I could offer a lot of reasons I don’t want to vote this year for Sen. Heather Somers, Republican of Groton, who has represented the 18th District since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016.

But mostly I am growing concerned that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, since it looks increasingly possible no Democrat may challenge her in 2024.

There will be no discussion of the issues at all if she ends up running unopposed.

I understand it’s the Holy Grail of eastern Connecticut politics for Democrats, a plum Senate seat but one that sprawls through a lot of red towns.

Stonington Democrat Andrew Maynard did manage to hold the seat for a bit before Somers came along. He followed a Republican.

The district wanders away from the blue shoreline up into northeastern Connecticut, Trump country, where both Maynard and Somers have had to show some gun control resistance mettle with controversial votes in their home towns.

Somers, in 2022, wasn’t able to take wins in her home town or in Stonington, where the voting was close. But she scored big in recent elections, sometimes two to one, against some worthy challengers in towns like Plainfield, Griswold and Sterling.

Seasoned Democrat winners of House seats in the district are justifiably reluctant to take a stab at such daunting terrain. I don’t blame them.

I know a lot of Democrats have been urging Groton Town Councilor Portia Bordelon, Groton’s big vote-getter, to give the 18th a try. I would love to see a Bordelon/Somers race, and I think everyone would benefit from the clash of ideas and perspectives.

Somers, who has gubernatorial ambitions, should welcome a serious challenger, for practice, especially one who could present a formidable challenge on her home turf.

I can also understand why Bordelon doesn’t want to bang her head against the wall, unable to present, for instance, any gun cred or Trumpisms up north. She’d have to do really well in the south.

This strikes me as an especially worrisome election year, when the future of our democracy is literally on the ballot, for Democrats to let a Republican walk away with a Senate seat without any challenge at all.

Somers managed to duck formal debates for the last election, objecting to League of Women Voters rules. But I would hope that Democrats would at least make it clear this year, with an opposing candidate, that she needs to participate in a formal election conversation of the issues.

No Democratic candidate has surfaced yet in the 18th, as the clock ticks a countdown toward a May nominating convention.

I can certainly understand why no one wants to step up to lose.

But the election cycle is young, and it may be that Somers, by fall, will have to be defending a convicted a felon at the head of her ticket, one she won’t be able to renounce before her constituency up north.

That may play really badly closer to home.

It would be good debate fodder, like the Republican stoking of abortion bans around the country and election denialism.

Even some Connecticut Republicans are probably growing tired of Republican leaders who won’t renounce Trump. Nikki Haley did surprisingly well in Tuesday’s presidential primary in Connecticut, for someone with a suspended campaign, taking more than 20% of the vote in some towns. She scored over 22% among Old Lyme Republicans.

I am sure there are a lot of interesting new developing Democratic voices in the 18th District who could take this opportunity to showcase some fresh ideas and perspectives.

Maybe one of them will step up and speak up. Demand a debate.

No one will hold it against you for losing. Indeed, you score big for trying.

Our democracy is in peril. This is not the year, with the country so divided, to let anyone walk away with a Connecticut Senate seat without some kind of a fight and a thorough airing of the great issues at stake.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com