Parties split — but white men won big Tuesday
Tuesday’s municipal elections saw Democrats and Republicans capture an equal number of cities and towns from each other, despite Democrats hoping for a ripple from the 2018 blue wave that flipped several state legislative seats.
But the real winners were white males, who will lead all except one of Connecticut’s eight biggest cities, where a combined 36 percent of the total population is white.
The lone exception is Republican Erin Stewart in New Britain, who is white. Of the men, the youngest, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, is 40 years old.
In fact, across all of Connecticut’s 169 towns and cities — each with their own unique form of government — just 44 towns will be led by women, down from 45 with the loss of New Haven Mayor Toni Harp.
And only a tiny number — possibly as small as one — will be led by people of color.
“Sometimes it’s easier to go with what you know than giving someone else an opportunity,” said Suzette DeBeatham-Brown, the mayor of Bloomfield, a black woman from Jamaica.
She said she’s aware of no other people of color who are top elected officials in Connecticut cities or towns after Harp steps down — “and that makes me really sad to think about.”
DeBeatham-Brown was reelected to the town council Tuesday and expects to be reappointed mayor next week as the biggest votegetter.
“I do believe diversity in leadership is extremely important,” she said. “I believe that we need to cultivate a climate where can see all people as valuable and not be so comfortable with the status quo.”
Political observers say
the racial and gender makeup of the chief executives in the state’s largest communities is the result of many factors, including longstanding roadblocks for people of color to gain political power.
Nancy Wyman, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, acknowledged the lack of diversity among leadership in the state’s biggest cities — all of which have minority majority populations, according to census estimates. But she said she’s optimistic for the future because of diversity on local boards and councils across the state.
“Yeah, you look at the big cities right now and right now they came out and elected white men, but the undertickets in the big cities are very, very diverse and what we have seen throughout the state, and how many candidates that came out and won, it is amazing,” Wyman said.
Wyman said she’s watching closely the dozen towns the Democrats “flipped” from Republican control. “Some with women, and what’s behind them is the diversity, which is absolutely great to see. When we look at under tickets like Norwich, where we took on so many of the council seats, and in Derby and East Haven, which we never would have expected to have done . ... It is an exciting time for us because it builds the base for us and they keep moving up the ticket.”
She added, “We really were kind of happy about what happened on Tuesday night.”
The eight largest cities in the state, in order, are Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, Hartford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury and New Britain.
Women and candidates of color were defeated in September Democratic primaries in Hartford, by incumbent Luke Bronin; in New Haven by Justin Elicker; in Middletown, by Ben Florsheim; and in Bridgeport by incumbent Joe Ganim, among other places.
In New Haven, Mayor Toni Harp decided after several weeks not to drop out of the race and actively campaigned under the endorsement of the Working Families Party until Election Day, but fell way short. Elicker named a large transition committee that’s headed by three women.
In Bridgeport, state Sen. Marilyn Moore, whose campaign hit numerous road bumps along the way, was forced to conclude her unsuccessful run as a writein candidate.
Republicans also lack diversity among chief elected officials and like Wyman, the GOP state chief says that party has diverse candidates who both ran and were elected to local boards and town councils.
“We’ve been working with cities, working with individuals, in terms of recruiting candidates in general,” said Republican Party Chairman J.R. Romano, who acknowledges Republican candidates struggle to materialize and earn votes in the state’s deepblue cities.
“I do think there’s a sense of irony that the largest cities in the state of Connecticut are all white, wealthy men,” Romano said.
Both parties picked up roughly a dozen municipalities, flipping top elected officials in many of the state’s suburbs and small cities.
Republicans hold the top elected seat in 88 towns and cities, representing a total population of 1.54 million people. Democrats, though they hold the top seat in just 77 towns and cities, represent a total population of 1.96 million people, while unaffiliated chief elected officials represent about 72,000 people in four towns.
That shows the power of the cities, which have kept Democrats in all of the statewide offices and all of Connecticut’s Congressional seats and in solid control of both chambers in the General Assembly.
There doesn’t seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to the towns that flipped. Some, like Fairfield and Old Lyme, which were both won by Republican candidates unseating Democratic incumbents, were plagued by local scandals. A small Blue Wave might explain wins in Litchfield and Madison for the Democratic Party.
But for the most part, Tuesday night proved that in municipal elections, all politics is local.
Wyman said she doesn’t believe the socalled “Trump effect” impacted the results of Tuesday’s elections across the state, instead owing her party’s wins and losses to local issues. However, she said she does believe the president’s unpopularity across the state drove a surge in new candidates for local offices, as well as volunteers and financial support for the party.
Romano, too, gave credit to the hard work of local candidates and town chairmen for the parties successes on Tuesday.
“It’s hard to read anything statewide from this,” Romano said. “For all the success we had as a party, it really goes on how hard our local candidates and local town chairmen worked to accomplish those victories.”