Thomas Breen photo
Karen DuBois-Walton, on her way into the Democratic Town Convention.
(Updated at 10:14 p.m.) Karen DuBois-Walton has ended her campaign for mayor, leaving the path to reelection all but assured for first-term incumbent Justin Elicker.
DuBois-Walton broke that news Tuesday night at the beginning of the city’s Democratic Town Convention at the Betsy Ross Parish House on Kimberly Avenue.
“I wanted to run a campaign for equity and justice,” DuBois-Walton told the roughly 100 local Democratic Party stalwarts gathered in the wood-paneled meeting space. “A campaign that works to transform what’s possible in New Haven, in a way that our forebears here have done so many times.
“It’s become evident that the city is not ready for that kind of leadership. But, continuing to press this campaign would be too divisive and too damaging, to our party and to the city we love.”
So she has decided not to petition her way onto the Democratic primary ballot, and to give up her campaign to become the next mayor of New Haven.
DuBois-Walton addressing the convention.
DuBois-Walton’s exit from the race clears Elicker’s path to clinch the Democratic Party’s nomination for mayor during the Sept. 14 primary. Mayoral challenger Mayce Torres remains in the race.
After DuBois-Walton officially ended her run for the city’s top office, the local Democratic Party unanimously endorsed first-term incumbent Justin Elicker for another two-year term. Elicker now advances to the Sept. 14 Democratic primary where he’ll face challenger Mayce Torres, if she succeeds in petitioning her way onto the primary ballot.
If Elicker wins the primary, he will face off against presumptive Republican mayoral nominee John Carlson in the November general election.
Before the convention began, and before DuBois-Walton publicly announced her decision to end her campaign, several dozen of her campaign supporters lined the sidewalk outside of Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School.
They waved DuBois-Walton campaign signs, and cheered to the sounds of D.J. Dooley‑O and a step team that performed in support of the mayoral challenger’s erstwhile campaign.
Democratic Town Committee Chair Vinnie Mauro praised DuBois-Walton’s decades of public service in New Haven before giving her the mic at the convention to formally announce her decision to drop out.
He said his aunt, longtime city employee Patty Lawlor, always spoke glowingly of DuBois-Walton. “She’s smart, compassionate. She cares for people.”
“Karen DuBois-Walton’s future is limitless,” he said.
“This Is Not Our Time”
DuBois-Walton (center) at a campaign presser outside City Hall earlier this month.
Tuesday’s announcement comes nearly five months after DuBois-Walton — a 53-year-old Fair Haven resident who previously served as a top aide to former Mayor John DeStefano before helming the city’s public housing authority for the past 14 years—first launched her mayoral challenge to Elicker in early March.
Her campaign initially took the form of an “exploratory committee,” then transitioned into an official bid for the Democratic nomination for mayor in early May. She had been participating in the city’s voluntary public-financing program, the Democracy Fund.
“I just think this is not our time,” DuBois-Walton told the Independent about her decision to end her campaign Tuesday. “I think we raised the right issues. I’m proud of the campaign we’ve run. And I think we’ve pushed this administration to do more…. I just don’t think that our city needs to go through a divisive campaign at this point. I got into this race to do what is best for the city, and that will continue to be my guiding principle.”
At campaign press conferences and Democratic Ward Committee meetings over the past few months, DuBois-Walton has consistently touted her local government experience and her commitment to racial, social, and economic “equity.”
She cited last year’s Black Lives Matter and police accountability protests as one of the most direct catalysts for her run for office. And she has promoted such policy proposals as creating a new universal Pre‑K program called “New Haven Pre-Promise,” a new civilian-staffed Office of Neighborhood Safety, and stepped up efforts for police accountability and gun violence prevention.
DuBois-Walton has also spent much of her campaign slamming Elicker, on everything from police department leadership and communication to high taxes to Board of Education discord and school closures during the pandemic.
Elicker consistently rebuffed DuBois-Walton’s critiques as overly negative and unfair — even as his administration appeared to respond to the substance of some of her barbs by, for example, sending out more frequent public updates about rising crime across the city, and by ramping up a public participation program for how the city plans to spend $90 million in federal pandemic-era bailout money.
DuBois-Walton with Harris Tucker School students at a Newhallville ward committee meeting in July.
While Democratic Ward Committee votes are nonbinding, they offered a temperature check of how some of the city’s local Democratic insiders were leaning in the run-up to Tuesday’s convention.
And, time and time and time again, committees voted in support of Elicker.
Committee members and campaign contributors generally lauded the mayor’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and leadership of the city during the worst public health crisis in a century. Ultimately, DuBois-Walton won only four committee votes, in comparison to Elicker’s 20.
Asked what she plans to do next, DuBois-Walton noted that she is currently on leave from her post as director of Elm City Communities/Housing Authority of New Haven. Her top deputy Shenae Draughn has been filling in as acting director for the past three months.
“I think I’ll exhale for a moment, and then I’ll go back” to the housing authority director role full-time, DuBois-Walton said. “I’ve missed our residents and our staff. It is a wonderful position to return to.”
She also thanked her campaign supporters, saying that some got involved in her bid for the Democratic nomination because they felt like “the system didn’t reflect them.”
“I’m proud that we raised the right issues, and that we pushed,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to continue to raise these issues, just not as a mayoral candidate this cycle.”
According to her campaign’s most recent campaign finance disclosure, DuBois-Walton raised more than $109,700 from individual contributors and more than $31,100 in matching grants from the Democracy Fund by the end of June. Her campaign committee reported spending more than $36,800 at that time, and, by the end of June, it had more than $104,000 on hand. DuBois-Walton’s campaign manager Will Viederman told the Independent that the campaign still has to crunch the numbers of how much money it has remaining before deciding what will happen to those funds.
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch parts of Tuesday’s convention.