Rob Hotaling’s run for Connecticut governor is an uphill battle against Lamont, Stefanowski. Here’s what he’s bringing to the table.

Rob Hotaling wants to be governor.

But with little money and low name recognition, Hotaling is facing a major uphill battle against two well-known titans in Connecticut politics — Gov. Ned Lamont and Republican candidate Bob Stefanowski of Madison.

Hotaling lacks the money to broadcast any television commercials in his long-shot bid against two multi-millionaire business executives who are pouring money into their campaigns. Stefanowski has pledged to spend $10 million of his own money, while Lamont is expected to spend as much as the $15 million that he spent in 2018 to defeat Stefanowski by three percentage points. By comparison, Hotaling has loaned his campaign $43,000, received $13,000 in contributions, and had about $10,000 in cash on hand as of the last public filing.

“This debate and this election cycle should really be about the best ideas and not the biggest bank account,’' Hotaling said. “The unaffiliated voters are the largest voting bloc — 41% of the state — and they want more choice.’'

Hotaling, 44, rejects the argument about money, noting that Republican wrestling executive Linda McMahon spent $50 million in each of two elections in 2010 and 2012 for U.S. Senate — and lost both times.

“One thing we’ve learned is you can’t buy votes in Connecticut,’' said Hotaling. “What people want is not who can spend the most. They want people who can spend the most time listening and with the best ideas.’’

Hotaling is on the ballot as the nominee of the Independent Party — the same line that Stefanowski held four years ago. Stefanowski received more than 25,000 votes on the line in 2018 and tried again for the third-party’s nomination this year. When the party members voted 79-79 between Stefanowski and Hotaling, the party chairman broke the tie in favor of Hotaling. Stefanowski filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court in Hartford, but the judge ruled that Hotaling could remain on the ballot.

A senior vice president at Webster Bank who lives in Cheshire, Hotaling is touting a message of responsible government. He supports abortion rights, lower taxes, and installing electronic tolls on Connecticut highways. In addition, he says that health care is a right, not a privilege — a view taken by many Democrats.

At the state Capitol recently, Hotaling took a tour of the historic, 1879 edifice and talked about his ideas and campaign plans.

“This is my first time in the building,’' Hotaling told the Courant.

He is running on a ticket with veterinarian Stewart “Chip’' Beckett of Glastonbury, a former Republican who quit the party in 2021 after saying that the party no longer represents American values at the national level following widespread denial of the election loss by former President Donald J. Trump.

Supports highway tolls

Despite opposition from some voters, Hotaling is calling for highway tolls at a time when Connecticut is the only state on the Eastern seaboard without them.

For months, Lamont strongly pushed for tolls, but the Democratic-controlled legislature rejected the idea repeatedly in an up-and-down debate over whether they would hold a vote. Since pulling the plug on a trucks-only plan without a vote in February 2020, Lamont has backed away sharply from any tolls plan.

The measure came up on a regular basis for more than six years at the state legislature and was spearheaded by state Rep. Tony Guerrera, the former transportation committee co-chairman who now works for the Lamont administration as deputy commissioner of motor vehicles.

While various plans have differed based on the number and location of tolls, Hotaling says they should be placed at various spots around the state. The campaign cited a 2008 study that $1.1 billion could be raised at 35 cents per mile with $450 million paid by out of state drivers. The numbers can vary sharply, depending on the number of toll locations and the amount charged at each site.

“Why should Connecticut residents pay a toll to enter and exit Massachusetts, New York or New Jersey, while our state can be traversed at no cost to residents of those states?’’ Hotaling asks. “All revenue from any tolls would be deposited into the Special Transportation Fund to support transportation infrastructure investment and repair, per our 10-year plan.’’

Eliminating the car tax

At the same time that he is calling for tolls, Hotaling is also pushing for tax cuts.

Despite failed attempts by past governors, he is calling for eliminating the annual personal property taxes on cars for both businesses and individuals. That includes the property taxes on business equipment. Hotaling and Beckett estimate their plan would save taxpayers $1.5 billion, including $900 million for motor vehicles and $600 million for business personal property.

