Meet Mike
Built in eastern Connecticut.
Forged in the Navy.
Nice to meet you. I'm Mike France, a retired Navy officer, an engineer, a husband and father, and someone who has spent his life solving hard problems. I grew up in California, but the Navy brought me to New England, and I fell in love with it instantly.
I didn't come to public service through politics. I came to it through service: two decades in the United States Navy, followed by a career as an engineer supporting the construction of submarines that keep our country safe.
Eastern Connecticut is a place I’m proud to call my home. It's where my family put down roots after retiring from the Navy and where I served on the Ledyard Town Council. It’s also where I spent eight years in the state legislature fighting for the taxpayers and families who anchor this region. Everything I've ever done in my life has come back to the same core principles:
1) Do the hard work.
2) Take pride in it.
3) Tell the truth.
4) Most importantly, leave things better than you found them.
- Spend like it's your money. Government grows quietly and someone has to ask whether every program still earns its keep. I've been that leader before, and I'm prepared to do it again.
- A strong defense isn't optional. I've seen up close and personal what our submarine force means to national security and to the eastern Connecticut economy. I'll always fight to ensure we have the skilled workforce required to build and maintain the fleet our country needs to defend itself.
- Tell people the truth. I'm not making any promises I can't keep. I know voters in Connecticut can handle the truth, and unfortunately these days, rarely get it.
- Serve the people who sent you. This job is about the families, seniors, workers, and small businesses who count on you to show up and do the work.
I spent 20 years on active duty in the United States Navy. I deployed to the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean, and I supported operations during Desert Storm and Operation Southern Watch.
My final assignment brought me to my adopted home in southeastern Connecticut. While stationed at Supervisor of Shipbuilding Groton, I oversaw the delivery of the combat system for VIRGINIA Class submarines at Electric Boat. I know the enormous undertaking required to build these boats: the skilled trades, the supply chains, the schedules, and the national security stakes riding on every hull. That work is personal to me, and it's personal to thousands of families across this region. When you’re underway 400 feet below the surface, you best believe every American submariner respects the men and women who assemble these boats.
My public service started close to home, where I served three years on the Ledyard Town Council, chairing the Finance Committee, where I learned that every dollar the government spends belongs to someone who worked for it. In 2014, voters sent me to Hartford for four terms in the state House, where I served on the Appropriations, Government Administration and Elections, and Planning and Development committees and chaired the legislature's Conservative Caucus.
There, I brought an engineer's discipline to the job. Everyone knows you don't just wish a problem away… You have to understand it and build a plan to fix it. That meant scrutinizing budgets and standing up for the towns and taxpayers who get squeezed when the state doesn't do its job right the first time. I never took the easy vote. I always took the one I could defend to the people who sent me.
And that’s why I’m running now. I’m running because I’ve sat in town halls, read the news, talked with families from our great state, and business leaders from across the district. Their answers are the same. Eastern Connecticut deserves a strong leader who works as hard as the people who live here.