By Marie Horrigan, CQ Staff

The Republican candidate’s poor fundraising track record for the race in the battleground 2nd District in Connecticut is increasing the odds that freshman Democrat Joe Courtney will be able to hold onto the seat he won by a margin by the narrowest of margins in 2006.

Republican challenger Sean Sullivan is the former commander of the Groton submarine base in eastern Connecticut district who retired from the Navy in 2006 and began working as a lawyer in Norwich before taking a leave of absence to run his campaign.

But the transition from military man to politician has not been easy for Sullivan, especially in the realm of fundraising. According to one Republican strategist, “Sullivan’s lack of commitment to raising the necessary funds to compete has severely limited his chances of winning back the seat.”

As of April 1, Sullivan raised $230,000 and had $129,000 on hand for his campaign while Courtney raised $1.5 million and had $1.2 million on hand. Sullivan raised $43,000 for the first quarter of 2008 while Courtney raised $273,000, according to campaign finance reports due Tuesday.

Because Courtney has raised more than six times as much money as Sullivan for the 2008 election cycle and has more than nine times as much cash available for the race, CQ Politics is changing its rating to Democrat Favored from Leans Democrat.

Despite Sullivan’s slow fundraising, Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy said that he was optimistic about the race.

“We realize that the last reporting quarter wasn’t what we hoped for but we’ve got a great candidate in Sean Sullivan,” he said.

Healy added: “Sean has served in the military for a long time and has never run for office so he doesn’t start necessarily with a rolodex of political contacts, so we’re working on that and I’m very optimistic about it no matter what the rankings or the ‘cheat sheets’ say.”

Sullivan told CQ Politics he was on track to raise $1 million, the amount he said he needed to run a competitive race. “I don’t think its unusual to see that a challenger is lagging behind . . . If you look at the history of this district you’ll see that Republicans have run races before, including Rob Simmons who won in 2000, while being significantly outspent by the incumbent Democrat.”

Simmons unseated longtime Democratic Rep. Sam Gejdenson in 2000. Gejdenson raised and spent $1.8 million that election cycle while Simmons raised and spent $1.1 million.

But Chris Barnes, a pollster with Pulsar Research and Consulting in Vernon, Conn., said that was not a good comparison. Simmons won the 2000 race by painting Gejdenson as out of touch with the district, a message he drove home with a powerful ad about Gejdenson buying a home in a gated community outside the district. Sullivan will not have anything comparable to use against Courtney, he said.

“Courtney’s just getting to know everybody and he’s around all the time and making it some sort of out-of-touch statement or something like that is going to be really difficult the Republicans to make,” he said.

Barnes added that part of the Sullivan’s problems fundraising could be attributed to lobbyists and other interest groups trying to prove their fealty to Courtney.