Bob Stefanowski threatening lawsuit after losing Independent Party nomination

Republican Bob Stefanowski is threatening a lawsuit after losing the Independent Party nomination —potentially spilling the controversy deeper into the gubernatorial election campaign with extended legal action.

In a political blow, Stefanowski lost the endorsement after a 79-79 tie vote that was broken Tuesday night by the party chairman to choose business executive Robert Hotaling of Cheshire as the candidate on the all-important ballot line.

But Stefanowski’s campaign said chairman Mike Telesca had no right to break the tie “in what appears to be a flagrant violation of his own bylaws” during a caucus meeting.

“We are consulting with counsel and expect to legally challenge the results of [the] Independent Party caucus vote due to flagrant violations of their own bylaws," said Chris Russell, a Stefanowski campaign spokesman. “Per their own bylaws, Chairman Telesca has no authority to break a tie. If a candidate does not achieve 51% of the vote, a re-vote is to be held.”

In addition, “Chairman Telesca voted two times, once in the initial vote and a second time to break the tie. As the presiding officer of the caucus governed by Roberts Rules of Order, it’s questionable as to whether he could vote once, let alone twice."

“Despite Bob Stefanowski completing an official application on July 24, 2022, and sending hard copies via certified mail and email to the committee officers, his name was not included on the pre-printed ballot,” Russell added.

Hotaling, running on a ticket with Stewart “Chip" Beckett of Glastonbury, initially won 75 votes at the caucus on Tuesday night in Guilford. Under the ‘ranked choice’ counting used by the party, the ticket added four more votes that created the tie against the ticket of Stefanowski and state Rep. Laura Devlin, his running mate for lieutenant governor.

Beckett is a longtime and well-known member of the Glastonbury town council who gained attention last year by resigning from the Republican Party after saying it has been “going in the wrong direction for a long time” at the national level and now does not represent American values.

Gov. Ned Lamont’s campaign spokesman, Jake Lewis, said Wednesday that the loss of the endorsement was a reflection on the campaign.

“A lot can happen in four years and in Bob’s case, it appears he has evolved into an even more extreme candidate — so much so that the Independent Party couldn’t get behind his candidacy again,” Lewis said. “Amid the complete disarray of Bob’s campaign, this latest misstep shows how truly out of touch he is with everyday voters. From our state’s finances to our Connecticut values, they know we simply can’t afford to allow Bob’s far-right extremist policies to bankrupt our state morally or economically.”

Based on voter registration, the Independent Party is traditionally a relatively small factor in most Connecticut elections.

But every four years, the party takes on an outsized role by having a separate ballot line in the governor’s race. In 2018, Stefanowski won more than 25,000 votes on the Independent Party line — an important total in a race that he lost by about 44,000 votes.

Lamont won 17,861 votes on the Working Families Party line — a key endorsement that he won again this year from the union-backed party that supports liberal causes.

The Independent Party has only 30,630 members, compared to more than 800,000 Democrats and more than 455,000 Republicans.

The party is sometimes confused with others on the Secretary of the State’s official list that includes different spellings for various parties. That includes two members under Independance, 29 under Independence, one for Independence for Montville, and one for Independent Choice. The Libertarian Party, by contrast, has 3,341 members, according to the official state numbers as of August 8.

The largest single group is unaffiliated voters with 911,419 registered.

While Republicans and Democrats dominate the political landscape, Connecticut actually has more than 25 different political parties — including about 20 with fewer than 50 members.

Recent departures

The endorsement setback provided more fodder for Democrats who say that Stefanowski’s campaign is in disarray. It came soon after the sudden departures of the campaign manager and top strategist less than three months before election day.

The exit of campaign manager Dan Carter was not announced publicly, while the departure of senior advisor Liz Kurantowicz was made by email to reporters on a Saturday morning in the middle of August.

Democrats say the changes show that Stefanowski’s campaign has failed to gain traction in the polls against Lamont as both candidates are pouring millions of dollars of their own money into a rematch of their battle in 2018 that Lamont won by three percentage points.

Lamont said that it is unusual for a campaign to be switching the most important members of the staff at a time when the candidates are gearing up for the final push after Labor Day.

“It’s a little late in the day to say, ‘What we’ve been doing isn’t working. Now we’ve got to change yet again,” Lamont said when asked by The Courant. “If you have a hard time managing a campaign, let me tell you what it is managing the state of Connecticut.”

Connecticut Democrats have also blasted Stefanowski’s hiring of Jamestown Associates, a national firm that created television commercials in 2016 and 2020 for Republican Donald J. Trump.

“Jamestown Associates produced misleading television ads that have blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic; called the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States election “phony” and called the media ‘fake news,’ ” the Democrats said.

But Stefanowski strongly defended the firm.

“Jamestown Associates has helped to elect more moderate governors in the Northeast — Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu — than any other firm in America,” Stefanowski said. “The Connecticut Dems attack is pathetic and petty. If Connecticut Democrats want to start pointing fingers at political firms, maybe they should begin by looking inward. Connecticut Democrats employ operatives who have produced a seven-figure profit off the ‘Clean Elections’ Fund and abused Connecticut absentee balloting laws. Their attack is laughable.”

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com