Christopher J. Dodd won with 56.3% of the vote (763,969 votes), ahead of James L. Buckley with 42.9% (581,884 votes).
The margin between the first two candidates was 13.4 percentage points (182,085 votes). The party margin (Republican share minus Democratic share) was a Democratic lead of 13.4 points.
Compared with the previous comparable race in the same area, the party margin moved 29.9 points toward Democrats. The winning party changed.
1,356,075 votes were counted in this race, for 4 candidates or options.
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