The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Merrill backs Warren; Lamont supports Biden
Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has a favorite for president in 2020, one that puts her at odds with Connecticut’s top elected official.
Merrill made several small contributions to the campaign of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, DMass., in July, August and September for a total of $334, Federal Election Commission records show. She declined to comment on her support for Warren on Thursday.
Warren, one of the most progressive candidates in the 2020 race, has been surging in the polls this fall and is now leading or neckandneck with former Vice President Joe Biden, who was the frontrunner.
Biden is who Gov. Ned Lamont and his wife Annie
Lamont support. Lamont endorsed Biden in July.
Biden, a moderate, stumped for Lamont during his 2018 campaign. Lamont has said he backs Biden because he “has spent his entire life fighting for hard working American families.”
Lamont and Merrill are now the only state Constitutional officers who have given to presidential or congressional races, FEC records show.
Lamont hosted a fundraiser for Biden at his Greenwich home on Oct. 20.
The wealthy governor gave $3,000 to Biden’s primary campaign in April, FEC records show. That exceeds the individual contribution limit of $2,800 but the extra $200 may be redesignated to Biden’s general election campaign — if he has one — or refunded. Annie Lamont, a venture capitalist at Oak HC/FT, also contributed $2,800 to Biden in April.
The Lamonts have also given money to several Senate campaigns outside Connecticut this year.
The governor, gave $5,600 in July to primary and general election campaigns of U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat and former governor of that state, FEC records show. Warner appeared at an event in Connecticut with Lamont during Lamont’s 2018 campaign. Lamont’s campaign manager in his 2010 run for governor was a former Warner staffer.
FEC records indicate Annie Lamont also contributed $2,800 in February to the campaign of Mike Johnston, a Colorado legislator who had mounted a primary campaign against U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, DColo., before he suspended his candidacy in September.
She also gave $2,700 to U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, DAla. in January, FEC records show. Jones won a special election in December 2017 over Republican Roy Moore, who was accused of sexual abuse, becoming the first Democrat to represent Alabama in two decades. Up for reelection in 2020, Jones is considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the Senate.
Lamont is a telecommunications company founder and heir to Thomas Lamont, a former chairman of J.P. Morgan & Co., who poured millions of his fortune into his 2018 gubernatorial election and previous runs for governor and Senate.