Hartford'snextmayor could be decided in the primary, but some candidates look beyond that

Aug. 7—But since Connecticut has a closed primary, only registered Democrats will have a say in the primary that could likely decide who eventually becomes mayor. So how are candidates running to be mayor of the entire city addressing this predicament?

J. Stan McCauley is running for mayor of Hartford as he has done three times prior, but fed up with the party and primary system, he's decided to forgo the signature process required to get onto the primary ballot in favor of running in the general election as a petitioning candidate against Democratic-endorsed candidate Arunan Arulampalam. Doing so will require enough votes to qualify for a place on the ballot.

"If we're gonna beat (Arulampalam), we want to beat him by giving everyone in the city an opportunity to vote, whether they're Independent whether they're Republican or the Green Party," McCauley said. "It really doesn't matter. So that's why we decided we're gonna check out of this process."

Arunan Arulampalam, Hartford Land Bank CEO, scored the Democratic endorsement through the town committee, making him the only candidate of the eight who does not have to find nearly 2,000 signatures by Aug. 9 to make it onto the primary ballot.

Even though he doesn't have to get signatures, Arulampalam said the days since the convention have been busy. He said voter education has also been a part of his strategy while knocking doors.

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"As someone who doesn't just want to win the election but who wants to lead a city, I think having a more engaged and education population is really important," Arulampalam said.

A document from the Office of the Secretary of the State dated Aug. 3 shows candidate Eric Coleman may be taking a similar approach to McCauley. Coleman applied for a nominating petition for the Nov. 7 general election. The Coleman campaign is seeking a cross endorsement from the Working Families Party. The application indicates he will have to collect 100 signatures by August 9, a much smaller task than petitioning onto the Democratic primary ballot.

The Coleman campaign declined to comment.

Critics of the process, like McCauley, believe the challenge of getting onto the primary ballot involves pandering to a small group of Democratic Town Committee members and the larger group of Hartford residents who are active Democratic voters eligible to vote in the primary.

While McCauley might be frustrated, appealing to registered party voters is simply how primaries work in a state like Connecticut where the primary is closed.

"What it means is they don't get to vote, right?" Hartford DTC Chair Marc DiBella said. "The law is the law."

Even though a large chunk of Hartford voters are unaffiliated, DiBella said historically, in general elections, they tend to lean Democratically.

In Hartford, there are 2,629 active Republicans, 401 active minor party voters and 20,815 active unaffiliated voters. None of these voters will have a chance to participate in the Sept. 12 primary which very well might decide the outcome of the entire election. This does not count the 14,000 residents who are eligible, but simply unregistered to vote.

There are 36,959 actively registered Democrats. Eligible but unregistered voters have until Sept. 11 at noon to register, but it is too late to switch from one party to another. A voter who changes from one party to another does not have "party privileges" until three months after filing a voter registration, according to the Secretary of State's website.

Census tracts with the lowest number of unregistered but eligible voters fell in the Blue Hills, South Meadows and West End neighborhoods while the tracts with the highest number of unregistered but eligible voters fell in the Northeast and South Green neighborhoods, a map from CT Data Collaborative shows.

McCauley's strategy of forgoing the primary altogether appears to be in the minority, but exemplifies some of the criticisms of the process. Candidates like Fonfara and Hartford City Councilman Nick Lebron continue the arduous task of collecting signatures.

"I will say that it's been a challenge," said Candice Dormon, campaign manager for Lebron.

But for the Lebron campaign, the strategy is using the campaign trail as way to educate voters who may not be eligible to vote to register as a Democrat while speaking to registered Democrats at the same time.

"Sometimes I find myself saying 'We don't have time.' But then I remind myself, if not now then when?" Dormon said. "There's no better time to do civic engagement than now than when it is so important."

Dormon said there's a number of barriers between the people they meet on the campaign trail and casting a vote on primary day. In addition to not being registered or simply not being registered as a Democrat, some voters were formerly incarcerated and others do not understand how the primary works. So voter education at the doors can take on a variety of forms.

"We've even come across people who don't believe Luke Bronin isn't running again," Dormon said. "One, there's misinformation. Two, there's little information. Three, people feel like whoever is the mayor doesn't matter and that has a lot to do with people in the neighborhoods who haven't seen improvements in their neighborhood in decades."

Wes Renfro, senior associate dean and professor of political science at Quinnipiac University, said there are "fair criticisms" of a primary system like Connecticut's that puts the power of an election into the hands of a smaller portion of the electorate. But conversely, the people registered with their party are often the ones most likely to show up to vote at a primary, he explained.

"The people who vote in primaries tend to really follow the party," Renfro said. "They're not the sort of swing voters or the middle of the road voters who don't participate, who might have different views because those folks are not affiliated with a party."

For Fonfara, the focus is on getting the signatures and votes of registered Democrats, a group he believes represent the "Demoratic stronghold" nature of the city.

"People recognize that the Democratic Party in general, and then the representatives who are members of Democratic Party generally are in line with the policies and initiatives that Hartford residents support," Fonfara said.