Susan Bysiewicz was ready to endorse Kamala Harris for president in New Haven Monday.
But to make it official, she had to wait for her boss — the way Harris had to wait for her boss to clear the way to seek the Democratic nomination.
Bysiewicz, Connecticut’s lieutenant governor, was in Fair Haven for an event at the new City Seed headquarters on James Street. Before it began, reporters asked her the question of the day: Whom Democrats should nominate for president now that Joe Biden has decided not to seek a second term.
Like many elected Democrats so far, Bysiewicz focused on Vice-President Harris — and only Vice-President Harris.
She gave a full-throated tribute to Harris, and only Harris. But she offered a caveat that the official endorsement would have to wait until Gov. Ned Lamont made an endorsement, which he hadn’t yet.
Less than an hour later, Bysiewicz called the Independent to report that Lamont had in fact endorsed Harris. And Bysiewicz was now officially endorsing her, too.
“She is uniquely qualified to be president of the United States,” Bysiewicz said. “She’s been a district attorney of a large city in California, attorney general of the most populous state in America. She’s been a United States senator. She’s been working alongside President Biden passing laws, gun safety legislation, infrastructure laws, so much more …
“Kamala is capable of breaking through that glass ceiling and becoming the first female president of the United States and the first female of color.”
She spoke of Harris advocating for civil rights, abortion rights, voting rights, and LGBT rights at a time when state legislatures were passing laws and the courts were making decisions curtailing them.
Should anyone else seek the nomination?
“I think it would be very difficult to have any candidates come forward,” Bysiewicz said.
“The campaign finance rules would only allow Kamala to use the money that has been raised by President Biden for their joint campaign. I think it would be very difficult for a self-funder to come forward, because they don’t have the national organization that’s already in place.”
So … was Bysiewicz endorsing Harris?
“I am saying that I have not officially endorsed,” she responded outside CitySeed. “I would like to be on the same page as Gov. Lamont.
“I think he’ll get there very shortly.”
Which he did. And then she did.
Bysiewicz knows what it’s like to be a woman waiting for a man to step aside so she can pursue a top elected office.
She has had her eye on becoming governor one day since she wrote her 1983 Yale senior thesis on the country’s first elected female governor, Connecticut’s Ella Grasso (which she turned into a book). She has worked her way up through the state legislature, the secretary of the state’s office, and, after a try at the gubernatorial nomination, serving as the state’s lieutenant governor for the past six years.
Like Harris under President Biden, she has loyally supported Lamont and been careful not to upstage him. Like other potential Democratic candidates (such as Attorney General William Tong, State Rep. Joshua Elliott, and former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin), Bysiewicz has quietly tested the waters for a 2026 gubernatorial run in conversations with New Haveners active in Democratic politics. But like Harris waiting to burst out the campaign door these past weeks, Bysiewicz will have to wait until the man at the top makes up his mind.