On his first full day as a candidate for governor, liberal state Rep. Josh Elliott, D-Hamden, promised a campaign to force the Democratic Party to reassess its identity and sharpen a vision that he says has grown blurry under Gov. Ned Lamont, a self-described fiscal centrist weighing a run for a third term in 2026. 

“This is a fight for the soul of the party,” Elliott said in an interview Wednesday. “Primaries and convention fights are meant to suss out what the party wants to do and what the vision is. So, for the next year, we’re going to have a conversation about the direction of the party and vision for the state.”

Elliott, who filed papers creating a candidate committee Tuesday without an announcement, said he will measure success by how he shapes the party’s agenda, not necessarily by whether he can win a challenge against a popular governor who promises to announce his 2026 plans no later than early fall.

“That to me is the win. The win is being in the race,” Elliott said.

In a brief interview Wednesday morning before going on air at WNPR for a previously scheduled appearance on “The Wheelhouse,” the governor welcomed Elliott to a contest he has yet to formally enter.

“Look, he’s a good guy,” Lamont said. “Welcome to the race.”

Elliott’s campaign is unlikely to change his own timetable for announcing whether he will run again, Lamont said.

“I do my thing,” he said.

On air, Lamont reiterated what he said the day after the legislative session ended in June: He and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz are seriously considering a third term.

“We have a lot of unfinished business,” Lamont said.

Lamont’s insistence on using surplus funds to pay down debt and build budget reserves, combined with a refusal to entertain any hike of income tax rates, including the bump on high earners long sought by unions and advocates of increased spending on social services, has been a consistent source of friction with elements of the Democratic coalition.

More recently, his vetoes of an omnibus housing bill and of a measure that would have provided jobless benefits for strikers have drawn public criticism from the Connecticut AFL-CIO — as well as reminders by Lamont of a labor-friendly record that includes a higher minimum wage, a nearly universal mandate on private employers to offer sick days, a paid family and medical leave program, expanded collective bargaining rights and, more recently, creation of a trust fund to eventually provide free or subsidized child care, depending on income.

“I think we agree on 90% of the stuff,” Lamont said. “You can get really angry about the 10% where we don’t necessarily agree, but, look, we’ve had a very progressive agenda. We’ve been working very closely together.”

“He’s not wrong, but he’s missing so much,” Elliott said. 

It’s not just what he has or hasn’t done in his first 6 1/2 years in office, he said.

“He doesn’t have what Connecticut needs for the next four,” Elliott said. “We have a housing crisis he blithely ignores, and he is so focused on the state budget he ignores the fact that people’s property taxes are skyrocketing. CCM is screaming about this.”

CCM is the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities.

Elliott, 40, arrived at the state Capitol in January 2017 as a disrupter, a young liberal with short spiky hair who had challenged House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey for the Democratic nomination in the 88th House District of Hamden. He won after Sharkey did not run, then promised to help weed out colleagues he deemed insufficiently progressive or bold.

“I’m not here to make friends,” Elliott said then. “I think I’m very easy to work with, but I think I have exacting standards, and I’m not holding anybody to higher standards than I hold myself to.”

He quizzed his House Democratic colleagues on 25 progressive issues, including a higher minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, higher taxes on the wealthy, fees on larger employers whose employees rely on the state for health and other assistance, and legalizing recreational marijuana.

Elliott became less confrontational within his own caucus, seeking allies on favored legislation such the legalization of recreational cannabis and free phone calls for the incarcerated. He now has the trusted role of overseeing bill screening, making him an important, if behind-the-scenes, player in getting legislation to a floor vote.

“I’m a party man,” he said Wednesday, laughing.

To that end, he will draw differences with the 71-year-old Lamont and try to push the party — and potentially Lamont — in a more progressive direction but not demonize a governor who might once more end up as the Democratic nominee, Elliott said.

“The goal is not to dirty Ned to the point where he can’t win,” Elliott said.

In 2022, Elliott ran for secretary of the state, pushing issues like voting rights for the incarcerated, early voting and ranked choice voting. “I was able to use that year of campaigning to change the hearts and minds of our party,” Elliott said.

Early voting is now state law, and the governor is among the Democrats supportive of ranked choice voting.

Elliott stayed in the secretary of the state’s race until the state nomination convention, where delegates did not give him sufficient support for a primary, then he fell back to a campaign for reelection to the House.

Elliott, who plans a formal campaign kickoff at 1 p.m. Monday outside Hamden town hall, said labor activists unhappy with Lamont have made no commitment to him. 

There are few templates for denying a nomination to a statewide incumbent in Connecticut, but Lamont is more familiar than most with what’s required: primarily, a compelling reason to reject someone.

In 2006, Lamont was a largely unknown businessman opposed to the war in Iraq and U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman’s role as a cheerleader for President George W. Bush and his decision to invade Iraq. He challenged Lieberman for the Democratic nomination, winning the primary — but losing when Lieberman continued as a petitioning candidate in the general election.

“Nobody ever asked why I was running against Joe Lieberman. Nobody ever had to ask that,” Lamont said Wednesday.

Did he appreciate the irony that his example now might inspire challenges to him?

He smiled thinly and said, “I’ve been made aware of that.”