counts as an answer
---------------------------------
Every reply will be classified, and the classification stated plainly beside it,
on this scale:
### Disavowal ###
An unambiguous statement in the candidate's own name that Mr. Trump does not
represent them and does not have their support.
### Criticism ###
Objection to a specific act, decision, or policy, without withdrawal of support.
This is a real answer and will be published as one. It is not a disavowal, and
will not be described as one.
### Deflection ###
The question was answered with something else: a pivot to state issues, a
statement that the candidate does not agree with everything the President does,
or a reply about the party rather than the man.
### Refusal ###
An explicit statement that the candidate will not disavow Mr. Trump, without a
statement of support for him. This is a direct answer to the question as asked,
and it will be published and described as one.
### Support ###
A statement that the candidate does support Mr. Trump. This is also a real
answer, and an honest one. It will be published in the same words and given the
same prominence as any other.
### No response ###
Nothing received. Reported as of a date, never as a permanent condition.
> **A change to this scale, September 13, 2026.** The first four categories
> were published on September 10, before any reply had arrived. "Refusal" was
> added on September 13 when the first one did. The original list did not
> anticipate a candidate answering the question plainly in the negative, and
> the nearest label, Deflection, would have described a direct answer as an
> evasion. Changing a published standard after seeing a reply deserves to be
> noticed, so it is recorded here rather than made quietly. Nothing else on the
> scale changed, and no earlier classification was revised.
Part 4 — What the public record already shows
---------------------------------------------
Before sending the question I looked at what these candidates have already said
in the venue where they speak most deliberately: their paid advertising. For Mr.
Austin, whose record includes long-form interviews that are publicly posted, I
listened to those as well.
Every Meta political ad attributable to each candidate's own page was collected
and read on three channels, namely the ad text the platform publishes, the words
printed on the image or video, and the words spoken aloud in it.
### Meta advertising, all five candidates ✓ *Collected September 9 and 11, 2026* ###
| Candidate | Ads | Mentions of Trump or MAGA |
| ------------- | --- | ------------------------- |
| Ryan Fazio | 135 | 0 |
| George Austin | 57 | 0 |
| Steve Weir | 18 | 0 |
| Jason Guidone | 31 | 0 |
| Jenn Jennings | 0 | n/a |
> **Notes:** Seven of the eighteen Weir ads were readable, and 130 of Sen.
> Fazio's 135; the rest are ads Meta has removed, and the removal notice supports
> no conclusion about what they contained. Sen. Fazio's five removed ads date
> from his 2020 to 2022 Senate campaigns. Behind the zeros: 2,172 distinct
> video frames read by optical character recognition, about 50,000 characters of
> distinct on-screen text recovered, and 72 minutes of advertising audio
> transcribed. Ms. Jennings has never run a political ad on Meta, so advertising
> contributes nothing to her row in either direction.
> This is a paid-media finding only. Organic posts on the candidates' pages were
> not collected, so this table cannot show, and does not claim, that a candidate
> has never mentioned Mr. Trump.
The count is the weak version of the finding. The stronger version is what the
advertising does discuss. Sen. Fazio's ads return repeatedly to immigration and
federal enforcement, at length and in his own voice, and reach for the phrase
"federal authorities" rather than the name of the President who directs them.
The single instance of the word "administration" in nearly an hour of recorded
audio refers to Gov. Lamont's.
Mr. Guidone came through a contested Republican primary between February and
August of this year, ran thirty-one ads, and criticized his opponent by
reference to his record and his tenure without either man's advertising touching
the President.
None of that is an accusation. It is the reason the question is worth asking
rather than assuming.
### Mr. Austin, in his own words ###
Mr. Austin is the one candidate here whose own words about Mr. Trump turned up,
and they point in more than one direction. All of it predates my letter to him.
- **Praise, in writing.** In a campaign press release on April 22, 2026, he wrote
that "President Trump and Secretary Kennedy, through the MAHA movement, are
finally talking about the real sources of our health-care crisis," and "I stand
with Secretary Kennedy and the MAHA movement."
- **Agreement, in an interview.** On a podcast recorded October 28, 2025, his host
said she had been praying for Mr. Trump to win and would have left the country
otherwise. Mr. Austin replied: "We might not have had a country after that,
honestly." He went straight on to say he did not remember elections being
treated, before recent years, as though the country's survival depended on
them: "It was never like that, and now it is."
- **Criticism, in an interview.** On a second podcast, on July 7, 2026, he gave
"the big beautiful bill" as his example of inflationary spending: "The point is
we're borrowing from the future. We're borrowing from my kids and maybe even
their kids." That is an objection to a law Mr. Trump signed, made from the
right, in the same breath as praise for the spending cuts proposed by the
Department of Government Efficiency.
