Arulampalam wins Hartford mayor primary, defeating longtime Dems

A political newcomer roared to victory Tuesday night in the Democratic primary for Hartford mayor by defeating two veteran state legislators with far longer political resumes.

Arunan Arulampalam, who has never held public office, defeated state Sen. John Fonfara and former state Sen. Eric Coleman — two giants in the Hartford political world. Fonfara has served in the state legislature for the past 37 years, while Coleman served for 34 years before becoming a Superior Court judge.

But Arulampalam, 37, capitalized on being the youngest candidate in the race, emphasizing that four of his five children are currently attending the Hartford public schools. For the primary campaign’s final two weeks, he unleashed a television advertising blitz, which featured his wife, Liza, and all five children.

Word started spreading through the crowd at Dunkin’ Park at 9:25 p.m. Tuesday that Arulampalam had won. Longtime Hartford attorney John Kennelly, a key supporter, said that the absentee ballots had been counted, and that Arulampalam had secured the win.

Arulampalam got a major boost early in the evening by scoring well in the Fourth District in the city’s West End, an area with many civic activists that Democrats said had the day’s heaviest voter turnout of the city’s 22 districts. Arulampalam far outdistanced his opponents in the district with 421 votes, compared to 149 for Coleman and only 60 for Fonfara.

Even though the name has changed, longtime Hartford voters still refer to the polling place as the Hartford Seminary, an iconic spot where the governor and the current House Speaker, Matt Ritter, cast their votes.

“The seminary is the reason Arunan is ahead,” Kennelly told The Courant.

Coleman, a 72-year-old retired judge, has high name recognition from winning 18 previous elections and vowed that this year would be his 19th victory. He will appear on the ballot in November as he has already collected the necessary signatures.

Even though the November ballot will have at least five candidates, including Arulampalam, Kennelly said the winner of the Democratic primary has a long history of winning in November.

The three Democrats were running in the primary to fill the seat held by Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, who is not seeking re-election after eight years in office.

Earlier in the evening, Fonfara said he was still battling.

“The numbers aren’t as strong as we would like at this point. So we’re going to wait a little longer,” Fonfara told the crowd. “But please know I am beyond words grateful that you would stand with me. I know our fight was for the right reasons, fighting for people who need representation.”

“I love you all in my heart,” Fonfara said to his supporters. “I am eternally grateful. We’re not going away, we will continue to fight.”

Coleman also thanked his volunteers and staff.

“I’ve made many friends from this campaign with the many people who volunteered for this campaign,” Coleman said. “It really means a lot to me to have your time and effort exerted on my behalf. I am proud of what we accomplished.”

Arulampalam supporters gathered at Dunkin’ Park, the same spot where Gov. Ned Lamont and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal had celebrated their election victories in November 2022. The crowd continued growing as the word spread about the victory. Two prominent family members — Eversource general counsel Greg Butler and his wife, former House Republican leader Themis Klarides — arrived, which was a sure sign of the victory. Butler’s daughter, Liza, is a minister who is married to Arulampalam.

The returns for the three-way Hartford race were far slower than in some other cities due to a tighter race. The Associated Press, for example, declared at 8:12 p.m. that Mayor Justin Elicker had won the Democratic primary in New Haven.

Different strategies

The Hartford race was marked by three different strategies on how best to reach the city’s voters.

Even before the city party’s convention in July, Fonfara started a television advertising blitz that featured commercials on local newscast, as well as major cable networks like CNN, MSNBC, Telemundo and Univision. Fonfara was spending heavily on television early in the process, prompting critics to question the efficacy of the spots that were being broadcast in places like Cheshire and Tolland where those viewers could not vote for Hartford’s mayor.

But Fonfara rejected that notion, saying when he would knock on doors or visit Colt Park that people would say to him that they had seen his ads on television.

Arulampalam offered a slightly different strategy by concentrating all of his commercials during the final two weeks in a burst of advertising to boost name recognition and voter turnout.

Coleman had a third strategy of avoiding television commercials completely by saying it was not the best use of campaign money.

Major issues still not solved

Throughout the campaign, the candidates focused on huge issues facing the city, including crime, a weak public education system, and a lack of affordable housing for a city with a high poverty rate.

A long-running issue facing the city is that Hartford has suffered from a rash of killings recently, including eight homicides in a span of 10 days. The answer, Arulampalam says, is a multifaceted program of getting at the root causes of violence and helping youths stay out of trouble by keeping schools open at night and all through the summer.

The key, Fonfara said, is addressing poverty that often leads directly to crime. The mayor’s office, he said, has not focused enough on resolving poverty, which is the root cause of multiple problems.

Coleman is calling for increasing the police force to as high as 500 to 600 officers, saying the additional officers could serve in the schools and as truancy officers in an intelligence capacity to know what is happening in the neighborhoods. He called for renewed community policing, along with restoring foot patrols in commercial corridors such as downtown, Albany Avenue, Park Street, and Blue Hills Avenue, among others.

Fundraising

Arulampalam completed a trifecta of placing first with the party’s convention endorsement, first in overall fundraising, and first in the primary.

He pulled slightly into the money-raising lead with an overall total of $434,254 as of Sept. 3, based on public records released by the Hartford clerk’s office. Fonfara, who had the early fundraising lead, had raised $430,613 as of the same date, while Coleman had raised $216,886.

Arulampalam, CEO of Hartford Land Bank, pulled ahead because he outraised both of his opponents with more than $73,000 in the latest filing period that included July and August, according to the records. Both Fonfara and Coleman raised less than $13,000 each during the same period.

As the campaign’s final week began, Fonfara had about $100,000 in cash on hand, compared to about $67,000 for Coleman and $56,000 for Arulampalam.

Arulampalam won the party convention with 46 votes, compared to 21 for Fonfara and 10 for Coleman. Arulampalam supporters noted that he has served on the town committee for eight years and spent more than a year personally talking to committee members at their homes, coffee shops and other spots on his candidacy and vision for the city. Coleman and Fonfara do not serve on the town committee.

The race was expected to be close in a diverse city with a high poverty rate that is 45% Hispanic or Latino, 34% Black and less than 20% white, according to U.S. Census records. The city’s population peaked in 1950 at 177,000 and has declined for decades. The stakes are high as the city chooses its next leader at the end of the Bronin era.

Born in Zimbabwe in 1985, Arulampalam came to the United States with his parents, who left Sri Lanka as refugees during the civil war. At 37, he is far younger than his two opponents, 67-year-old Fonfara and 72-year-old Coleman.

After growing up in California and later graduating from law school at Quinnipiac University, Arulampalam eventually worked for nearly five years at the politically connected law firm of Updike, Kelly & Spellacy. He then moved to his current position at the Hartford Land Bank and announced his candidacy for mayor in January, setting off a whirlwind campaign over the past nine months.

Correctly predicting a low turnout, Arulampalam had told voters at a recent debate that every vote counts.

“The election is maybe the most consequential vote you can make as a citizen of this city — more than votes in presidential elections or Senatorial elections,” he told the crowd. “This may be the most consequential vote you make.”

Courant staff writer Stephen Underwood contributed to this report.

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com