CT's 139th House race teeters between historic firsts and courtroom drama.

Voters in Connecticut’s 139th House District are voting in a winter special election to fill the seat left by the late Rep. Kevin Ryan. The contest could produce CT’s first tribal member in the General Assembly or the district's first Republican in decades. Democratic nominee Larry Pemberton Jr., an Eastern Pequot member, faces Republican Brandon Sabbag, a businessman who has homelessness history and a 2018 criminal record; a third candidate, Mark Adams, is suing to be on the ballot as a write-in after an Independent Party nomination dispute. A judge’s ruling in Adams’s favor could trigger a redo. Early turnout favored Democrats; endorsements and intra-party tensions could influence this 10-month term before the seat is on the ballot again for a full two-year term, potentially prompting a summer primary.