The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Candidate makes a deceptive claim in state campaign
It was only a matter of time before one of the highly contested races for a top state office grew nasty. It happened Thursday in a way that seemed harmless on the surface.
Delegates to the Democratic state nominating convention set for Hartford on Saturday received a text message Thursday morning from the campaign of Rep. Hilda Santiago, announcing “Breaking news!”
Citing a Hearst CTInsider story written Wednesday by my colleague Julia Bergman, the text said Gov. Ned Lamont “wants a Hispanic candidate for Secretary of the State.”
The Hearst story cited anonymous sources saying Lamont had said that. Those sources were not cited as saying Lamont favored Santiago, of Meriden, in the highly contested race among five people — including two Hispanic women, Santiago and Maritza Bond, the New Haven public health director.
The tweet from Santiago's campaign continued: “Join him, Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Jahana Hayes in supporting Hilda at the convention” — that “him” being Lamont. Murphy and Hayes have both endorsed Santiago.
To a reasonable person, that could easily look like Santiago claiming the Lamont endorsement. But Lamont has not in fact made any endorsements, nor uttered a word in public about his support for anyone in the race. He reiterated that in a news conference Thursday morning.
Anyone who does read it that way, including one of the 2,000-plus delegates, has been deceived by a person vying to be the state's chief elections official — overseeing balloting in every city and town as well as state races. That can't help the Democrats in a presidential midterm year when they're fighting off a possible surge by Republicans.
The Lamont campaign declined to comment on Santiago's possible claim of an endorsement, or to characterize the text as a claim.
“The field is full of terrific public servants who will no doubt move Connecticut forward in November and beyond,” Lamont campaign spokesman Jake Lewis said in an emailed response. “Governor Lamont believes the delegates of the Democratic party should have the ultimate choice in who to endorse and will work closely with any of the fantastic candidates who will ultimately be part of the ticket to win in November.”
Trip Holtgrewe, a spokesman for the Santiago campaign, issued a written response to my question, denying the text was intended to claim Lamont's support.
“Reasonable people can disagree as to what ‘support' means,” Holtgrewe wrote. “The article referenced was included as context, and it's clear no endorsement was claimed. That some people interpreted it as an endorsement just speaks to Hilda's qualifications and quality as a candidate.”
So the campaign is denying it claimed an endorsement from the governor, but standing by its claim of “support” — a claim that has no grounding in fact other than the support the governor is giving all of the party hopefuls.
This race for Secretary of the State has more than the usual undercurrents. As far as I understand it, Connecticut Democrats have never nominated a Hispanic candidate for a constitutional, statewide office — nor have Republicans, to my knowledge, but I'm less certain of that.
The Latino community has made it clear that with 17 percent of the state's population, that's not OK in 2022. We saw that in the letter sent to Lamont Wednesday by members of two statewide Latino political groups, calling on the governor to support Santiago — the subject of the story by Bergman.
The race includes two white male state legislators, Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, and Rep. Josh Elliott, D-Hamden, both of whom have arguably more experience in electoral issues and more legislative accomplishments than Santiago, a 10year House veteran. Also Stephanie Thomas, a firstterm House Democrat from Norwalk, and Bond, both of whom have compelling stories to tell about their candidacies.
Separately Thursday, a prominent Hispanic supporter of Lesser's, Eva Bermúdez Zimmerman, wrote an op-ed that appeared in the CT Mirror, saying the open, contested Secretary of the State and Treasurer's races should be decided first at the convention, not last as the order is now set. That could benefit Lesser and Elliott because the convention would be less likely to endorse a white male for the slot if it had already endorsed an all-male slate other than Bysiewicz.
Obviously it would be dumb for the party to change its randomly selected order of nominations at this point. A group of seven candidates for top state offices — including all four of Lesser's opponents — issued a statement decrying any effort to change the order.
This is, in short, a good, old-fashioned dogfight heading into the convention.
Lamont said Thursday, in response to a question from the CT Mirror's Mark Pazniokas, that he's not worried about the prospect of a Democratic Party statewide ticket with no female candidates running independently; Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz will be on the ballot alongside Lamont — and the Attorney General, Comptroller, Treasurer and Secretary of the State slots could end up all-male.
Most governors in the past, growing up in state politics, have used their thrones as heads of their parties to call the shots, either openly or behind the scenes. That Lamont, who ran as a political outsider, hasn't done that is his prerogative and has its advantages. But he can't let things get out of hand.
Republicans have a contested race or two in their convention Saturday, and party chairman Ben Proto has remained neutral — while maintaining what looks like good order.
Much of this is inside baseball heading onto a convention on a spring Saturday before Mother's Day. Let's be clear about what matters here. This is about trust. Without trust there can be no democracy, as we've seen tragically with former President Donald Trump's subversive lies.
And a candidate for the one position that requires trust above all else has made what looks to me like an important claim that is false. The delegates should see that clearly.