Gary Holder-Winfield this week became the second mayoral candidate to qualify for the Democracy Fund, which grants public money to campaigns that limit individual donations to $370 (rather than $1,000) and forswear contributions from outside political committees.
“That is not just a campaign strategy, that’s how a good mayor should govern,” Holder-Winfield, a state representative, stated in a news release. “We owe it to the people we seek to represent — they deserve nothing less than our full devotion to a clean, open, honest election that rises above shady tactics and big money.”
He joins Justin Elicker, an alderman also running for mayor, who has already qualified for the fund. (Read about that here.)
To qualify, a candidate must raise a minimum of 200 contributions of at least $10 from New Haveners.
Two other candidates seeking the Democratic mayoral nomination have filed papers to participate in the fund. One of them, Hillhouse Principal Kermit Carolina, has collected around 230 local contributions and is in the process of verifying the information before submitting it to the fund, according to campaign spokesman Bob Pellegrino. He said the campaign plans to submit the paperwork to the fund Wednesday.
The other, plumber Sundiata Keitazulu, said Tuesday that he has so far collected 50 contributions from New Haveners.
Three other Democratic candidates — state Sen. Toni Harp, former city economic development chief Henry Fernandez, and former Chamber of Commerce President Matthew Nemerson — have opted not to participate in the fund.