Brian Wingate and Abby Feldman going door to door: “I believe if we stayed with him a little while longer, we could have converted him.” New Haveners at AFSCME Local 1303 in New Britain. Under a clear autumn sky, New Haven Rising organizer Abby Feldman and Beaver Hills Alder Brian Wingate went door to door — in New Britain — urging fellow union members to vote blue this November, as the traveling New Haveners made a worker-power pitch for Democrats in one of the most hotly contested House of Representatives districts in the country.Feldman and Wingate were two of roughly two dozen New Haveners who made the drive from College Street to Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District Saturday to go door to door on behalf of three-term incumbent Democrat, U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes.The efforts were the first in a series of weekly canvas sessions organized by New Haven Rising and Yale’s UNITEHERE unions on behalf of Democrats this general election season. Saturday’s outing focused in particular on urging union members to vote for Hayes, in her rematch against Republican challenger and former State Sen. George Logan.Feldman and Wingate, the latter of whom is also the vice president of Yale’s blue-collar union Local 35, walked the brisk streets of New Britain to advocate for Hayes. The turf assigned to the two included houses occupied by registered union members, as part of a ​“Member to Member” canvassing walk organized by the AFL-CIO. As a result, all of the houses assigned to canvassers contained members affiliated with a union under the AFL-CIO.The outing came as Democrats and Republicans nationwide wrestle over which party truly represents America’s working class.As they set out on the trail, Wingate and Feldman sought to hear what was on residents’ minds — and how Hayes could make their lives better. One resident, who said his name was Jerry, gave the duo the sharpest rebuke they received all day at the doors. He said that Hayes couldn’t help him, and that he is particularly fed up with the amount of taxes he has to pay for what seems like nothing in return. Jerry noted that he doesn’t trust Democratic candidates, calling current Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris a ​“socialist.” Later in the conversation, Jerry told Wingate and Feldman that he had immigrated from Poland to the United States and had served in the Navy. He said that, being from Poland, he had witnessed the impacts of communism on the continent after World War II.“It’s not easy to run the country, but then you cannot tell me certain things when I see it different for myself, and it hurts my pocket and everything else,” Jerry said. ​“So don’t promise me a lot of stuff, when you had so many years to fix it. Why don’t you just fix it?”On top of high taxes, he said he’s concerned about illegal immigrants sexually assaulting ​“little girls,” positing the issue as more urgent than abortion rights. Feldman countered, saying that regardless of immigration, such atrocities would still occur, rendering the fearmongering around immigrants pointless. Over the course of the conversation, Jerry frequently turned away to shut the door — only to remember another point and return to argue with Feldman and Wingate. He would do this six times.“I love your passion around your position, and thank you for opening the door and listening to us, but remember to go out and vote,” Wingate said at the end of the conversation. ​“And if I see you out there again, I want to shake your hand, because I think we need more of that.”Wingate offered his hand. Without hesitation, Jerry shook it.“The problem is we’re talking at each other, not listening to each other,” Wingate said. ​“That’s the issue.”Jerry nodded. Then, he promptly shut the door.On the walk to the next house, Feldman and Wingate chatted about the fiery interaction. Wingate predicted that the man would have probably stayed for another 20 minutes if the two had kept going back and forth.“But I like that. We captured him enough to even vent,” Wingate said. ​“I believe if we stayed with him a little while longer, we could have converted him.”He’s used to canvassing. While he walked around, Wingate shared that he had canvassed in West Virginia for the Obama campaign in 2008. It was there that he first experienced door-to-door canvassing. Soon after, he would employ those same techniques in Beaver Hills when he ran for alder in 2011. It was during those door-to-door outreach efforts that he injured his ankle, an injury he pointed out on Saturday morning as he traversed the streets of New Britain.One older New Britain resident said he identified as independent, and that while he intends to vote on Nov. 5, he was currently undecided between the two parties. He raised concerns about road conditions. Though he talked some with the canvassers, he and his wife were on their way to a wedding and couldn’t speak for long.“We’ll come back for them,” Wingate said.The two were welcomed at another house by yapping dogs. Evelyn Vasquez picked the dogs up and pushed them into her bathroom. Then, she welcomed the two into her home. When Feldman asked what Vasquez’s concerns were, Vasquez said they were her retirement and health. Between suffering with Parkinson’s and having survived breast cancer, she’s found it difficult to focus on politics entirely. Despite this distance, she knows for a fact that she and her husband will vote for Hayes and Vice President Kamala Harris, instead of Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump.“It’s getting out of hand,” Vasquez said. ​“It needs to be taken care of by the right people.”On why New Haveners should care about Hayes’s race for Congress, Wingate argued that, should Harris be elected to office as president, she would need support from Congress and the state. With an already tightly split U.S. House of Representatives, the race between Hayes and Logan is proving to be a consequential one.“New Haven should care about who wins in these districts as well, simply because the support’s got to trickle down to us,” Wingate said.Representing New Haven Rising, Feldman emphasized a stake in labor union rights. She brought up the recent win by Omni hotel workers who, through organizing efforts alongside Local 217, were able to secure increased wages in a new contract. This was preceded by only a few days with news that workers at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich settled on a new contract.“From the community side, we see that having stronger unions is good for all jobs, union and non union. When they fought for the Graduate Hotel to get organized and unionized, we heard that many other hotels had to raise their wages and to keep up,” Feldman said. ​“So we’re really trying to lift the floor for all jobs.”Nobody's home ... Is anybody home? Feldman talking with one undecided voter, who was home.