The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
GOP state chairman ‘excited’ for committee as he resigns
While the resignation of J.R. Romano as chairman of the state Republican Party was abrupt, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, he said during a Wednesday interview.
“I have absolutely loved serving the party and the Republican State Central Committee,” the 42-year-old Branford resident said of his Tuesday night announcement, declining to talk about future plans. “I am excited for the organization and my next chapter.”
He said that controversies swirling around Republicans, including the pending second impeachment of President Trump, the riot in the nation’s Capitol last week, and the mediocre showing of the Connecticut GOP in the recent elections, did not influence his departure.
Romano, the public face of the 74-member committee, who is leaving with a few months left in his third, two-year term, is best known as a solid Trump supporter who was able to juggle the duties of managing the party’s 2018 battle for the governor nomination with a series of debates staged in each of Connecticut’s congressional districts.
“It was certainly interesting,” Romano recalled of the crowded stages, which he said was the result of the public financing program that allows more candidates to wage primary campaigns if they can reach thresholds in monetary support, combined with modest 15-percent support of convention delegates. While thenDanbury Mayor (Mark) Boughton won the convention endorsement that May, he lost the primary to Bob Stefanowski of Madison, who in turn lost to Democrat Ned Lamont in the general election.
“So many people with $250,000 for the Citizens Election Program in the bank makes it more difficult from a chairman’s perspective,” Romano said. “I don’t know if the field is going to be this crowded again.”
He would like to see a run-off style primary process in March of election years, followed by final primaries in May, but doubts the General Assembly, dominated by Democrats, would approve the change to the state’s election calendar.
The latest registration figures show Connecticut has 480,033 Republicans, 850,083 Democrats and 939,715 unaffiliated voters, undoubtedly a factor in Democrats holding all five congressional seats, and
increasing their majorities in the House and Senate amid anti-Trump turnout in November.
Romano said he was proud that the state central committee contributed about $100,000 in candidate support for the recent General Assembly races.
Romano, a Derby native,
got some flak from party insiders following the August arrest of Thomas Gilmer, then a candidate for the 2nd Congressional District, who was arrested on domestic abuse allegations of which Romano had known months earlier. Some, including then-Rep. Themis Klarides, the House
GOP leader, called for him to step down but no such calls came from the central committee.
“He did an admirable job under the circumstances,” said Chris Healy, a former GOP state chairman who currently lobbies for the Connecticut Catholic Conference. “He did many good
things in terms of social media and creating more of a digital platform for Republican ideas. And he fought the good fight. As any chairman would tell you, you don’t go into it for personal glory. You believe.”
Ben Proto, a longtime Republican operative from Stratford, said Wednesday
that since the middle of November, he has been speaking with members of the state central committee about possibly running for the chairmanship, but the 61-year-old lawyer declined further comment.