Leng Soundly Defeats Garrett In Hamden

In a race that pitted experience versus a call for change, Hamden Mayor Curt Leng handily beat back a primary challenge by Lauren Garrett Tuesday night, capturing 61 percent of the vote.

The Independent’s vote tally, collected at voting stations and including absentee ballots, shows two-term incumbent Leng with 3,220 votes to Garrett’s 2,037 votes.

Leng won all nine voting districts.

“Primaries are healthy for democracy. They let you grow and discuss ideas and vision with voters. We did that a lot,” Leng told his supporters in a victory speech.

“I love election day. Election day is your opportunity to get your report card. And we did good. We did good this year in our report card. … I trust Main Street voters that come out on election day, and our Main Street voters came out. They came out hard.”

Garrett addressed supporters at at the Mikro brewpub.

“This didn’t go our way. But I’m really proud of the campaign that we ran,” she said.

“We had an uphill battle. It’s a hard message to tell people the finances are such that taxes will have to go up. That’s really unfortunate. But we’ve got a lot of problems coming up. Hopefully the Council is going to provide a check on the administration.”

Voters Weigh Experience, Change

“I’m hoping you vote for Lauren Garrett,” Dan Garrett called out to a voter as she made her way into the Keefe Community Center in Hamden at around 3 p.m. on Tuesday. ​“Her main focus is development of southern Hamden.”

The voter approached Garrett as he stood just past the sign marking 75 feet from the building’s entrance so that he could hand her a sample ballot that showed the bubble next to Garrett’s name filled in with yellow ink.

Chris Yezick stood waiting patiently until Garrett was done. He pulled out a small card with Hamden Mayor Curt Leng’s smiling face and handed it over. ​“Tired and true proven leader,” he said.

Yezick and Garrett were out poll-standing Tuesday for the two candidates in Hamden’s Democratic mayoral primary, Garrett for his wife Lauren Garrett, and Yezick for his friend and fellow baseball coach Curt Leng.

As voters went to the polls in Hamden on Tuesday, they were deciding between an established old- guard in Leng, and a relative newcomer who calls herself a fiscally responsible progressive Democrat and who has been a vocal critic of how Leng has handled town finances.

For many of Hamden’s voters, the decision hinged on whether they were satisfied with Leng’s track record and valued his experience or whether they liked the prospect of change that Garrett has promised.

“I voted for Lauren Garrett,” said Letina Holly as she left the Keefe center, the District 3 polling station. ​“I said I would try something different.” She said she has owned a house down the street for over 20 years now and hasn’t seen much change to the town.

Nyr’e Gifford, on the other hand, said that she voted for Leng ​“because he hasd more experience with the state than the other candidate.”

Others shared personal experiences.

“Oh, he did something for me, and I’m going to vote for him,” Deborah Williams called out as she headed into the Keefe Center after Leng volunteer Cherlyn Poindexter encouraged her to vote for the incumbent.

Williams said she just moved to Hamden, and she had a problem with leaf pickup. The town’s trucks were coming around to pick up other people’s leaves, but not hers. She went into the mayor’s office, and Leng told her to call him if the leaves weren’t gone by Wednesday. When they were still there Wednesday, she went back in to Leng’s office, and by the time she got home, the leaves were gone.

That, Williams said, was why she had decided to vote for him. ​“All I know about him is what he did for me,” she said.

Personal experiences swayed voters toward Garrett as well.

“I voted for Lauren,” said Dave Sloane as he left the Board of Education headquarters, which served as District 5’s polling location, ​“because she is competent, because I have talked to her and she is fiscally responsible.” He said he lives in Neighborhood 40, which received a disproportionate increase in its property assessments a few years ago, and that the Leng Administration has not been responsive to the neighborhood’s calls to examine what many say is an unfair tax burden.

Trump Voters Cross Party Line

Both Leng’s and Garrett’s campaigns sent volunteers to each of Hamden’s polling locations to make last-minute appeals for their candidates. Garrett (Dan) and Yezick were two such volunteers.

In a town like Hamden, politics don’t necessarily fall along party lines. Yezick is a Republican. He voted for Trump. But he was helping Leng because, as he put it, ​“I think he has been a tremendous leader.”

Yezick is not the only Republican helping Leng. Nick D’Amato carries around a Trump-Pence 2020 credit card in his wallet, but he has been helping Leng in the third district. He is also campaign manager for Gabriel Lupo, a police lieutenant running as a Democrat for the Legislative Council in the Second District. Lupo switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat in 2016 because, he said, he liked some things the Democrats were doing nationally and locally, though not others. He declined to give any more specific details.

All of Leng’s and Garrett’s poll-standing volunteers, Democrat or Republican, had to stay behind the red signs that marked 75 feet from the entrance to the polling location. They handed out cards with Leng’s picture and half-sheets of paper showing a sample ballot with Garrett’s bubble filled in.

Assessor John Gelati had parked himself among the cars with a blue camping chair and a Poland Springs bottle in the parking lot of the Board of Education headquarters. He was campaigning for Leng as a private citizen. ​“The more I’ve worked with him, the more certain I am of his leadership,” he said.

Garrett’s campaign focused on poll standing on Tuesday. It did not send out any canvassers. Leng, on the other hand, had Don Cretella and Chris Marino out canvassing for him all day. Cretella and Marino both work for Blue Edge Strategies, a small firm that helps in Democrats in Connecticut which Leng hired to run his campaign.

Cretella started his day at 5 a.m. on Tuesday. He arrived at the campaigns headquarters in northern Hamden at 5:45, started making phone calls at 9, and started knocking doors at 10.

At around noon, he arrived on Pine Street, right next to the Keefe Center, to start a short canvassing ​“turf” in the third district. He was only knocking on the doors of voters who had previously said they would be supporting Leng, making sure they actually got out and voted. 

Though he knocked on ten doors, he only spoke with two of the voters he was trying to reach.

“I’m just out here with Mayor Leng,” he said at Fannie Jackson’s door, asking her if she planned on going out to vote for Leng.

Jackson said she was still undecided, but that her neighborhood and its safety was one of her main concerns this election.

When voters didn’t answer the door, Cretella left one of the Leng pamphlets tucked into the door handle with Leng’s smiling face facing out.

“You come home, see that face, you’re like man, why would I ever vote for anyone else!” he joked.