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Kingmaker Mauro: “I’m just a fat guy from the Elm City with the best team in the state. Maybe the country.”
(Updated) Ned Lamont will be the next governor of Connecticut, thanks to New Haven.
Voters here gave Lamont a 23,278-vote victory margin — which will continue to grow as more votes are counted — over Republican Bob Stefanowski, the largest single vote total in the state.
Stefanowski conceded to the Greenwich Democrat on Wednesday morning, even as New Haven continued counting its ballots after a disastrous election day muddled by broken voting machines.
New Haven produced the largest statewide total of votes for Lamont. New Haven gave 27,900 votes to the Democratic candidate, and only 4,622 to Stefanowski.
That makes New Haven Democratic Town Chair Vin Mauro Connecticut’s political kingmaker.
He chose different words Wednesday morning to describe how the party again pulled thousands more votes for the ticket than Bridgeport or Hartford, the closest competitors.
“I’m just a fat guy from the Elm City with the best team in the state,” Mauro said. “Maybe the country.”
Election-watchers went to bed well after midnight with yet another Connecticut governor race too close to call (as in 2010). New Haven’s vote, as the results came through ward by ward, put Lamont over the top.
It took a while to find that out. Voting machines broke all over town during and after the election. Vote tallying coutinued throughout the evening and into Wednesday morning. And a staffing shortage created chaos in the processing of same-day registration ballots.
Officials estimate it could take until the rest of the day for a final official vote tally for New Haven, and until the end of the week for release of an official ward-by-ward tally sheet.
Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans, who scurried around town throughout the night and early morning attending to broken machines and late counts, reflected on the experience in her office during a brief break Wednesday morning. She hadn’t slept since before dawn on Tuesday.
“It was very frustrating with all the machines breaking,” she said. “At the end of the day, voters were able to vote.”
Gracious Tone In Defeat
Stefanowski issued the following concession statement Wednesday morning:
A few moments ago, I called Ned Lamont to concede the race for governor and congratulate him on a hard-fought victory. I wish both Ned and the state of Connecticut success over these next four years.
While this is not the result we would have hoped for, I am glad that we were able to draw so much attention to the tax burden in this state. Think about it – at the beginning of this race, we were laser-focused on cutting taxes, while other candidates were talking about raising taxes. We were able to mold the discussion in such a way that the other candidates slowly began to come around to the same conclusion to varying degrees.
I am hopeful that by relentlessly focusing on that issue we’ve started the conversation on how we can start to bring the tax burden on Connecticut families down.
Words cannot express how humbled and honored I am at the tremendous support we received from people all across Connecticut during this campaign.
This road hasn’t been easy on any of us, but I want to thank my incredible wife Amy and my 3 beautiful girls for taking this journey with me – for having my back throughout this campaign — for putting up with the late nights and the nasty ads — and for encouraging me when I questioned whether we were doing the right thing.
I also want to thank to thank our army of tireless supporters who donated, put in countless hours on the phones, knocked doors, and helped to get out the vote.
I will be forever grateful for the love and support this state has shown me, my family and this campaign over the last year.
I have learned a lot over the course of this campaign, but the biggest takeaway for me has been the realization that CT is one big family. That won’t end with the campaign. We will continue to share that bond regardless of today’s outcome.