Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy has won re-election in Connecticut, NBC News projected Wednesday.
Republican challenger Tom Foley officially conceded to Malloy Wednesday afternoon. The incumbent governor beat Foley by about 51% to 48%, according to initial results.
After his win, Malloy entered a news conference to the chant of “four more years.”
“I don’t sit around a lot. I have things that I want to get done, and that the state wants to get done,” he said from the state capitol in Hartford.
Malloy’s re-election is a victory for gun control, which the governor has advocated for since the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In the months following the massacre, Malloy signed into law a historic gun bill that requires universal background checks for all purchasers, and added more than 100 firearms to the state’s existing ban on assault weapons. The measure also prohibited the sale and purchase of high-capacity magazines. Earlier this year, judges upheld the legislation, after pro-gun advocates sought repeal and sued the state.
The issue of gun control won definitively Tuesday in Washington state, after residents passed Initiative 594 to require criminal background checks on all sales and transfers, including at gun shows and on the Internet. Washington became the seventh state to require background checks, and the fifth (after Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware and New York) to do so since the shooting in Newtown.
Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper also won re-election in Colorado, marking another bright spot for the party and gun control in Tuesday’s elections. Hickenlooper, who faced backlash for a strict firearms law passed by the state legislature, beat his opponent, Republican Bob Beauprez, 48.4% to 47%, NBC News projected.
