The @Mikecav5 Twitter Followers Guide to the Midterms: Governors’ Edition, Connecticut
Due to Mr. Pop’s incompetence, it’s been some time since a preview has gone up. But now we’re back in action with the Toss Ups.
For the Toss Up races (1 Dem and 9 Rep seats), we will take a look at them on an individual basis. These are the most competitive races and have some interesting story lines to go with them. As mentioned, there is only 1 Dem seat up for election this year, and 9 Rep seats, which speaks to the overall environment that Republicans are running in this year. These Toss Up races are where all the action is going to be come election night. Let’s stop wasting time and get into the races.
Our first look is at the lone Democratic held Toss Up: Connecticut.
Connecticut- (Open) Ned Lamont (D) vs. Bob Stefanowski (R)
Connecticut has a Cook PVI (Partisan Vote Index) of +6, making it the 11th bluest state in the country. So why does this blue state have such a competitive race for governor this year? Well, to answer that we need to take a trip back to 1995. Dannel Malloy, former New York City prosecutor, was just elected as Mayor of Stamford and one of his biggest accomplishments of his first term was the reduction of violent crimes. In Malloy’s first year, violent crime fell 15% — the lowest level since 1980.
As the Mayor of one of Connecticut’s largest cities, Malloy had a perfect stepping stone for a statewide office run. But it wasn’t enough in 2006, when he lost the primary to the Mayor of New Haven John DeStefano. Jr, who went on to lose the general election to Jodi Rell. Malloy went back to Stamford and waited for his next opportunity in 2010 when Rell announced she wouldn’t seek reelection. Malloy won the general election by 7,000 points and became the 88th governor of Connecticut, but he never stood a chance. He took office with less than 50% of the vote, facing a $3 billion budget deficit.
As The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson writes, this is a fundamental problem with the make-up of Connecticut. Essentially, it didn’t matter what Malloy did because A) It wasn’t going to work and B) it wasn’t going to be popular. Malloy ended up raising taxes by $1.5 billion. While the increase of taxes isn’t necessarily the cause of the unpopularity, the fact that it didn’t fix the problem is part of the unpopularity.
In a 2016 interview with NPR, Tom Kuser explains why Malloy is so unpopular. It’s not that people in Connecticut are worried about their personal finance; it’s that they are worried about the state’s finances, which is certainly a weird dynamic.
Despite falling approvals, Malloy squeaked out reelection by 2.6%. But another 4 years couldn’t remedy expanding deficits. As Malloy exits the Governorship, he leaves behind a projected $1.9 billion deficit for FY2020. Malloy, facing a net -50 approval rating — 2nd worst in the country behind Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin — declined to run for a 3rd term. Must have been a tough choice.
The general election features progressive businessman Ned Lamont and former banking executive Bob Stefanowski.
Lamont has positioned himself as a political outsider after running for senate in ’06, was Obama’s Connecticut campaign co-chair in ’08, and ran for governor in 2010. The outsider position is probably the Democrats’ best angle in this race since Lamont has no ties to Malloy’s administration.
Stefanowski differentiated himself from his Republican counterparts in the primary by running on a promise of completely eliminating the state income tax. He has released his 26 page plan to do just that and much more to fix Connecticut’s economy.
The 26 page plan consists of the following: 16 pages of what’s wrong with Connecticut, 3 pages of recommendations (with large data tables thrown in), and 7 pages of really small print graphs that just confuse everybody. The recommendations themselves are also not smart.
I don’t want to get too in the weeds on this plan, but the presentation of it is so mind-boggling, we have to at least touch on it.
In total, this is what he has proposed:
- Phase out the income tax over 8 years — Literally. That’s all he wrote for this part of the plan. He used other states as examples but offers no path on how to get there
- Decrease or entirely eliminate the corporate income tax rate with revenue triggers — Same thing here, no path
- Repeal the Death and Estate Tax — Stefanowski claims that these taxes (.6% of State and Local tax revenue) cost more than they raises and rationalizes it with…“see migration data”? The only migration data he has in the paper shows Connecticut’s population growing?
- Embrace zero based budgeting — Okay?
- Other boring and not practical suggestions
Lamont, on the other hand, has released detailed plans for his vision of rebuilding Connecticut’s economy and how he’s going to pay for it. Lamont proposes undoing Malloy’s rolling back of property tax relief and increasing relief to low and middle income families. Lamont plans to pay for this through $305-$375 million in savings through criminal justice reform, improving tax collection, and sports gambling tax revenue.
Malloy started his term with large majorities in the State Senate (22 D-14 R), and the State Assembly (99 D-52 R). Thanks to his unprecedented unpopularity, those majorities have all but eroded. The State Senate is now tied 18–18, and the majority in the State Assembly is down to 80–71. We’ll see if those trends continue into this election, or if voters in a Dem-friendly environment will give a new Democratic governor larger majorities.
