Connecticut Democrats and Republicans met this weekend to nominate candidates for the upcoming election.

WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas to catch up on the latest from the Democratic and Republican primaries as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read Mark’s story here.

WSHU: Hello, Mark. Let’s start with the Republicans. There were three contenders heading into the convention, so how were the delegates able to unite behind Fazio, considering former New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart (R) had seemed an early favorite?

MP: Well, things became very easy, quite frankly, on Saturday morning for the Republicans. With Erin Stewart withdrawing after days and weeks of unflattering stories about her record as mayor and her apparent abuse of her city credit card while she was mayor, it really became a very easy day for the Republicans. Saturday morning, they overwhelmingly elected Ryan Fazio (R-Greenwich) as their candidate. Betsy McCaughey (R) fell well short of the 15% needed to make the primary.

WSHU: I mean, Fazio had 92% of the votes.

MP: McCaughey quickly got up on stage, made clear that she would not try to get on the ballot by petitioning, and in fact, she endorsed Ryan Fazio, so that the Republicans left very united on the question of who’s gonna lead their ticket in November of 2026.

WSHU: Now, if Fazio succeeds, this is the first time an incumbent would be basically beaten in Connecticut in 72 years. How did the delegates feel after leaving the convention?

MP: Well, I would respectfully say how the delegates felt was completely irrelevant to the challenges ahead for Ryan Fazio. He is trying to do something that has not been done in 72 years, and he is trying to do it in the worst possible environment for a Republican in a midterm election. Midterm elections historically are awful for the party that holds the White House, even more so for Republicans with Donald Trump (R) in the White House. The president’s war in Iran, along with other policies, has driven inflation rapidly to a very high rate. Gasoline prices are approaching $5 a gallon. All of this adds up to a very bad environment for Republicans trying to unseat a Democrat, particularly in a blue state like Connecticut.

WSHU: Well, you know, he does still have the advantage of not having to fight for a primary, which incumbent Governor Ned Lamont (D) wasn’t so lucky. He ended up having to face a primary. He didn’t seem very happy about it when I talked with him right after that. So, what do you make of the fact that the delegates at the Democratic Party convention were able to give enough support to Josh Elliot to challenge Lamont to a primary?

MP: The two parties completely flipped the script that we were expecting to follow this summer. You know, we expected a rigorous Republican primary for governor. We did not expect one on the Democratic side. Governor Lamont’s Achilles heel has always been his failure to articulate what he would do in a third term that he has been unable to do in the first two. The Republican nominee, Ryan Fazio, used that line at his convention, and Representative Elliott, the Democratic challenger, used that line also over and over and over again.

Governor Lamont has a record to run on about stabilizing the state’s finances. This is a state that has had significant problems with economic growth and chronic deficits for a long time, so that is truly a success story. The problem for Ned Lamont is it’s really not that compelling a story to tell in a Democratic primary, where Representative Elliot has been talking and will continue to talk about meeting needs that are unmet, and you know, so the governor is now in a position of trying to address the left of his party, and his party. By the way, you know, there’s a lot of ideological diversity, we see that in the House of Representatives, in particular in Connecticut, but you know, the people who tend to show up in primaries tend to be the activists and the activists in the Democratic party tend to be more liberal, so that is going to be a continuing challenge for Ned Lamont.

WSHU: I noticed at the convention that what seemed to animate a lot of people was the chant tax the rich, and that I asked Lamont about that, and he said, well, you know, because Josh Elliot seems to be of the opinion that Lamont has been the one holding back a lot of the progressive tax policies that he and other progressives in the legislature have been pushing, and that because Lamont is rich himself, that he is averse to increasing the tax on the wealthy.

MP: Elliot definitely sounded like a populist theme. I don’t know how persuasive it is going to be to say that Ned Lamont’s opposition is because he, too is wealthy, but it is a good issue in a broader sense in a Democratic primary; that the governor has certainly made, in concert with the Democratic legislators, has made the income tax more progressive with that tax cut that really was focused on the middle. Connecticut is a high tax state, and the problem is not really the state income tax so much as the property taxes and the sales taxes that have a disproportionate impact on lower income folks, so to provide greater relief to sales tax, property taxes require you to get money elsewhere. And Josh Elliot’s position has been that Connecticut should consider doing what places like Massachusetts have done, which is to have a surcharge or an added tax on the wealthiest taxpayers. The governor has always had one eye on Connecticut’s reputation on Wall Street and in the business community, in particular. His argument is over the long haul, that it’s good for Connecticut to have economic growth, but that is the conflict that is the debate that we’re going to see in the Democratic primary this summer.

WSHU: How damaging do you think that debate will be going into the fall for Lamont?

MP: The governor’s people seem to be under the impression that Josh Elliott’s primary campaign is going to be more problematic, not problematic in the sense they really think the governor will lose, but problematic in the sense that it’s going to be the more difficult of the two campaigns. You know, Ryan Fazio is 36 years old. He certainly is going to do everything he can to win this time. He is getting a public financing grant of $18 million; he’s going to be able to wage a credible campaign, certainly, but it’s also, I think quite clear that Fazio is aware of history, which is that nobody in Connecticut really wins a race for governor without first running for another statewide office, either in a primary or in a general election. So, you know, I think Ryan Fazio was hoping to punch that ticket this year, and then come back in four years. Josh Elliot, you know it’s all or nothing in the sense of going after Lamont now. Now it’s not all or nothing, though, as far as his political future, because he is simultaneously running for re-election to the state House of Representatives. So that will also be a little quirky thing this summer.

WSHU: Well, he’s hedging his bets.

MP: He is hedging his bets. Yes, he is. He’s, I mean, you saw it. I mean, I was not there Saturday, I was at the Republicans, but I certainly saw the video he posted, and I interviewed him this morning, and he is, understandably, a very happy politician.

WSHU: Well, we’ll see how it plays out. We’ll have an interesting summer in Connecticut.

MP: We will indeed.