I was chilled a bit by the election-eve winds that swept across shoreline Connecticut Monday night, shaking the last of the stubborn leaves off the big old maple in front of my house.

Indeed, the unsettled November weather seemed to be a meteorological harbinger of what had been billed as such an enormously consequential Election Day, with so many election deniers on the ballot nationally and polite political discourse in general free fall.

Indeed, I was startled to read of Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski rattling the cage about election propriety here in old tried and true Connecticut, even before the polls opened Tuesday.

And I have been alarmed by some recent reader comments here on theday.com, our neighbors joining in the horrific, un-Christian treatment of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in regards to the brutal, politically-driven attack on her 82-year-old husband.

Where did these people lose their humanity?

Former President Donald Trump has managed to normalize and free others to engage in such nasty, cruel political discourse. And also, sadly, he’s normalized the notion that you don’t just gracefully lose an election, you challenge the results and, if necessary, the premise of our democracy.

The good news, which I relished, on my usual Election Day tour up to the northern, red reaches of southeastern Connecticut, is that the brisk wind that continued for much of Tuesday did not seem to blow away what remains of Connecticut’s reasonable and polite politics.

Indeed, I noticed a decided puncturing of the Trump balloon in even the ruby red reaches of eastern Connecticut.

James E. Navan, Sr., of Sterling, was back again at his Trump-themed, flag-festooned tent outside the polls at Sterling Town Hall, the same one he manned in 2020, when Trump was on the ballot.

But he admitted that he got less positive responses this year from passing voters.

He said his First Amendment rights were infringed Tuesday when he tried to put some “F--- Biden” flags along the road. State Department of Transportation workers arrived at the scene quickly and told him police would be dispatched if he did not take down the flags with the obscenities and others along the road simply promoting Trump.

I chatted for a while with Navan, who told me he doesn’t read newspapers because they tell lies and that Pfizer has killed many people with its vaccines created in the “plandemic.”

He was pleasant and friendly, although I didn’t see that we would find much common ground in a political conversation.

I did find some dedicated Democrats holding signs outside a polling station in Voluntown, and they laughed that they are in a small political minority in the town.

Betty Jenkins-Donahue, treasurer of the Democratic Town Committee, told me a lot of the boisterous and rancorous Trump posturing outside polls in 2020 seemed to be missing this year.

Trump certainly played a prominent national role in 2022 voting, from primaries to Election Day, but his plans for 2024 seem more a gambit than ever, with the likelihood of indictments further muddying Republican politics.

As we all look now for a 2024 reset, I will take some solace in those Tuesday winds that seemed to be clearing the air a bit of genuine Trumpism, at least here in tried and true Connecticut.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com