The 2018 Miss Connecticut USA competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Connecticut in the Miss USA pageant. This pageant is currently licensed to, and produced by, Sanders & Associates, Inc..
Despite a number of semi-finals placements in the 1960s, Connecticut is overall one of the least successful states at Miss USA. From 1969 until 2002, not one Miss Connecticut USA had placed at the national competition. In 2002, this spell was broken by Alita Dawson, who placed 4th runner-up. Dawson was one of three former Miss Connecticut Teen USAs to win the Miss crown (although a former Miss Wisconsin Teen USA also won this competition).
Erin Brady of East Hampton became the first Miss USA ever from the state of Connecticut when she was crowned Miss USA 2013.
Every year, each state holds a preliminary competition to choose their delegate for the Miss USA pageant. In some states (such as Texas and Florida), local pageants are also held to determine delegates for the state competition. The state winners hold the title "Miss State USA" for the year of their reign.
The most successful state is Texas, which has had the most semi-finalists and winners, including five consecutive Miss USA titleholders during the 1980s.[22] Other successful states include California, New York, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia. The least successful states are Delaware, placing only once in 2015; Montana, which has not placed since the 1950s; South Dakota, which has only placed three times (the last time in 2016), and Wyoming, which gained only its second placement in 2010. The only state which has produced more than one Miss Universe is South Carolina.
The Miss Universe Organization licenses out the state pageants to pageant directors, who in some cases are responsible for more than one state. The most well established directorial groups are RPM Productions, created in 1980 (Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina), and Vanbros, created in the early 1990s (Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma). Future Productions direct the most states, seven, across the Midwest and Rockies.