For years, governors and legislators have complained that car owners pay sharply different tax rates for the same car in different communities, depending on the local mill rate.

“The personal property tax is very unfair,’' Beckett said.

Ending the car tax has been a political football for more than 25 years with as multiple governors have offered plans on how to cut the taxes while making sure towns are fully reimbursed. Each time, however, opposition by legislators and local officials torpedoed the plan.

In the early 1990s, then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. called for phasing out personal property taxes over 10 years. After Weicker’s plan failed, then-state Sen. James Maloney of Danbury successfully pushed a proposal to eliminate the tax in future years. But before that plan took effect, Weicker’s successor, Republican John G. Rowland, persuaded the legislature to repeal the law after deriding the plan as “Maloney baloney.’’

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell then proposed a complete elimination in 2006 and 2007, while Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed a partial elimination in 2013 that would have applied only to cars with a market value of less than $28,500. As a result, high-end cars like Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Ferraris would still have been taxed. But neither plan was adopted.

When Malloy proposed his idea, then-state budget director Ben Barnes said he was paying $400 per year on his Volkswagen Jetta in Stratford, but the same car would cost $1,400 in car taxes in Hartford.

The difference this time, Hotaling said, is that both he and Beckett are hands-on managers who will complete the task that has not been accomplished for decades.

“We’re better at execution because we’re operations guys,’' Hotaling said. “A CFO sort of does the numbers. I do the numbers, I’m a CFO, but they’re not out there actually on the ground, implementing, doing the full life cycle. We both have that experience of operations. You need a making-it-happen governor, not an ‘I’m going to do some numbers on a spreadsheet’ governor.’'

Hotaling says that he has the broad vision to be governor. If elected, he said he would hire Stefanowski as the leader of the state Office of Policy and Management — the governor’s budget office — because of his experience with numbers.

“Bob can be head of OPM, and I’ll be the governor because I’m operations, and he’s finance — not the same thing,’' Hotaling said in an interview. “Bob would be perfect.’'

But Stefanowski was not accepting the offer.

“While I am happy that Rob recognizes my financial expertise, his fiscal policies are much more liberal and akin to Governor Lamont’s than mine,’' Stefanowski responded. “I am against tolls, bigger government and higher taxes. If that’s what voters really want, they should pick Rob or Ned.’'

Education

Hotaling and Beckett also want to reform the highly complicated education cost-sharing formula, which provides more than $2 billion annually in state aid to local public schools. The totals vary widely, with Hartford receiving the most and smaller, wealthier communities receiving the least.

“The ECS formula should employ educational outcome metrics to budget allocations, rather than pages of complex demographic criteria as it is today,’’ Hotaling said. “While Connecticut has some of the top schools in the country, it unfortunately also has some of the worst. It is not only an education issue. It is also an economic issue and an issue of fundamental fairness.’’

Even though the two communities are relatively close geographically in Fairfield County, Hotaling said it is stunning that Westport has a 1% dropout rate and nearby Bridgeport has a 25% dropout rate.

“Teachers right now are underpaid and overburdened,’' Hotaling said. “We need to increase their pay in the urban environments if that’s what it takes to recruit and retain them.’'

Hotaling is pushing for an expansion of STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. He says an “A’' needs to be added for STEAM to include the arts.

“Art is a key part and effects the usability of technology,’' Hotaling said. “How does the person feel, how does the community feel about that product or service?’'

In addition, Beckett says there needs to be a renewed emphasis on reading.

“We have to get kids so that they can read by third grade,’' Beckett said. “If they can’t, the prison pipeline becomes more prominent, and poverty, bad behavior and bullying become more prominent. It’s much more important that we focus on that early elementary education and get kids to a level where they can teach themselves things because they can read.’'

Abortion

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, abortion has become the most emotional issue of the campaign season. With states now allowed to craft their own regulations, abortion has become an issue in all 50 states, including Connecticut.

