Who will be our next governor? A very rich person, of course.
These uncertain times add to the dangers of prognosticating. Understanding the peril, I offer a predication on who will win the race for governor next year: a very rich person.
The state’s campaign public financing program has created an unintended consequence that gives wealthy candidates a formidable advantage. From the start of a campaign (about now), the wealthy can use their fortunes to spend, spend, spend. A candidate of ordinary means slogs along trying to collect $250,000 in small contributions and then waits until next spring to qualify for public funds.
Since 2006, Gov. Ned Lamont has spent $50 million of his fortune in three statewide campaigns, finally winning when he was elected governor in 2018. Lamont has quietly begun to build a reelection campaign operation. As the only governor in the region who still has emergency powers, it would be unseemly of him to launch a formal bid. With no Democratic challenger, Lamont pays no price for waiting.
The COVID-19 pandemic provided Lamont both the challenge and opportunity to lead the people of the state through a harrowing public health crisis. The public was able to see and hear the governor nearly every day for months. They approved of his leadership, and it is reflected in his approval ratings.
The Greenwich Democrat is unlikely to stumble as long as he does not return in the next 15 months to insisting we must impose tolls on working people. The delta variant of the virus may bring a return of worrisome infection numbers. As of Thursday, 70% of state residents had received at least one dose of a vaccination. That’s the number that matters in Connecticut right now. A reelection campaign can wait until the way ahead becomes
clearer in the fall.
Politics always holds out the possibility of sudden reversals of fortune. That prospect is not much for a Republican challenger to rely on to build a credible campaign to challenge Lamont.
Donald Trump’s loyalists have accumulated considerable sway in Republican Party organizations. That is a hindrance for Republican candidates in a state where there are 400,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. Maybe the former president’s influence will fade in a year, but it is unlikely to reverse the collapse of Republican support in the crowded suburbs.
Still the ambitious dream their dreams. One Republican, former state Rep.
Themis Klarides, has created a campaign committee. The Madison Republican indicated to the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) that she will be financing her campaign. According to Klarides’s first campaign finance report, she has been hiring consultants to advise her.
The other Republican prospect, Bob Stefanowski, also a Madison Republican, appears to be somewhere between pondering and announcing a candidacy. Stefanowski was the Republican nominee for governor in 2018 and spent more than $3 million of his own money. He came closer than expected to beating Lamont. The Democrat scrambled to hold off a surging
Stefanowski with a property tax promise that no one has seen since the governor took office.
Stefanowski ran a shrewd primary campaign by spending a lot of money on Fox News ads early in 2018 and skipping the party nominating convention. He petitioned onto the crowded primary ballot and kept repeating a promise to repeal the state’s income tax. That pledge became a bit of a burden as it was exposed to the searing light of truth about state finances.
Stefanowski has remained active in state Republican politics. He’s attempted to broaden his views on issues by writing opinion pieces for newspapers, not all of them successful. Stefanowski appears to have friends at the Club for Growth, an influential conservative group. It conducted a poll of Republican voters in June that found Stefanowski far ahead of Klarides. The poll also found Republicans more likely to support Stefanowski when respondents were told that Klarides is married to a top Connecticut Eversource executive — and it threw in her criticisms of Trump to make the survey a little more combustible.
Grievances are not enough. What no Republican has hinted at is that they will soon unfurl a bold banner of optimism to dazzle voters. It’s early, but anyone contemplating a run for governor ought to be bursting with original ideas he or she wants to share with the world. Those ought come from within and animate a campaign. No amount of money is a substitute for that.