New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
New Haven union activists aim to ‘change the map’
NEW HAVEN — Most campaigning involves familiar streets, a list of neighbors and a dedication of time.
For Jess Corbett and a dozen other members of New Haven Rising and Unite HERE, the message will be same, but the streets won’t be familiar.
Most of the group is now in Philadelphia, where they will stay for the next month targeting registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, working to convince them to get out and vote in this presidential election. Other members left earlier for Florida with the same message.
The target is the swing states that will make the difference on Election Day in this chaotic campaign season stunted by the coronavirus, fears of foreign intervention and concerns about absentee balloting.
Unite HERE represents workers in the food service industry and the hospitality sector, which has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic with travel and indoor entertainment curtailed.
“People’s health care, job security and housing are all at risk,” Corbett said, as they struggle with unemployment.
“This election is going to be close. I don’t want to wake up on Nov. 4 with the same feeling I had in 2016 with a win by the popular vote, but still a loss,” Corbett said, as he rallied his members.
Other chapters of the union were sent to Nevada and Arizona, where they have been on the ground since July, according to the Rev. Scott Marks of New Haven Rising, the community organizing arm of
Unite HERE.
“If there was ever a time to step up and talk about a different America, that time is now,” Marks said as party members prepared to campaign locally and give a sendoff to the traveling group. “We must defeat Donald Trump.”
He said Aldermanic President Tyisha Walker-Myers summed it up best in the State of the City Address for the Black and Hispanic Caucus when she said “we got to change the map.”
Marks said Unite HERE is putting $1 million into its “Vote America” campaign in Philadelphia
Conscious of the coronavirus, he said the campaigners will wear masks themselves and carry more with them. If the person answering the door is not wearing a mask, campaigners have been directed to give them one and ask that they please put it on. If they don’t, campaigners will move on.
Vincent Mauro, chairman of the New Haven Democratic Party, said for two generations, the local party has always outperformed other cities on getting out the vote. “It is where we have made our bones. It is where we have gotten the statewide recogni
tion. We put out more votes than everybody else,” Mauro said.
“This is a different opportunity for us. Get Out the Vote is essentially the entire month of October,” where the message will be to go to the polls on
Nov. 3, or for those with absentee ballots, fill them out now — don’t wait. “Make sure your vote counts. Talk to your neighbors. Elections have consequences.”
Despite the few races that are contested, Mauro said the city “needs to outperform its numbers all the time.”
New Haven’s City Clerk’s office had received more than 11,000 applications for absentee ballots by last week and sent out some 5,000. Across Connecticut, 475,402 applications had been processed with ballots getting in the mail starting Oct. 2.
Mayor Justin Elicker said this election “is more important than any ... in our lifetimes,” and he reiterated Marks’ message to “change the map.” He said it is not just Democrats and Republicans on the ballot, but education, science, health care and the environment.
Multiple people pushed
Jorge Cabrera’s run for the state Senate seat in the 17th District against incumbent Republican Sen. George Logan of Ansonia, who beat Cabrera by 77 votes two years ago.
Cabrera said Logan marched in some Black Lives Matter rallies and said how worried he was for his son, a young black man, when he leaves the house. Cabrera said Logan then “led the charge” against the police accountability bill
“to hold bad cops accountable. ... This man comes to our community, he marches with us, he comes to our doors. I’m sorry, you can’t show one face in the community and another one when you get up to the Capi
tol.”
Logan said he will continue to attend Black Lives Matter rallies and also work on a better bill that doesn’t jeopardize the financial security of police and towns or leads to defunding of the police. He said the vast majority of police work with the community and are needed to keep towns safe.
“I don’t see where there is an issue of attending peaceful protests and supporting the police. He (Cabrera) sees it as an us versus them situation,” Logan said. The incumbent said the bill will make it harder to recruit people to join the police department, including minorities.
Aldermanic Majority Leader Richard Furlow, D-27, said “all eyes are on New Haven. We are small, but we are powerful. ... When we all band together, we are unstoppable.”
State Senate Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, told the supporters to go doorknocking, saying Democrats need “such a decisive victory throughout the country that nothing is left to question and nothing is left to chance.”
Looney is running against
Alex Taubes, an independent, and Republican candidate Jameson White.
State Sen. Gary Winfield, also D-New Haven, who is being challenged by independent candidate Jason Bartlett and Republican Carlos Alvarado, is the main voice behind the police accountability bill. He said when people predict that things can’t be done, such as family medical leave, a minimum wage boost, Trust Act protections for immigrants and police reform, push ahead and it will happen.
State Rep. Al Paolillo, DNew Haven, said the members of the delegation lead, not just by their titles, “but by deed and lead by their example and their work.” He praised the work of New Haven Rising and the Democratic Party’s grassroots organizing. “We do better in the city ... because of the work we do together every day,” Paolillo said.
He is being challenged by Erin Reilly, who is endorsed by the Republican and Independent parties.