The 1990 Connecticut State Senate elections took place as a part of the biennial 1990 United States elections. All 36 seats were up for re-election. Senators serve two year terms and are up for re-election every election cycle.
The Democrats lost 3 seats, while the Republicans gained 4 seats, with the Democrats ultimately maintaining their majority in the Senate.
The 36th district consisted of all of Greenwich and the northwestern parts of Stamford. It hadn't elected a Democrat as its State Senator since its creation in 1942.[6] The last time a Democratic candidate for state senate won a district representing Greenwich was H. Allen Barton in 1930.
On May 23, 1990, Emil Benvenuto endorsed A Connecticut Party candidate Lowell Weicker for governor. This outraged the state Republican Party and the Greenwich Republican Town Committee (RTC). On July 10, state representative William H. Nickerson announced his candidacy for the seat.[7] Benvenuto initially sought to run for re-election as a Republican, with the town convention supposed to take place on July 23. However, Benvenuto needed the support of at least six delegates (or 20%) of the RTC's 27 delegates to force a September 11 primary against Nickerson, but ended up only having the support of four or five delegates. On July 16, Benvenuto announced his withdrawal from the primary and that he would run on Weicker's A Connecticut Party ticket.[8]
Connecticut's 36th State Senate district election, 1990
