In this year’s Connecticut governor’s race, the two major parties appear to be heavily focused on the state’s cities. Both Republican Tom Foley and incumbent Democrat Dannel Malloy have made several campaign stops in Bridgeport since Foley won the GOP primary last Tuesday.
It was after a recount in Bridgeport four years ago, that Malloy defeated Foley by a narrow margin of 6,404 votes. This time the Republican businessman from Greenwich appears to working hard to prevent that. But while campaigning on the East Side of Bridgeport on Friday Foley denied that was the case.
“It has nothing to do with the election and it has nothing to do with the election of 2010. What it has to do with is that in Connecticut, in our cities, not just Bridgeport, but I’ve been spending time in New Haven, in Hartford, I was in Waterbury. The people who need government the most are in these cities. And these cities have a lot of challenges,” he said.
Malloy also spent much of the week campaigning in Bridgeport, including what he called a Bridgeport canvass kickoff on Saturday, but he too denied any special focus on the city. “Well Bridgeport is important, New Haven is important, Darien is important, Wolcott is important. They are important. We are going to contest vote for vote in all 169 municipalities,” he said.
Connecticut’s major cities are heavily Democratic and have always presented a challenge for Republicans. But voter turnout is normally low in the cities – in a statewide race that’s the challenge for Democrats.
