Christine Stuart Photo
Joe Markley (center) with State Sen. Len Suzio and Tom Scott at the 2018 state GOP convention.
The advice came from Virginia. It bombed in Connecticut.
That’s part of Joe Markley’s take on Connecticut’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign. it informs his take on how Connecticut’s Republicans should rebuild their party.
Markley had a stake in the 2018 campaign: He ran as the lieutenant governor candidate on the Republican ticket with gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski. Many observers (including top-tier Democrats who decided against running) thought 2016 would be a Republican year. Instead, Stefanwoski and all other statewide Republicans lost, and Democrats won near-super-majorities in the two legislative chambers.
That happened for various reasons, perhaps chief among them a grassroots outpouring of Democratic votes motivated by opposition to President Donald Trump.
In the case of Stefanowski’s campaign, Markley argued that misplaced advice from the Virginia-based main campaign consultant, Chris LaCivita (who also advised Linda McMahon on an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign), contributed to the loss.
“These out-of-state consultants are blind,” Markley, who supported Stefanowski in the Republican primary, said during an appearance Wednesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. “They are obsessed with counties. You have to say, ‘There is no such thing as counties in Connecticut.’”
Reached by email, LaCivita declined comment. “Joe is entitled to his opinion … even if he never made them known during the campaign,” LaCivita wrote.
Markley, an outgoing state senator who has had among the most conservative voting records in Hartford, identified five key strategic decisions that backfired for Stefanowski:
• The decision to focus on redder communities rather than hit all 169 towns and cities, including New Haven. Stefanowski could have run up more votes in the Annex neighborhood, for instance, if he had shown up there, Markley argued. “You don’t want to give people the impression that you’re blowing them off — which he did.”
• The decision to limit media interviews. Markley said Stefanowski should have sought all the radio and TV interviews he could get, and would have projected well.
• The late decision to focus on an in-state vote-pulling “ground game” to compete against the Democrats’ operations, rather than relying pretty much just on TV ads.
• The decision to focus almost exclusively on one issue: Cutting taxes. Markley credited Stefanowski for remaining disciplined and on message, but argued he could have appealed to more voters by adding a couple of issues to the campaign quiver. Maybe three issues. No need for 12. “You want to give the impression there is more to your campaign” than one issue, Markley concluded.
• The decision to hire key staffers, including a press spokesperson, from out of state. It helps to know local reporters and local issues in promoting a candidate, he argued.
Looking ahead, Markley advocated a 169-town GOP strategy, including “building the party in the cities.” And he advocated resisting the temptation to appeal for votes in the middle and toward the left.
“Do we lose because we’re tot conservative? Or do we lose because we’re not clear enough about where we stand?” Markley asked. His answer: The latter.
Click on the video for the full episode of WNHH’s “Dateline New Haven” with Joe Markley.