CT Democratic leaders call for candidate to withdraw, saying he is promoting ‘hateful ideology’ | 22 Sep 2026 | Top Democratic leaders are calling for William Gifford (R) , a candidate running for the state’s 8th District, to withdraw from the race after he posted to Instagram an interview he conducted with a Christian nationalist they say promotes hateful ideology. In the interview, Gifford, a junior UConn journalism student, asks Joshua Haymes, a former pastor at Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth’s church, “Is it antisemitic to not like someone because they are Jewish and what the Jewish religion says against white Christian men?” In response, Haymes said: “It is difficult because I don’t know what you mean by not like them. For me, I am called to love everyone. Now the Jew, who is in front of me, I love that Jew and I love him enough to say, ‘your religion is evil. Your religion leads people to hell.'”