27TH State Senate 27th District

Name: Carlo Leone

Party: Democrat

Race: Candidate for the state 27th state Senate District

Carlo Leone, who is married with one son, served eight years in the state House of Representatives, beginning in 2003.

His time in the state Senate began in 2011. In his 2018 race Leone defeated Republican Gerald Bosak Jr. of Stamford, a newcomer to state politics, with 67 percent of the vote.

Leone has made veterans’ services a legislative priority, along with protecting social services and creating a better climate for businesses. He has pushed for a state requirement that high schools teach personal finances.

Leone has said that his long experience and many relationships at the state Capitol help him deliver for District 27. This year in a special session of the state Senate he voted to expand use of absentee ballots for the Nov. 3 election, cap out-of-pocket costs for insulin, and facilitate telehealth medical consultations.

Name: Eva Maldonado

Race: Candidate for the 27th state Senate District

Party: Republican

Eva Maldonado has long fought the uphill battle of being a Republican in heavily Democratic Stamford.

She has chaired the city’s Republican Town Committee and in 2012 ran for the state House of Representatives from District 146. She was defeated by Democratic incumbent Gerald Fox III.

Maldonado challenged Carlo Leone for the District 27 state Senate seat in 2014, when she won a total of 44 percent of the vote on the Republican and Independent tickets to Leone’s 55 percent. Maldonado said then that partisanship stymies legislative action and too many politicians who return to the state legislature year after year have little passion for working for the people.

Maldonado, who served as Westhill High’s first school resource officer during a 31-year career with the Stamford Police Department, ran unsuccessfully for the Board of Education last year. She has one daughter and two grandsons.