“Unofficial” Governor-Elect Starts Transition

(Updated 5 p.m.) Democrat Dan Malloy is the ​“unofficial” winner of the governor’s race, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz declared Wednesday, as Republicans insisted that Malloy hasn’t yet won. New Haven finally produced its official election results after 4 p.m., as Malloy was on TV already announcing his appointments for leaders of his transition team. Republican Tom Foley named transition chiefs, too.

The state’s ​“unofficial” tally showed Malloy beating Republican Tom Foley by a mere 3,103 votes.

In New Haven, it was a blowout. Figures released late Wednesday afternoon showed Malloy beating Foley 22,298 to 3,685 in New Haven. Vote-pulling in cities appeared to put him over the top against a candidate who picked up traction elsewhere in the campaign’s closing weeks.

 

Foley said Wednesday that his own figures show him leading the race by under 2,000 votes, within the margin that would require an automatic recount. Malloy said he’s 11,000 votes ahead. Click the play arrow to see Christine Stuart’s video of Bysiewicz’s public announcement. Click here to read about Foley confronting her on radio for declaring a winner without having official returns.

Do the words ​“Florida,” ​“2000,” and ​“hanging chad” come to mind?

Malloy moved swiftly to claim the mantle of governor-elect even without a concession. At a 4 p.m. press conference at the State Capitol Wednesday, he announced that he has named running mate Nancy Wyman and Timothy Bannon, a former administration aide from the 1980s era William O’Neill administration and a current Connecticut Housing Finance Authority executive director, as the heads of his transition team. Bannon will also serve as chief of staff in the putative Malloy administration.

“Nancy and I are beginning the transition,” Malloy said.

Not to be outdone, Foley announced the appointment of two people to head his transition team: Greg Butler of Northeast Utilities and former state legislator Brian Flaherty.

If Malloy’s victory claim holds, Connecticut will have pulled off a remarkable counter-narrative to the nation’s electoral story Tuesday.

Across the country, Republicans unseated Democrats or claimed open seats. They won back control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Connecticut went true blue — bluer than ever. Assuming his election is certified, Malloy will have become the first Democrat to win the governor’s office since 1986. Democrat Richard Blumenthal captured an open U.S. Senate seat the party had seemed until only recently in danger of losing. And all five of the state’s U.S. House seats went to Democrats again — even though the 4th and 5th District appeared at times heading to turn red. Democrats also swept the underticket constitutional offices.

Malloy’s decision about whether to claim victory involved some leaps of mathematical faith. Early into Wednesday morning firm results hadn’t come in from the big cities — the Democratic cities. Bridgeport kept some polling places open late because they had run out of ballots earlier (and distributed some incorrect ones). In New Haven, where vote-counting is always mysteriously slow, a special problem emerged: 734 paper ballots from Ward 21 in the African-American and overwhelmingly Democratic Newhallville neighborhood had to be re-fed into a counting machine. The machine that was supposed to count them on Tuesday had malfunctioned. In addition, officials had an estimated 1,400 ballots to count. New Haven broke big for Malloy Tuesday; those 2,000-plus votes — suddenly crucial in the calculus for the nail-biting statewide governor’s race — appeared likely to go primarily Democratic.

Such math led a Republican candidate for Congress to concede defeat Tuesday night even as the media was reporting him in the lead. Dan Debicella took a look at what was developing in Bridgeport and decided Democrat Jim Himes had the 4th U.S. Congressional District won.

“This is quite a landslide,“ Malloy quipped to the crowd at the Society Ballroom in Hartford at 1:05 a.m. Wednesday. Hundreds of supporters hooted and hollered in return. (Click on the play arrow to watch his speech.)

“I want to be very clear that we may enjoy victory tonight,” Malloy said. ​“This probably will have a little ways to go, but based on our look at the numbers I believe that we will end up doing what all of you wished we would do.”

“I fully acknowledge and respect the rights of other individuals to contest numbers and play itself out, but I thought it was important since you all stayed to come over here,“ said Malloy. ​“I also want to say to Mr. Foley — I congratulate him on a race well run.”

“Again, this will work itself out. I’m pretty certain we’re going to be okay,” Malloy added.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley addressed his supporters as well at the Greenwich Hyatt around 1 a.m., offering a message of optimism similar to Malloy’s.

“We’re quite confident that we will win,” Foley said. ​“But we want to wait until we know for sure.” He repeated the message repeatedly in public Wednesday.

Democratic Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo said the lack of ballots in Bridgeport and a court order which allowed 11 polls to stay open two hours longer, and reluctance of the Registrar of Voters in Hartford to call the election without all the returns in hand, added to the delay.

DiNardo said she was in Hartford Superior Court at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday arguing to keep the polls open so that the 9,000 machine votes Malloy received and some of the 5,000 votes that would need to be hand counted.