Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Tuesday he does not expect to announce his re-election plans until after the General Assembly’s annual session ends May 7, a week before the Democratic nominating convention.
“I don’t imagine myself being a candidate any time before the session is over,” Malloy said. “I’d like to get through the session as governor as opposed to a candidate. And that’s my expectation.”
The governor shared his timeline after a press conference about a new online voter registration system.
He is rewriting the political calendar every day he delays declaring his candidacy.
M. Jodi Rell created a candidate committee Oct. 13, 2005, and kicked off her 2006 campaign for governor the next day. In his third and final run, John G. Rowland created a candidate committee Nov. 30, 2000, 23 months before the 2002 election.
As The Mirror reported last week, Malloy is the first incumbent to seek re-election under public financing, freeing him from an old timeline that was based in large measure on how long it might take to fill the campaign coffers.
“We’re in a new era with the timing,” George Gallo, a longtime Republican strategist, now chief of staff to the House GOP in Hartford, said last week. Gallo laughed and said he was confident only of one thing: “He’ll announce by May 16.”
That is the night of the Democratic nominating convention in Hartford. Gallo was closer to predicting the announcement date than he knew.
Malloy, who has been aggressively raising money for the Connecticut Democratic Party and the Democratic Governors Association, cannot begin raising money for his own campaign until he forms a candidate committee.
To qualify for a public financing grant of more than $6 million, Malloy needs to raise $250,000 in donations of no more than $100 each — meaning he needs a donor base of 2,500 persons.
State contractors cannot contribute.