Former State Rep. Mike France kicked off his third consecutive political campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., this week with an unapologetic view of President Donald Trump, whose policies, he said, have helped eastern Connecticut.
France, a 62-year-old Navy veteran, said trends are moving toward Republican strength in the region, noting that Trump performed better in the district in 2024 than 2020 and that voter registration is continuing to shift to the GOP.
France told CT Examiner on Thursday he will run his 2026 race with a laser focus on Courtney’s congressional record, saying the lawmaker failed to deliver for the district when given the chance.
“I look at where we are going as a country, and thanks to the success of the first six months of this [Trump] administration — after the devastation of the last four years under [former President Joe] Biden, supported by Joe Courtney — I realize that people now know that he is part of the problem and that they need new leadership,” France said. “Look at the most recent vote on the big beautiful bill. He [Courtney] had the opportunity to reduce taxes on tips, reduce taxes on overtime, reduce taxes on social security; he voted against the bill. That does not serve the young families and seniors of eastern Connecticut.”
France said he contacted the Republican town committee leaders in all 64 towns in the 2nd District, which Courtney represents, and received “very positive feedback across the board.”
France, who lives in Gales Ferry, said his campaign over the next month will include “meeting with local leaders and likely media engagement. It’s really just continuing to launch the campaign and get it off the ground.”
Having been deployed to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean, as well as three deployments in support of Desert Storm and Operation Southern Watch, France said he’d like to serve on the House Armed Services Committee if elected. France said he’d also like to serve on the Appropriations Committee in Congress.
France served four terms in the Connecticut General Assembly, serving on the Appropriations Committee, Government Administration and Elections, and Planning and Development Committee. He also served as a member of the General Assembly’s Conservative Caucus.
Answers has been edited for length and clarity
CTEx: In a June TV interview, Electric Boat President Mark Rayha said the company is working to address supply chain issues, particularly with generators and bow components, which can impact production timelines. As a career naval officer, what would you do to address the supply chain issues that companies like EB face?
Mike France: It’s a great question, because that is the number one industry in the southern part of the district, and critical to our national security. We look at supply chain issues. There are many, but what I bring to the table is my last tour in the Navy was as supervisor of ship building in Groton, overseeing the construction of Virginia Class submarines. And I represented the program manager on site for the delivery of the combat system on Virginia Class. So I have a direct understanding of not just construction, but the acquisition process and relationships that have been built over many years. I’ve continued to work as a defense contractor since I retired 20 years ago, and what I bring is that background and understanding of the process and the challenges that Electric Boat faces. And it’s not just the supply chain. … Congress needs to have somebody with my background and experience to help EB be more successful to deliver two submarines per year, instead of just over one submarine per year that they’ve been doing recently.
CTEx: How do you think President Donald Trump’s second term has been received in the 2nd District? How would you characterize your place in today’s Republican Party?
France: I think his policies speak for themselves. We’ve seen the most successful first six months of an administration — probably in the history of our country — and in stark contrast to the devastation of the previous four years. We had inflation rates [under Biden] over 9%, something we hadn’t seen in over three decades, mortgage rates that are 6% to 7%, once again, rates we haven’t seen in over three decades really causing challenges for young families to buy that first house to care for their family, feed their family. That was the number one thing that I heard during the last administration. All we needed was real leadership, and we’re seeing that right now in the Trump administration. Not just from the president, but from the secretaries and others that are running the organizations across government successfully.
I think the key is providing leadership, providing direction, bringing the experience that I have, both in elected office and service to my country, to serve the people of eastern Connecticut. Joe Courtney first got elected to office almost 40 years ago. He has further demonstrated how out of touch he is with the district. I think the people of eastern Connecticut deserve leadership that is truly going to serve them.
CTEx: This is your third time facing off against Joe Courtney. You lost by 18 percentage points in 2022 and 16 percentage points in 2024. Why are you running for a third time and how will 2026 be different?
France: I think the big thing that we see is the fact that we’re seeing the success of Republican policies that I ran on, and we’re seeing in real time why Joe Courtney is not the right person to serve. He is voting against those policies. When we look at the latest continuing resolution — also known as the Big, Beautiful Bill — you have three basic things that the residents of eastern Connecticut are going to see. One is the no tax on tips, second is the no tax on overtime, and the third is no tax on Social Security. Those three things help young families and help seniors in a way that can’t be underestimated, and it puts direct money back in their pocket that will not go to the federal government.
I think another thing of the success of the first two campaigns and running a third time is the name recognition. It takes time to have that. It takes time for people to believe in a different candidate. It takes time for people to change who they vote for. But I think the fundamental [difference] is the stark contrast between the disaster of the Biden administration the last four years, supported by Joe Courtney, and what we see in the first six months plus of the current administration and the success that people are feeling.
CTEx: Connecticut has some of the highest energy costs in the country. Why do you think that is and, what, if anything, could you do in Congress to lower those costs for businesses and residential customers?
France: Largely what the people of Connecticut are feeling is the failed policies, green energy policies, of the state of Connecticut. Those were substantial problems. So the state Legislature is really responsible for most of what they’re feeling now. Where the federal government can come in is we have talked about bringing in additional natural gas into the state of Connecticut, and it’s reached impediments because the state of New York refuses to allow the natural gas to come from Pennsylvania into Connecticut. That’s where the federal government should get involved, and Joe Courtney has failed to do anything related to that issue.
