President Barack Obama is coming to Connecticut next month for two fundraisers in the political cash machine known as Fairfield County, according to two Democratic political sources.
[UPDATE with details: Harvey Weinstein to host $38,500 party at his home in Westport, a $500-a-ticket event to follow at Stamford Marriott.]
No word yet on the locations, but an email from the Democratic State Central Committee says Obama will hold both fundraisers on Aug. 6, which happens to be a week before the Democratic and Republican primaries for U.S. Senate and Congress.
One event will be in a home and presumably closed to the press, but the other will be in a hotel ballroom, most likely in Stamford.
Connecticut donors have given $8.6 million to presidential campaigns this cycle, with $2.9 million going to Obama. Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee, was the recipient of $4.8 million of the $5.7 million collected by Republican presidential candidates.
Ron Paul was a distant second in the once-considerable GOP pack, with $275,861.
More than $5 million of the presidential cash raised in Connecticut came from donors with Fairfield County zip codes, according to the Federal Election Commission.
As a sitting president, Obama headlined an event for the U.S. Senate race of Richard Blumenthal in Stamford two years ago. As a candidate in 2008, he held a memorable rally in Hartford that drew a standing-room crowd of 17,000 to the XL Center.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is described in the state central email as “actively supporting” both fundraisers.
Obama easily carried Connecticut in 2008, generating a turnout that helped Democrat Jim Himes of Greenwich unseat Chris Shays, who was then the only GOP congressman in New England.
As president, Obama headline a pre-election rally in Bridgeport in 2010, when Himes was re-elected and Malloy won Connecticut’s closest gubernatorial election in more than a half century.