With the major party conventions coming up in May, candidates for governor in Connecticut are ramping up their campaigns.
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas to discuss his article, “From the left, Josh Elliott pumps up his challenge to Ned Lamont,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short.
WSHU: Hello, Mark. Let's start by talking about Josh Elliott. Who is he, and why does he believe a challenge to Lamont from the left can be successful?
MP: Josh Elliott (D) is, by his own description, an economic populist. He was elected 10 years ago to the House of Representatives in an interesting fashion. He began a challenge to Brendan Sharkey (D), who was then one of the most powerful people in state government. He was the Speaker of the House. And within a couple of weeks of Elliott beginning his campaign, Sharkey announced he would not run for reelection, whether or not that was a direct consequence of the challenge or not; the fact remains that that was the origin story of Josh Elliott. He arrived as a very brash and liberal member of the House. And I call him brash because one of the things he did his first year was distribute a questionnaire to all his House Democratic colleagues. All but two of them responded, and then he proceeded to rate them based on their positions on a whole host of progressive items.
And he said back then, you know, it's my effort to find out who belongs here and who does not. Since then, he's become more measured in his approach. He has learned how to be a legislator, and by that, I mean somebody who takes into account what it takes to get things passed. And he's learned to work with others, and he is now a deputy speaker. He helps run the screening committee, a very important committee, a procedural committee, that is the last stop for a lot of bills before they get called for a vote to make sure that they are up to snuff. So he's an interesting guy in that regard. Now, when he announced his campaign against the governor for the Democratic nomination, you know, there were a lot of eye rolls about his ability to compete.
WSHU: How did Lamont himself take it?
MP: Oh, he was very jocular. He said, Welcome to the race. And he said, I know him. He's a nice man and all that, perhaps a tad patronizing. Since then, Elliott has been to 100 democratic town committees, and many Democrats I speak with say they are quite confident he's going to get the 15% of the delegate vote at the Convention on May 16 to qualify for a primary. There are a couple of people saying, maybe not, that might be ambitious.
WSHU: But he's been working hard on this, because you say he was, he was, one particular day, he was trying to make three different democratic town committees the same night.
MP: Yes, I did ask him that night if he, in fact, had a map of Connecticut. Geography was very difficult. But yeah, no, there's no question that he's working very hard, and that he does offer an alternative to the governor, to you know, to the people who are frustrated at times with the governor's centrist politics, particularly on money. Josh Elliott is in favor of a surcharge on the richest taxpayers to pay for any number of things, including property tax relief. He is somebody who would favor Connecticut changing the laws of eminent domain to make it easier for municipalities to take over the infrastructure of Eversource or UI. So he's unafraid to kind of rock the boat. So this has kind of been, well, it started off, people viewed it as him trying to pressure the governor to the left and to offer a voice, a vehicle for people who are like-minded to speak out against the governor. One of the problems he faces is that even if he does get the 15% at the convention, as of the present time, he is quite a bit short of the money he needs to qualify for public financing. So he could be in an awkward position at the convention, where he has enough support to go forward with a primary but perhaps not the money at that point, at least.
WSHU: How much is the public financing? How much is the public financing money, and how much has he raised?
MP: Right now, to qualify, you need $335,000, and he has raised about $203,000. And he may need a little bit more, because not every contribution you get turns out to be eligible to qualify him for a variety of reasons, but in any event, you know he's not quite two-thirds of the way there. He has time. The final deadline would be July 17. But as he says, quite reasonably, the question is, could he get the money soon enough that it can be of of use the grant is, they've increased the grants this year under the law, they're now kind of pegged to inflation, so the grant for somebody who qualifies for major party primary for governor, the grant is $3.75 million and then for the general election, it's $18 million So, you know, that's a big bunch of money. Two of the three Republican candidates have already qualified. So you know, Ryan Fazio (R) and Erin Stewart (R) each have their grants for the conventions and primary.
WSHU: Okay, we could see a primary in both parties this year.
MP: We could. There has not been a primary against an incumbent governor since Ella Grasso (D) was challenged by her lieutenant governor in 1978. People tried against Bill O'Neill (D) twice in 1982 and 1986. Back then, the threshold at a convention was 20%, and the Speaker of the House, Ernie Abate, failed in 1982, and then Toby Moffett, the former congressman, failed in 1986. So it's a little bit easier now at 15%, but you know, Connecticut does not have a real culture of primary challenges to incumbents. You know, we've had the big exception in 2006 with Joe Lieberman (I) when Ned Lamont, as Ned Lamont noted, I really cannot say this guy shouldn't challenge me, because I did a statewide primary against Joe Lieberman in 2006 over the war in Iraq.
WSHU: Now, there's also an age difference here. So is Elliott pushing a generational change? He's 41 years old, and Lamont is 72.
MP: You know, he's gone soft on that, at least, where I heard of it, town committees, really. He focuses on substantive issues, on positions. He also makes an issue of the governor's wealth, and he has compared him to Donald Trump (R). He says, you know, these are two billionaires who don't have a clue about what it's like to be an ordinary working person in either Connecticut or the United States. The governor, we don't have anything in the public record that would indicate that Ned Lamont indeed is a billionaire, but unquestionably, he is an independently wealthy man. He has self-funded campaigns before, and he is largely doing it this time.
WSHU: Well, Josh Elliott himself is not exactly a pauper.
MP: No, he bought a $750,000 house in 2023 and he managed to do it without a mortgage. His mother is a successful business person, as he puts it, and he's the only son of that woman. And he is now the majority owner of a store that she created a quarter century ago. It's a natural food store in Hampton. He's not quite in the Ned Lamont league. He cannot afford to finance a campaign, but yes, he can afford to campaign quite vigorously, as he says, 12 hours a day.
WSHU: Well, and he said as of last week, he'd been to 100 democratic town committee meetings.
MP: Yes, he is, unquestionably he is working hard, and even the governor's campaign concedes that he is out there working very, very hard. But you know, one of the differences between this campaign and his original campaign for the State House of Representatives is that back then, elements of organized labor, you know, including the Working Families Party, which is financed by unions. They were unhappy with Brandon Sharkey back then, as well as Dan Malloy and some other people, over some pretty tough budgets. This time, you do not see that kind of groundswell around him because of pragmatic reasons. You know, the governor remains a formidable candidate for reelection. His approval ratings have been somewhere between solid and excellent over the last six years. He certainly has the money to run, and it's a cycle that does not favor Republicans. So all that is sort of contributed to this air of inevitability, which is, again, one of the things that Josh Elliott is trying to combat.
WSHU: Okay, we'll see how this plays out. We have the conventions coming up in May, which will be the first test, and then if he does get the 15%, we'll see if he can get the money to be able to challenge in a primary. Well, thank you so much. Thanks.