CTEx: What would you like to see done with the State Pier, which, at one time, appeared poised as a hub for building offshore wind off the east coast.
France: I said it when I was in the legislature back at the beginning. We basically levied all the cost on the taxpayers of Connecticut by the bad deal that we initiated from the beginning. And what has now been done, we gave up the rights of our own pier, effectively, to Orsted and the development there. Unfortunately, we are stuck with that deal for another approximately 15 years. But what they’ve done because we’ve cut the deal is none of that wind project is going into the state of Connecticut. [It’s going] offshore in Rhode Island, off of New York. They’re leveraging the asset that they negotiated and not honoring [it]. I would say it’s up to the pier authority and the administration in Hartford to ensure that the citizens of Connecticut benefit for the hundreds of millions of dollars of cost that they have obligated them to.
CTEx: Last year, the Naugatuck Valley suffered its worst flooding since the 1950s. Do you think FEMA and the National Weather Service are doing a good job forecasting and responding to storms? How do you see these agencies changing over the next four years?
France: I think they do a great job, frankly, and you see it every day. I think FEMA will respond with the correct leadership from the administration, and I see no indication that won’t be positive if something happens in the state of Connecticut. I think that the predictions are as good as the information that they have, and the weather service also does a great job. We saw in the recent hurricanes down south in the Louisiana area that they did predict it. The challenge is that the timing of it wasn’t sufficient for the residents of that camp down in Texas [where many people died]. Also, the local authority decided not to put in an emergency announcing system. It had nothing to do with whether the weather service provided an announcement or not. Given all of that, it is my responsibility as a member of Congress to ensure those agencies support the residents of Connecticut should hurricanes come up here.
CTEx: The 2018 Farm Bill is set to expire on Sept. 30. Are there changes that you’d like to see in Washington, D.C., regarding how it handles farming in places like eastern Connecticut?
France: I think the challenges we face with all of this is how do we allow the farmers to do their jobs and act independently, without the requirements to continue to take money from the federal government? That is a challenging proposition. I’ve talked with several farmers who are frustrated with the fact that they have to take the money. What I would do is go talk to [farmers] and find out what are the solutions that we need to put in place so that you can have more control over your own destiny and be successful, and be the independent farmer that we all knew from generations past with less dependence on the federal government which ideally would make them more successful.
CTEx: If elected to Congress, what would be your top two goals in Washington, D.C., that would impact Connecticut in a positive way?
France: The first number one priority is to actually pass a budget. We’ve not had a budget in almost 30 years. We’ve been actually voting for continuing resolutions for almost 30 years. And the fundamental problem with that is, all that does is authorize spending. It doesn’t set policy. So what we’ve done is we have created policies that we don’t know whether we can afford, and frankly, we can’t, which has led to this. The record deficit that we have under Joe Courtney. When he came into office the federal government had a $8.5 trillion deficit. Now we’re over $36 trillion. Failure of leadership on his part is part of the problem. All he has done is to vote for spending that we can’t afford. So that’s the number one thing. The second is national security. We are in a position today where we do not have the military needed to defend our own country.
They [politicians] have not followed the 30-year build plan that the Department of Defense has put out. So there is a 30-year construction plan for the Navy that [states] the number of ships and submarines … that we need, and we have not followed that. And I think the other part about it, in addition to construction, is the maintenance side. That is where we’re really seeing for the submarines, in particular, a real challenge in operational availability. Frankly, it goes back to a decision made in the 1990s to close many of our public shipyards, and that is, I think, the priority we have is to ensure that we have the military readiness to not only defend our country, but also to project power. Project power, to be a deterrent around the world and support our allies.
CTEx: Has the nature of the United States’ alliances changed since the Cold War? Do you see Russia as a key adversary for the United States? And should the U.S. go to war with China over the fate of Taiwan?
France: Yes, things have changed dramatically. If we look at NATO as an organization when the Soviet Union collapsed, it kind of morphed in some way. So when you look at Ukraine, in particular, why Europe didn’t immediately stand up in favor of Ukraine is because they entered into economic relations with Russia. And the principal relations were related to natural gas coming from Russia. And we saw the consequence of that. When Germany finally did stand up, what did Russia do? They shut the valve of the natural gas, which caused Germany to go back to using dirty coal, because that’s all they had in January, in the winter. So, yes, it’s a different situation, because there are now economic relations between the supposed enemy of NATO, the former Soviet Union now Russia, which creates an interesting dynamic. And I think you see how President Trump is dealing with that dynamic by using tariffs and other economic things, just like he did in his first term, dealing with Iran in a constructive way to set foreign policy. I think what we see in the challenges we face [with] China is that they’ve stated what their intentions are. We need to provide a presence and a credible deterrent in the Pacific to ensure that that doesn’t happen.
CTEx: Gov. Ned Lamont declared an emergency to fill a possible $284 million Medicaid shortfall in May. How would you tackle this issue in Congress?
France: I think the first thing is to ensure that programs beyond Medicaid, like Social Security and Medicare that the people of our country pay into over their working lifetime, are solvent and will provide the benefit that working families and people have earned over their working lifetime. When it comes to Medicaid, we need to ensure that only people that are authorized to receive Medicaid do right now. We see a number of illegal immigrants who are not authorized, and we see people who are capable of working, but are not by their own actions. I think those are two principal things that we need to look at. And beyond that, there is fraud out there. We’re talking billions of dollars.