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People file out of the House chamber after the legislative session ended, just past midnight on June 5, 2025. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

A special election to elect a successor to former state Rep. Bobby Sanchez in the 25th House District of New Britain will be held Jan. 6, a month before the regular 2026 legislative session opens. 

Sanchez, a Democrat elected to the state House in 2010, won the race for mayor of New Britain on Nov. 4 and resigned from the House Nov. 12, the day of his mayoral inauguration.

On Friday, Gov. Ned Lamont scheduled the special election, following a timetable set in state law: a writ setting a date has to be issued within 10 days of Sanchez’s resignation, and election must be held 46 days after the writ.

Mark is the Capitol Bureau Chief and a co-founder of CT Mirror. He is a frequent contributor to WNPR, a former state politics writer for The Hartford Courant and Journal Inquirer, and contributor for The New York Times.