None of his fifty-seven Meta ads mentions Mr. Trump. The praise is in a press
release and in interviews, not in anything he has paid to run.
> **Notes:** The press release is quoted from his campaign website and from an
> archived copy made by the Internet Archive on August 10, 2026. Each interview
> link below starts a few seconds before the remark, so that what he was
> responding to can be heard. In the October recording the host speaks at length
> about Mr. Trump, and several of her remarks could be mistaken for his in a
> transcript; only words identified as Mr. Austin's are quoted here. These are
> statements made before he was asked, and none of them is classified on the
> scale above, which applies to answers to the question itself.
Part 5 — Whether the ask is a fair one
--------------------------------------
A reasonable objection is that no Republican could answer this question and
survive a primary, so asking it is a trap rather than an inquiry. The record
suggests otherwise.
Themis Klarides led the Republican caucus in the Connecticut House from 2015 to
2021. During her 2022 campaign for the United States Senate she said she had
not voted for Mr. Trump in 2020, casting a protest write-in for her predecessor
as caucus leader instead. She said it in her own name, in public, while seeking
her party's endorsement, and she won that endorsement on the first ballot with
about 57 percent of the delegates. She has never reversed it.
In December of that year, two former Republican leaders of the state Senate, Len
Fasano and John McKinney, published an opinion piece in the Hartford Courant
arguing that the party "needs to reject" Mr. Trump as a candidate.
The question is also a more direct one for Mr. Austin than for the others. A
state legislator has no vote on anything a President does. A member of Congress
votes on the President's program every week the House is in session.
Two things should be said plainly about those examples. All three were former
officeholders rather than sitting ones when they spoke, and all three statements
date to 2022. No sitting Connecticut Republican legislator has made a comparable
statement in 2025 or 2026. The ask is answerable, and it has been answered
before, but not recently and not by anyone currently in office.
### The objection, from a candidate ###
Ms. Jennings made the fairest version of this objection herself, and it deserves
an answer rather than a footnote. She wrote that of all the questions that could
be put to a candidate for the state Senate, this is a strange one to choose; that
Americans were not asked to denounce the President under the previous
administration and should not be asked to now; and that defining people by which
figures they will denounce "leaves very little room for independent thought,
disagreement, conversation or common ground." She asked instead for a question
about Connecticut and about what a state senator actually has the authority to
do.
Three of those points are well taken. This is one question and not a program;
nobody should be judged only by it; and a state senator votes on Hartford's
business, not Washington's. Readers should weigh her answer alongside everything
else she says, not instead of it.
Where I would differ is on the premise that the question is out of bounds for a
state office. It is not asked because a state senator can restrain a President.
It is asked because a candidate's judgment about the leader of her own party is
a fact about her judgment, and voters are entitled to it in the same way they are
entitled to her position on taxes. She answered it directly, which is more than
the question was guaranteed to get, and the answer is now on the record where a
voter can find it. That is the whole purpose of the page.
Summary
-------
| Question | Answer |
| ------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| What was asked? | Whether the candidate will publicly disavow Donald Trump, in his or her own name. |
| Who was asked? | Fazio, Jennings, Guidone, and Weir on September 10, 2026; Austin on September 11, 2026. |
| Was everyone asked the same thing? | Yes, in the same words. |
| How many have answered? | <% correspondence answered %>. |
| Will answers be published? | Yes, in full, unedited, whatever they say. |
| Is silence proof a candidate supports Mr. Trump? | No. It is proof of nothing beyond itself. |
| Has any Connecticut Republican ever answered this way? | Yes, but not recently, and not while holding office. |
Key Observations
----------------
**The question is about the man, not the party.** Every candidate here runs
under Mr. Trump's banner because he leads their party. That is a fact about the
ballot, not an accusation about the candidate. What each of them thinks of him
is something only that candidate can supply.
**Being asked and being accused are different things.** Nothing on this page
asserts that any candidate supports Mr. Trump beyond what that candidate has
said in his or her own words, quoted in context with a link to the original.
The page records a question and whatever comes back.
**Silence is not evidence.** A blank row means the mail has not arrived. Voters
can decide for themselves what to make of an unanswered question, and different
voters will reasonably decide differently.
**The public is paying for these campaigns.** The four candidates for state
office take part in the Citizens' Election Program and have been awarded grants. That confers no
legal obligation to answer anyone's questions, and this page claims none. It
does mean the campaigns are publicly financed, and a voter who notices that is
not being unreasonable.
**A refusal is an answer.** Ms. Jennings said no, plainly and in her own name,
and that is recorded as a direct answer rather than an evasion. She also
declined to be defined by the question, and readers should take that seriously
too. She is entitled to be judged on the whole of what she says.
