EMAIL DETAILS

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/nyregion/04ctgov.html

Official Declares Connecticut Winner

Connecticut’s top election official declared on Wednesday that Dannel P. Malloy, a former Democratic mayor of Stamford, was the unofficial victor in a tight battle to become the state’s next governor against Thomas C. Foley, a Republican financier and former ambassador.

Susan Bysiewicz, the secretary of state, said at a news conference in Hartford that Mr. Malloy led Mr. Foley by 3,100 votes, out of more than 1 million cast. Under state law, two candidates who are separated by more than 2,000 votes are not entitled to an automatic recount.

“We don’t believe that it would change, based on absentee ballots,” said Av Harris, a spokesman for Ms. Bysiewicz, who must certify the results by Nov. 25.

But in an interview, Mr. Foley took strong exception to Ms. Bysiewicz’s action. He said that his own internal results indicated that he had won, though by a margin smaller than 2,000. He also did not dismiss outright chatter from his supporters questioning Ms. Bysiewicz’s motives as a loyal Democrat.

“It does raise an eyebrow,” said Mr. Foley. “I’m a little surprised that the secretary of state would announce an unofficial result when she admits that she doesn’t have all the information. I think someone committed to acting impartially would have been more reserved.”

Mr. Foley added that he had called on the secretary of state’s office to release the results, town by town, in order to check any discrepancies with his own totals. He also said he had not yet decided whether to explore options to challenge the results in court, or by other means.

When asked the possibility of a challenge, Mr. Harris said: “There’s no legal vehicle for him to ask for a recount, or for us to order one.”

Mr. Malloy, though, did his part to act like a winning candidate. He hastily scheduled a news conference Wednesday afternoon at the state Capitol. And, speaking on behalf of his lieutenant governor, he issued a statement, too: “After a long night I am confident that when the Secretary of the State certifies the results of the election Nancy Wyman and I will be declared the winners, and that a recount will not be necessary.”

The vote had been complicated by hitches in Bridgeport, the state’s largest city. A ballot shortage in the city, which is heavily Democratic, led a Superior Court judge to order that the polls stay open an extra two hours there, until 10 p.m.

Mr. Malloy, 55, had promoted his efforts to revitalize Stamford, the state’s fourth-largest city. And with solid union support in a traditionally Democratic state, he led by as much as double-digit margins in early surveys.

But Mr. Foley, who was an ambassador to Ireland under President George W. Bush, poured almost $10 million of his own money into the race, outspending Mr. Malloy by two to one. He also pledged something that Mr. Bush’s father once won notoriety for promising: no new taxes.

The winner will succeed M. Jodi Rell, a Republican who decided not to run for re-election. Though Connecticut has voted mostly for Democratic candidates for president, United States Senate and state legislature, no Democrat has won a governor’s race since William A. O’Neill was re-elected in 1986.

The winner will also join a full slate of Democrats in Hartford. Democratic candidates won the races for attorney general, comptroller, secretary of state and state treasurer, as well as most of the state legislature.

Mr. Malloy was better known at the start of the race. He had run for governor in 2006, losing in the primary to John DeStefano. And in the primary this year, he upset Ned Lamont, who made national news in 2006 by beating Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in a Senate primary.

Mr. Malloy, a former Brooklyn prosecutor with a reputation as an energetic and, at times, overly aggressive politician, tried to portray Mr. Foley as beholden to the kind of trickle-down economics that may have benefited Mr. Foley’s neighbors in Greenwich, but not most of the state’s residents.

Mr. Foley appealed to the kinds of disaffected Democrats and independents who helped to torpedo dozens of Democratic candidates around the country. He emphasized his first-time candidacy as a virtue to help tame a $3 billion budget deficit, and attract more jobs. He also featured his second wife, a Yale-educated lawyer, and his son, a Harvard undergraduate, in recent television ads, trying to convince voters that he was a family man.

One wild card was the death penalty. The state had been riveted by the trial of Steven J. Hayes, who was convicted last month for his part in a home invasion in Cheshire in which three residents were killed. Like most Connecticut residents, Mr. Foley supported the death penalty, but Mr. Malloy did not.

But in the end, exit polling suggested that nearly 90 percent of voters were worried about the nation’s economic future.

Robert Davey, Patrick G. Lee and Elizabeth Maker contributed reporting.


Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
P Consider the environment before printing this email.