News Flash: Presidential Primary Ahead

Making his way up a steep set of stone steps on Lexington Avenue, Eleazar Lanzot took stock of a big white house, then landed six raps on the front door.

“Hello!” Lanzot said, smiling. ​“I’m Eleazar, from the Bernie Sanders Campaign. Do you know that the Connecticut primary is April 26?”

Victor Castro lifted a paint-covered arm above his head.

“No,” Castro replied, shaking his head.

At door after door in Fair Haven Heights, Lanzot was surprised to hear that message repeated: on both sides of the Democratic divide (there was also a lone Republican), people weren’t aware that the wall-to-wall-news-covered presidential primary campaign is coming to Connecticut in three weeks.

Lanzot was one of over 40 local Bernie Sanders volunteers who are keenly aware of that primary, and that their moment to act has arrived. Fighting snow flurries on Saturday and Sunday, they hit New Haven streets to knock on doors for their candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Sanders campaign opened unofficial New Haven headquarters at Upper State Street’s Neverending Books Saturday and plans to open an official New Haven field office later this month. Both the Sanders campaign and volunteers from CT Progressives, of which Lanzot is a member, are spearheading the effort.

The Hillary for America campaign has not yet launched a New Haven headquarters but is looking at spaces on Whalley Avenue, according to Ward 29 Democratic co-chair Audrey Tyson. Mahen Gunaratna, Connecticut Press Secretary for Hillary for America, added that there not yet been an organized Clinton canvass in New Haven, but that ​“there will be a big grassroots launch” on Saturday, April 16, ten days before the primary.

For Lanzot, a 25 year-old Sanders volunteer who canvassed in New Hampshire and Massachusetts earlier this year, the main mission objective shifted a bit as he walked the streets of Fair Haven Heights Sunday, trekking from Lexington Avenue up Howard and Summit Streets and down East Grand. The point wasn’t just to get voters out for Sanders. It was to make sure they got out at all, and that they learned that a primary election is taking place.

“The primary is coming up,” Lanzot told Castro, a 55-year-old registered Democrat. ​“Are you going to vote?”

Castro gave an unenthused shrug. He isn’t into politics, he explained. He prefers minding his own business.

Lanzot insisted that this was too important a primary to sit out. Surely, he said, something has to be important enough to get Castro out to the polls later this month. What about the economy and job creation? Bernie Sanders could address that, he said.

Castro paused. This new suggestion, that Sanders could mend an economy that had let him down, resonated with him. He was about to start a part-time position as a handyman at the New Haven Country Club on Monday, he said. Eventually, he’d love to have more reliable work than that, something with steady paychecks that didn’t change with New Haven’s seasons.

He’d think about voting for Sanders, he told Lanzot. Lanzot thanked him and headed toward the next address on his list. 

A Journey To Feeling The Bern

A year ago, Lanzot didn’t think he’d be out on a blustery Sunday campaigning for Sanders. Born in the Bronx, he moved to Milford with his parents when he was 12, and to New Haven after studying business at Southern Connecticut State University. When candidates were announcing their bids for the presidency in spring and summer 2015, he initially supported Hillary Clinton. His family had supported former President Bill Clinton when he was in office, and Hillary seemed like an immediate, logical choice to Lanzot. Chris Murphy, whom he admired for his work with caregivers and older adults, had endorsed Hillary Clinton early on: maybe he should too. 

But then he looked at the way politicians were ​“spending money on their campaigns,” like donations that The Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative had received from Exxon Mobile and Chevron before Clinton’s 2015 campaign announcement. He thought about the student loan bills he received every month, and the fact that those wouldn’t stop coming anytime soon. (Bernie Sanders has called for free universal college tuition at state schools and has sworn off special-interest political action committee donations.)

Lanzot said he decided he wanted a candidate who would hold big gas and oil accountable for global warming by getting special interests out of political campaigns. He also wanted someone who realizes that a college degree ​“is what a GED was when our parents were in school,” and would lessen the burden of student debt for him and many of his peers. He wanted to see the economy pick up, too. He concluded Sanders could deliver on that.

Sunday he brought his enthusiasm to each door, launching into some version of a speech that began with ​“Bernie Sanders wants to get big money out of politics” and then narrowed into his own story: He has a lot of student debt. He wants to see the economy pick up steam for working and middle-class families.

It wasn’t a receptive bunch. One couple shrugged, and responded that they’d ​“been in this for a long time, and our minds are made up.” Young father Eli Mendez said he and his wife were solidly noncommittal, and not fond of watching the circus that politics had become. 

Only one woman, who wished to be identified only as ​“Jackie,” said that everyone in her home knew the primary was happening, and was committed to voting for Sanders on the 26th.

Recovering from a winter bug, Lanzot still left Sunday’s canvass in high spirits.

“The best part is just talking to people,” he said, keys clinking once as he started up the car and drove toward downtown.

Before he had finished, he was asked about reports about some Sanders supporters, including some from Connecticut, who say they won’t vote for Clinton in the general election if she is the nominee.

“I mean if push comes to shove I’d much rather see Clinton than Trump or Cruz,” Lanzot replied. ​“But Sanders isn’t done yet.”