Courant staff writer Mark Spencer is with supporters of Republican Peter Schiff in Milford and he filed this report.
Many of the Schiff volunteers who gathered Tuesday night at the Hilton Garden Inn in Milford got in to the campaign believing he could win.
Some knew of him from his books, television appearances as a financial pundit or his role as an economic advisor to the 2008 presidential campaign of Ron Paul.
Others came to him through the Tea Party. They saw him as the upstart candidate who could repeat the outsider -to -nominee transformation that Tea Party endorsed candidates have pulled off in other states.
Mike Cessario, 20, cast the first vote of his life two years ago for Ron Paul and spent Tuesday working for Schiff at a polling place in his hometown of Burlington.
"I was hopeful," Cessario said of the early days of the campaign. "Peter was the Tea Party endorsed candidate in Connecticut."