“I support a woman’s choice. Period. End of story,’’ Hotaling said. “There’s no debate.’’

Hotaling said he would support the bipartisan bill that Lamont signed into law in May increasing the number of medical professionals allowed to perform abortions in Connecticut and expand abortion-related protections regarding lawsuits. Connecticut became the 15th state to allow a wider range of medical professionals to perform abortions in the first trimester, including New York, California, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

State spending and taxes

Like Stefanowski, Hotaling says a thorough audit of the $24.2 billion annual state budget could provide a treasure trove of savings. He estimates that 10% to 20% of the budget represents program inefficiencies, mismanagement, and redundancies — totaling $2.5 billion that could be used for public education or other programs.

The long-running problems with state pensions, which were underfunded for 70 years, could be partially resolved through the use of 401(k)-style plans, he said. Under agreements with the state employee unions, new employees who are hired now have a hybrid plan that involves 401(k)-type plans that save millions of dollars when compared to the highly expensive, Tier 1 plans for state employees who were hired before 1984 and are still collecting their pensions.

Hotaling says he would spend 5% to 15% of the overall surplus in an attempt to close the education achievement gap and retrain workers through community colleges in order to combat the ongoing labor shortage. Business executives say that Connecticut has more than 100,000 available jobs, but job applicants need specific skills — as submarine welders or plumbers, for example — as companies try to replace an aging workforce.

“Bob wants to cut taxes. That’s the Republican game plan,’’ Hotaling said. “And he wants to spend more of the surplus. I guess that’s a surprise. ... I do think that Bob is probably going too far with spending the surplus. I come from the finance world. Banks need to have certain cash reserves. You can look at government similarly. You need to have a proper cash reserve to make sure that the rainy day fund [is full], and you can do what you need to do in emergency situations.’’

Third-party longshot

For decades, Democrats and Republicans have dominated Connecticut politics. In the past 32 years, only two major, statewide races have been won by third-party candidates.

The first was in 1990 when Weicker was elected governor after leaving the Republican Party and creating a new venture called “A Connecticut Party.’' The second victory was in 2006 when U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman lost to Lamont in the Democratic Party and then won the November general election as a third-party candidate.

But Weicker and Lieberman are two of the best-known politicians in Connecticut in the past three decades, generating enough name recognition among voters to win major elections.

Beckett said that many voters want a credible, third-party candidate, citing the 1992 presidential race with three major candidates who shared the debate stage.

“Ross Perot showed us it’s possible when he got 19.2% of the vote‚’’ Beckett said. “That was certainly competitive and changed that race.’'

Due to complications in the state law, Hotaling and Beckett say they are not eligible for public financing because the Independent Party did not obtain enough votes in the 2018 election. Facing two multimillionaires, Hotaling said that the wealth of his opponents is so large that they are in economic outer space when compared to thousands of voters struggling to make ends meet.

“They’re both multimillionaires,’’ Hotaling said. “The last time I checked, Gov. Lamont made something like $6.8 million in capital gains and dividends. Does the average person even understand that? I think that makes him a little disconnected from the average voter. I’m a working guy. I think most people who are working would recognize and identify with me.’’

During their first televised debate at the NBC affiliate in West Hartford, Hotaling held his own with the two more experienced candidates and observers said he came across as measured and prepared.

Speaking on Hotaling after the debate, Lamont said, “I thought he did a very credible job.’’

In 2018, Stefanowski won more than 25,000 votes on the Independent Party line — an important total in a race that he lost to Lamont 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 30,753 members, compared to more than 800,000 Democrats and more than 460,000 Republicans, according to the latest state statistics. The largest single group in Connecticut is unaffiliated with 917,916 registered voters.

“If you’re tired of partisan politics, if you’re tired of the lack of progress, I’m your only other viable candidate,’’ Hotaling said. “I’m the only one who can break the blue-red divide. Think about it. Who else can do that?’’

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com