**An answer ends the matter, whatever it says.** A candidate who replies "I
support him," in those words, has answered honestly and will be recorded as
having done so, in the same type as everyone else.
**Corrections are welcome and will be made quickly.** If a candidate has already
answered this question somewhere I have not looked, the correction belongs on
this page more than the omission does.
What this report does not show
------------------------------
It does not show that any candidate has never discussed Mr. Trump. Paid
advertising was collected for all five, and for Mr. Austin two long-form
interviews posted online were transcribed as well. Organic posts on the
candidates' own Facebook pages, their remarks at forums and debates, most of
their interviews, and their answers to other people's questions were not
systematically searched, and any of those could contain a statement this page
has missed.
It does not show that the question was received, read, or seen by the candidate.
Email to a campaign address is not certified mail.
It does not show that a non-answer is a considered choice. Campaigns are busy,
inboxes overflow, and a message can be lost without anyone deciding anything.
It does not show anything about candidates who were not asked. Five Republicans
were written to because they appear on my ballot or in my House district. Others
on Connecticut ballots this year were not, and their absence from this page
means only that.
It is not a neutral document. I wrote it, I am a Democrat, and I would like
these candidates to answer. What is offered here is not the absence of a point
of view but a record specific enough that a reader who disagrees with me can
check every part of it.
Sources
-------
**Candidate websites**
- Steve Weir for CT, [steveweirforct.com](https://steveweirforct.com/)
- Jenn Jennings 4 Senate,
[jennjennings4senate.com](https://jennjennings4senate.com/)
- Ryan Fazio for Governor, [ryanfazio.com](https://ryanfazio.com/)
- Jason Guidone for Senate,
[guidoneforsenate.com](https://www.guidoneforsenate.com/meet-jason)
- George for Congress, [votegeorgeforcongress.com](https://votegeorgeforcongress.com/)
**Candidate contact information**
- Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission, committee registration
filings (SEEC Form 1A), searchable at
[seec.ct.gov](https://seec.ct.gov/Portal/eCRIS/eCrisSearch)
- Jenn Jennings 4 Senate, campaign contact page,
[jennjennings4senate.com](https://jennjennings4senate.com/contact/)
- Ryan Fazio for Governor, campaign contact page,
[ryanfazio.com](https://ryanfazio.com/contact/)
- Connecticut General Assembly member directory, for Rep. Weir's legislative
address, [cga.ct.gov](https://www.cga.ct.gov/)
- George for Congress, campaign website footer,
[votegeorgeforcongress.com](https://votegeorgeforcongress.com/)
- Federal Election Commission, candidate H6CT02196 and committee C00914481,
[fec.gov](https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/H6CT02196/)
**Candidate status and program participation**
- Connecticut Secretary of the State, Candidate Registration List for Election
Year 2026
- CT News Junkie, coverage of the Republican state convention, May 16, 2026,
[ctnewsjunkie.com](https://ctnewsjunkie.com/2026/05/16/ct-republicans-back-fazio-for-governor/)
**Advertising record**
- Meta Ad Library, collected September 9, 2026, and September 11 for Mr. Austin.
Method and coverage boundaries documented separately; ad-level records
retained.
**Mr. Austin's statements**
- George for Congress, press release, April 22, 2026,
[votegeorgeforcongress.com](https://votegeorgeforcongress.com/george-austin-while-courtney-plays-for-clips-in-d-c-eastern-connecticut-needs-real-health-care-fixes/);
archived copy,
[web.archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20260810192843/https://votegeorgeforcongress.com/george-austin-while-courtney-plays-for-clips-in-d-c-eastern-connecticut-needs-real-health-care-fixes/)
- Polish Agnes, interview with George Austin, recorded October 28, 2025,
[youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd9pM5_QgTg&t=3215)
- Lock N Load Podcast, interview with George Austin, July 7, 2026,
[youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxsW4TIIggU&t=463)
**Prior Connecticut examples**
- CT Mirror, May 7, 2022, on Themis Klarides and the Republican Senate
endorsement,
[ctmirror.org](https://ctmirror.org/2022/05/07/ct-gop-endorses-a-social-moderate-themis-klarides-for-us-senate/)
- CT News Junkie, December 7, 2022, on the Fasano and McKinney opinion piece,
[ctnewsjunkie.com](https://ctnewsjunkie.com/2022/12/07/op-ed-mckinney-fasano-tell-spoiled-child-trump-to-get-lost/)
**Correspondence**
- Every letter, reply, and public answer relating to this question, with
original sources: [correspondence](./correspondence/)
Other Formats
-------------
This report is available in multiple formats.