Final Pitches Stress Insider vs. Outsider Politics

Toni Harp rolled out Connecticut’s top Democratic politicians to pump up her base. Justin Elicker dispatched his supporters to recruit voters who are ​“sick of” the old politics.

Harp and Elicker, who are running for mayor in Tuesday’s election, sent those messages in simultaneous final get-out-the-vote pitches Friday evening.

Harp, a Democrat, employed a VIP lineup of top politicians in her party to pump up a room of over 120 supporters at St. Luke’s Parish Hall at 111 Whalley Ave. Among those who appeared on her behalf: U.S. Sens. Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, state Sens. Martin Looney and Don Williams, and state Reps. Pat Dillon, Gary Holder-Winfield, and Roland Lemar.

Blumenthal credited Harp’s ​“lifetime of experience,” including over 20 years as a state senator. Murphy called her a champion of the disenfranchised at the state Capitol, and implored the crowd to ​“work your butts off” for Harp on Election Day. DeLauro called her ​“the conscience of the Senate.”

Rep. Lemar, a former East Rock alderman who has been quietly supporting Harp, added his endorsement to the mix. ​“I’ve known Justin a long time, I’ve supported Justin a long time,” he said. ​“But this isn’t about relationships. This is about electing the strongest leader” for New Haven.

Malloy said the star-studded lineup Friday ​“tells you how important in our minds New Haven is.” The city has the largest bloc of Democratic voters in the state.

Harp (pictured) spoke after two performances by the Nation drum and drill squad.

She vowed to work with her coalition of supporters to unite the city.

“We are a town that is divided,” she said. People from many neighborhoods don’t feel like they ​“belong” here or are being heard in government. ​“We’ve got to weave the town together again,” she said.

She said she is ​“ashamed” that kids in schools need trauma therapists because of the level of violence in the city. She said gun violence can be solved if New Haveners ​“find a way to knit together our forces.”

Elicker held a parallel event further up the same street, at his campaign headquarters at 390 Whalley Ave. He spoke to 50 people as they passed around bowls of grapes, strawberries and Halloween candy. The audience included Fair Haven activist Lee Cruz; Yale for Elicker leader Drew Morrison; criminal justice activist Barbara Fair; Ecuadorian community leader Elio Cruz; and former Dixwell Alderman Greg Morehead.

Hillhouse High Principal Kermit Carolina (pictured), a former mayoral candidate who endorsed Elicker after losing a four-way Democratic primary, appeared at the event on crutches due to a recent basketball injury. He stood up to warm up the crowd.

Carolina presented Elicker as the alternative to the same old politics.

“The city needs real, clean leadership. The alternative is corruption,” Carolina said. ​“Justin is about ending this pay-to-play.”

Elicker sought to gain a bounce from an emerging absentee ballot fraud scandal involving Harp’s running mate, City/Town Clerk Mike Smart.

“The other campaign is starting to trip,” he said, ​“particularly what’s happened in the last two days.” He accused the opposing campaign of ​“fooling around with the most important value, the right to vote.”

“Everything about our campaign is the opposite,” Elicker said.

Elicker, the underdog, is running as a petitioning candidate after losing the Democratic primary to Harp. He laid out a possible path to victory for his supporters.

First, he said that in the primary, there were 400 people who ​“said they’d vote and didn’t. We need to make sure that they vote. That means people like you dragging them [to the polls] in every legal way possible.”

Second, he urged his supporters to round up people who did not vote in the primary.

“The one-third of people who didn’t vote are sick of politics as usual,” Elicker said. ​“If we get these people to the polls, we win.”