Not your average mayoral race
General election comes down to a hometown legend and a state lawmaker who defeated the incumbent
STAMFORD — The city has never seen a mayoral race quite like this.
Seeking a third term as mayor, David Martin narrowly lost his party’s endorsement to a challenger, forced a primary by amassing signatures from registered Democrats and then was defeated in the Sept. 14 election by a wide margin.
The winner of the Democratic primary, state Rep. Caroline Simmons, is looking to become the first woman to serve as Stamford’s mayor. The general election has come down to the 35-year-old Simmons and 71-year-old Bobby Valentine, a former Major League Baseball manager, Stamford icon and first-time political candidate who is running unaffiliated.
The GOP’s candidate, former police detective Joe Corsello, dropped out of the race after a brief campaign and endorsed Valentine, who was previously a registered Republican. The date of the Stamford mayoral election is Nov. 2.
Simmons has been a member of
the state House of Representatives since 2015, representing several neighborhoods in the middle of the city. She said she is running on a track record of helping to get state funding for Stamford and working to pass bipartisan legislation.
“I think this is a critically important mayor’s race. The future of our city is at stake,” Simmons said. “So many people are struggling right now and as we come out of this pandemic, we have an opportune moment to capture federal and state funding to support people and help take our city to the next level, and there’s already a clear contrast between our campaigns and our values. Our campaign is focused on the people and helping people who are struggling and being a voice for all people.”
Valentine said he thinks the election will boil down to which candidate voters believe will deliver change — something Martin acknowledged that people seem to be seeking.
“If they think that Caroline’s really a change and that the Democratic Party that rules the roost is really going to do something different than (what) they’ve done in the last eight years, well, then maybe that,” Valentine said. “Or maybe they’ll vote for a person who’s changed things everywhere he’s ever been. And we’ll just let the voters figure that out.”
An unaffiliated mayoral candidate isn’t unheard of in Stamford. In 2013, John Zito and Kathleen Murphy ran unaffiliated, and Zito did so again in 2017. The percentage of votes they earned was in the single digits.
But with Valentine, it’s a different ball game.
“In this particular case, you have a very well-known individual, a very popular sports person who’s been in the news over the years, very well-known in the sports circle and outside,” said city Rep. John Zelinsky, who has been on Stamford’s Board of Representatives for more than 40 years. “His name’s in the paper a lot. He does a lot of charity work, goes to charity fundraising and so forth. So I think it’s gonna be a very interesting race.”
Zelinsky, a Democrat, said he is leaning toward supporting Simmons but hasn’t made a final decision yet. The key to a victory in November, he said, will be supporter turnout.
“I think it’s going to be the old story (of ) whichever camp gets their supporters out to vote, that’s the individual that’s going to win,” Zelinsky said.
Gary Rose — a political science professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, where Valentine was athletic director from 2013 to this year — said he sees Valentine as a “very viable candidate.”
“The reason I say that is because in today’s politics, celebrity actually is very important in the minds of a lot of voters, and it actually carries a lot of weight in issues,” Rose said.
And Valentine isn’t a celebrity who moved to Stamford from elsewhere, Rose noted. He was born and raised in the city and was a star athlete at Rippowam High School. Voters may also be familiar with the restaurant or sports academy that both bear his name.
“He’s got a long history there, and he is a household name — that in itself obviously is going to generate votes,” Rose said. “He is known as, also, a successful businessman. That certainly is working to his advantage in terms of managing budgets and other matters that come up before the mayor and the council.”
Simmons has advantages as well, Rose noted, including the support of the Democratic Party. Stamford leans Democratic, with about 42 percent of voters registered with the party. Following close behind are unaffiliated voters, who make up 37 percent of the voting population. Unaffiliated voters aren’t registered with any political party.
Simmons was also endorsed by the Independent Party of Connecticut, a minor political party. Her name will appear on the Independent Party line in addition to the Democratic Party line in November.
Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont endorsed Simmons this week, pointing to her experience in government and calling her a “champion for small business” as cochair of the General Assembly’s Commerce Committee. But Lamont also had kind words for Valentine, referring to him as a “real champion.”
“You’ve got two great candidates,” Lamont said during a visit to the Children’s Learning Centers of Fairfield County in Stamford. “I’m a Caroline Simmons guy.”
To win in November, Rose said Valentine needs to “really articulate” his agenda and not rely solely on his celebrity status.
“Voters are pretty sophisticated these days, and Stamford is a very sophisticated city when it comes to voting,” Rose said. “They are probably a more discerning type of electorate in Stamford compared to some other cities.”
Valentine’s candidacy has drawn attention from not only Connecticut-based news media but also from outlets whose audiences extend far beyond the state, including the Associated Press, USA Today, the New Yorker and GQ.
Valentine said he believes all the attention is good for the city.
“To have people tell me that they didn’t know I lived in Stamford until they read the GQ article or they didn’t realize that Stamford was a real city until they saw something on television, I think is going to be a little bit of a legacy of this race — that the exposure that the town can’t afford to pay for in marketing the city is coming free of charge,” he said.
The outside media scrutiny has included coverage of a video, posted to YouTube and since taken down, of Valentine starting to record a message apparently to fulfill a Cameo request. The platform lets people pay for celebrities to send them or a friend a video shoutout. Reports by CBS Sports, Barstool Sports and others suggested that in the video, Valentine thought he had stopped recording, went on a walk in his neighborhood and didn’t pick up after one of his dogs.
Valentine said neither he nor any of his neighbors can recall an instance of him failing to pick up after his dogs.
When it comes to the money race, Valentine is in the lead. He raised about $300,000 from nearly 1,000 individual contributors between the launch of his campaign in early May and the end of June. His contributors included some high-profile Republicans, including former President George W. Bush, who was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers at the time of Valentine’s firing from the team in 1992.
Simmons pulled in about $240,000 from about 900 contributors between her campaign launch in February and the end of June. Some recognizable names appeared in her disclosure statements as well, including Stew Leonard Jr., the president and CEO of Stew Leonard’s.
New campaign finance disclosures from the candidates are expected after the third quarter ends on Sept. 30.