Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti is considers running for governor as an independent.

GOP mayor may run for governor as independent

SHELTON — He may be out as a Republican gubernatorial candidate, but Mayor Mark Lauretti might yet appear on the November ballot.

“I’m weighing a run as a petition candidate,” Lauretti said Wednesday. “I’m going to take two weeks off and then discuss this with my staff.”

Lauretti announced Tuesday that he was dropping out of the Republican run for governor after his bid to gain 9,081 signatures fell about 500 short.

“The convention killed us,” Lauretti said. “We lost two weeks (trying to get delegate votes) while some of the other candidates had spent months gathering signatures.”

Also, he said, the weather during Memorial Day weekend impacted signature gathering during the annual SheltonDerby parade.

“Getting those signatures is tough,” said state Rep. Jason Perillo, R-Shelton, who endorsed Lauretti. With Lauretti out of the race for now, Perillo said he is backing Steve Obstinik.

A key member of Lauretti’s Republican gubernatorial staff, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it had been difficult to get people to solicit signatures.

“We needed more full-timers,” he said. “We had about 200 people around the state collecting signatures, but I question their effort. Some people we were hoping could bring back at least 20 signatures got only one”

Should Lauretti decide to run as an independent, petitioning candidate, he would need 7,500 signatures from registered voters, regardless of their affiliation, according to a spokesman in Secretary of the State Denise Merrill’s office. The petition would have to be filed by Aug. 8.

“Seventy-five hundred signatures? I could do that in my sleep,” Lauretti said. “I just got 8,500 in three weeks.”

If Lauretti made it onto the ballot as a petitioning candidate, his name would appear under the Democratic, Republican and any third-party candidates.

“I’m the only one on either side of the aisle that has a record to show Connecticut residents what our state could like,” Lauretti said, alluding to his 14 terms and 27 years as mayor. He pointed to companies like Unilever, United Health Care, Hubbell and Bic having moved to Shelton in recent years, and said 25,000 people commute to work in his city.

“No one else has done what I’ve done in Shelton,” Lauretti said. “Some don’t even have a record of being elected to public office. I’ve been elected 14 times.”

But he said political parties “don’t seem to value success....The convention process is an inside baseball game and unless you’re an inside player its a tough sell.”