Yes, he was about the worst possible candidate for them.
True, but I think these places are trending D in the long term anyway.
Depends, I think that particularly in Connecticut places like Darien and New Caanan are major commuter towns with a lot of people who work on Wall Street and they normally despise government regulation and will just vote for whichever candidate gives them a bigger tax break but Trump because of his general instability and seeming lack of concern for the health of markets was a turnoff for them. I think someone like Rubio or Kasich would have won those places which are still very conservative in attitude as much as economically, as they've been historically quite provincial. In 2020 in the event that Trump's been impeached I think they'd even swing back to Pence as the nominee. A lot of blue state Republicans even if they might be somewhat more socially liberal then the national party are able to rationalize it because they'd argue something like "even if Roe v Wade was overturned Connecticut would never criminalize abortion!" or at this point "gay marriage is a decided issue anyway!"
