Republican and Democratic voters in Connecticut have chosen their nominees for governor. Former GE executive Bob Stefanowski from Madison beat out four other contenders to win the Republican nomination. Meanwhile Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont won the Democratic nomination in a landslide against his rival, Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim.
WSHU's Ebong Udoma recently spoke with Sacred Heart University Political Science Professor Gary Rose about the Connecticut primary results.
Rose says there was no surprise about the outcome of the Democratic race.
Well, on the Democratic side I don’t think there was any question whatsoever that the frontrunner, Ned Lamont, was going to win in a big, big way. And he did, securing 82 percent of the popular vote with the Democratic primary. And despite the fact that Joe Ganim presented himself quite well in this campaign, it was quite clear the Democrats obviously were very reluctant to put Joe Ganim at the top of the ticket.
So what happened on the Republican side?
Yeah, on the Republican side an unprecedented number of candidates who qualified for the primary, three by way of convention and we had, of course, a party-endorsed candidate in Mark Boughton, the mayor of Danbury. And then we had the two petitioning candidates as well. And what makes this really fascinating, I think, is that the petitioning candidate, Bob Stefanowski, prevailed. It does call into question, at least to my mind, what the future of the conventions is going to be, because this is obviously totally uncharted territory.
This morning President Trump got into the Connecticut race by his usual way – by a tweet – endorsing Stefanowski. Let’s listen to what Stefanowski had to say last night when he made his acceptance speech. He took on Lamont and tried to tie him to someone who is also quite unpopular in Connecticut, outgoing Governor Dannel Malloy.
STEFANOWSKI: Our great state simply cannot afford a continuation of Dan Malloy’s horrible economic policy with Ned Lamont.
Now let’s play what Lamont said in his acceptance speech.
LAMONT: Our Republican opponents, I don’t know who it’s going to be, they say, ‘I give Donald Trump an A.’ Well, I say I give him an F. He’s wrong. We are going to draw a line in the sand. We are fighting for Connecticut values, not Trump values.
OK. So we have a line in the sand and a third term for Malloy. So that’s what it’s shaping out to be?
Yeah, in many ways I would say Donald Trump and Dan Malloy are at the top of the ticket in November.
But there are other issues. For instance, Stefanowski says he wants to abolish the income tax.
STEFANOWSKI: I’ve got a plan to reduce taxes and eliminate the state income tax over eight years.
Now that’s a bold promise.
It’s a bold promise and I would suggests, Bob the Builder, as he goes by, in the days ahead, he needs to be prepared to explain to voters how that revenue is going to be replaced. Because during the debates, he was a little bit vague on exactly how that was going to happen. I do think that his call to repeal the income tax could resonate with voters outside the Republican Party too.
Well that takes us into the lieutenant governor’s race. Because the Republican in the lieutenant governor’s race was against the income tax right from the beginning. He was one of those who actually led the protest against the implementation of an income tax in Connecticut. His name is Joe Markley, 61-year-old conservative lawmaker from Southington. He’s been in the State Senate for eight years now. It’s between him and the Democratic nominee, Susan Bysiewicz. How is that race going to shape up?
Well, Joe Markley is actually identified as the most conservative Republican in the State Senate. There are those that are going to use some of the issues that he has been of course supporting against him and they’re going to try to paint Stefanowski as a right-wing conservative. They’re going to connect the two as close as possible. Markley, I think, is going to be very good at mobilizing the Republican base. We do know there are some Republicans that have some issues with Bob Stefanowski as well because he actually registered as a Democrat once and he didn’t vote for a very long time either. So Markley is, I think, is kind of a mixed story as to what he brings to the ticket.
So what does this fall campaign season look like to you in Connecticut? It seems like there’s going to be a hell of a lot of activity going on.
This is going to be, in my opinion, probably one of the most contentious, hardball elections. A lot of vitriol. A lot of mudslinging. There’s going to be an ongoing attempt by Ned Lamont to define Bob Stefanowski and there’s going to be an ongoing attempt by Bob Stefanowski to define Lamont. And whoever is the most effective at defining the opponent normally wins the election.
