Thomas Breen photo
Lamont at Wednesday’s presser.
President Donald Trump endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski for governor Wednesday, leading Democratic contender Ned Lamont to call the two “joined at the hip.”
The exchange came the morning after Stefanowski won a five-way GOP gubernatorial primary and Lamont crushed Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim to win the Democratic nomination.
President Donald Trump wasted no time weighing in on the Nov. 6 general election with a tweet:
It is about time that Connecticut had a real and talented Governor. Bob Stefanowski is the person needed to do the job. Tough on crime, Bob is also a big cutter of Taxes. He will win in November and make a Great Governor, a major difference maker. Bob has my total Endorsement!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2018
His tweet was noticed by the crew at Lamont’s statewide campaign headquarters at 85 Willow St. in New Haven, where he held a post-primary press conference Wednesday morning. Lamont used it to try to tie Stefanowski to Trump, who is unpopular in Connecticut.
“Nobody embraced Donald Trump more closely than Bob Stefanowski during that [GOP] primary,” Lamont said. Now that Donald Trump has formally endorsed Stefanowski, calling the Madison businessman “Tough on crime” and “a big cutter of Taxes,” Lamont argued that the president and the Republican gubernatorial candidate “are joined at the hip.”
President Trump and Republilcan gubernatorial nominee Bob Stefanowski.
Lamont, a Greenwich businessman and heir to a financial fortune who founded a telecommunications company that provided cable television to college campuses around the country, said now is the time for Stefanowski to put some daylight between himself and Trump on abortion rights, immigration, gun control, collective bargaining rights, and the environment.
Christina Polizzi, the communications director for the state Democratic Party, also sent out a press release arguing that Stefanowski’s endorsement by Trump signals the candidate’s commitment to “slashing the safety net,” “ending common-sense gun laws,” and “putting loyalty to Trump above all else.
“This is a choice between Connecticut values and Trump ones,” state party chair Nick Balletto is quoted saying in the press release. “Bob Stefanowski just got an endorsement from President Trump, and let there be no doubt that he will bring the White House agenda to Connecticut.”
Stefanowski’s campaign did not respond for a request for comment by the publication time of this article.
Media gathers at the recently minted Democratic nominee’s press conference on Monday.
Lamont also accused Stefanowski of running a one-issue campaign about cutting the income tax, which Lamont said even Stefanowski’s Republican colleagues have called unrealistic. Lamont quoted House minority leader Themis Klarides calling the idea “silly,” former Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Herbst calling on Stefanowski to explain how he plans to fund that proposal, and former Republican gubernatorial candidate David Stemerman saying, “I view it as the same kind of empty promise that has got Connecticut to the bring of collapse.”
The state income tax provides roughly $9 billion in revenue, or half of the state’s annual budget.
“That will result in crushing cuts to education and big increases to property taxes, which is the exact wrong thing to do,” Lamont said about cutting the income tax.
Instead, he said, he hopes to “hold the line” on the state’s income tax, and hopes to close the state’s billions of dollars in projected deficit by implementing electronic highway tolls and by expanding the state sales tax to include “big, out-of-state internet retailers.”
“Our business backgrounds are as different as night and day,” Lamont said in response to a question about how both major parties are running wealthy, white, self-funding candidates who are millionaires with little public service experience.
“I borrowed $250,000 from People’s Bank and I started a business from scratch,” he said. He also once served as a Greenwich selectman, on the town’s board of finance, and as the head of the state pension board under former Gov. Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.
“I was taking on the biggest businesses,” Lamont said about his career in the telecommunications industry. “[Stefanowski] worked for the biggest businesses. He worked for the biggest conglomerates. He didn’t grow businesses.”
Stefanowski is the former chief financial officer of UBS Investment Bank. He is also the former president and CEO of GE Corporate Finance Europe. Stefanowski didn’t vote in a U.S. election for 16 years, and switched his voter registration from Democrat to Republican shortly before beginning his campaign for governor. Stefanowski also served as CEO of Dollar Financial Corp., which ran payday-lending stores in Britain and Canada.
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch Lamont’s press conference.