The Betsy McCaughey campaign for governor of Connecticut opened Friday afternoon in Hartford with a New York tabloid brashness, offering quotable critiques of Gov. Ned Lamont, fulsome praise of Art Laffer’s supply-side economics and a recycled GOP promise to eliminate the income tax.

“Right now, Connecticut ranks 48th out of 50 in economic growth, near rock bottom. Gov. Ned Lamont — Moneybags Lamont — claims that the state’s economy is resilient,” said McCaughey, one of three Republicans running for governor. “That’s a lie. This state’s economy is almost dead.”

McCaughey, a Sunday morning host on right-wing Newsmax, shrugged off a report earlier Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis that found Connecticut’s economy grew at a 5.6% annual rate in the third quarter of 2025, ranking 4th nationwide. She pointed to dismal ratings by business groups.

She was similarly unconcerned that eliminating the income tax has been a foundation of campaigns by two previous Republican gubernatorial candidates.

Eight years ago, Bob Stefanowski opened his campaign with a similar promise, albeit one made less colorfully, if with slightly more detail in a 10-page plan — and the actual presence of Laffer. Stefanowski lost to Lamont in 2018 and barely mentioned the income tax idea during their rematch in 2022.

In his successful run in 1994, Republican John G. Rowland promised to cut the income tax over five years and eventually eliminate it. Over a decade as governor, Rowland never proposed a budget that would have significantly reduced income taxes.

No matter, McCaughey said. She also would help elect a Republican legislature, flipping control of a General Assembly where Democrats currently enjoy at least 2-1 supermajorities in each chamber.

McCaughey announced her candidacy last week with a video. The press conference Friday was her first as a candidate.

As a Newsmax host, McCaughey has been a friend to President Donald Trump, whose endorsement she would welcome. McCaughey is 77, competing with former Mayor Erin Stewart, 38, of New Britain and state Sen. Ryan Fazio, 35, of Greenwich for the GOP nomination. Lamont is 72.

McCaughey said she is confident of qualifying for a Republican primary, which requires winning 15% of the state convention vote in May, and then the GOP primary in August. In dismissing age as an issue, she borrowed from Ronald Reagan.

“They will choose a battle tested, proven fighter,” McCaughey said of GOP voters. “I’ve got decades of experience. I’m not going to make age an issue in this race. I don’t want to belittle my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

Standing in the Legislative Office Building before a color-coded U.S. map identifying the eight states with no income tax and others taking steps to eliminate them,  McCaughey said times have changed. 

“None of them could point to a map like this, in which the other states are doing it right now,” McCaughey said. “This is an unprecedented moment in terms of the competition among states for business growth. You’ve never seen anything like this.”

McCaughey offered no specifics Friday on how the state would manage to eliminate the income tax, other than asserting that cutting taxes generates economic activity that produces more tax revenue, allowing a phase-out she would predicted would take five years. She said she would leave other tax rates in place.

She released a two-page press release that promised a panel of experts who would map out concrete steps based on actions under way in other states. It included a quote from Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform saying, “Five of those states have already passed laws that trigger income tax rate reductions down to zero as growth brings in more tax revenues.”

By eliminating or slashing the income tax, McCaughey said, Connecticut could become “the tax haven of the Northeast.”

“And the opportunity has never been bigger than right now, because next door in New York, the capital of taxation in this country, next door in New York, Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected socialist mayor of the city, and Kathy Hochul, the spineless governor of New York state, are talking about raising state Income taxes and already talking about raising the corporate tax rate 50%. What an opportunity for Connecticut.”

The Lamont campaign responded to McCaughey much as Democrats reacted to Stefanowski eight years ago: Issuing a Democratic Governors’ Association statement that eliminating the progressive income tax inevitably would shift the tax burden.

“MAGA McCaughey’s harebrained proposal would jack up property and sales taxes while gutting investments in schools, roads, and bridges. Similar proposals have led to economic disaster in states like Kansas — and have been repeatedly rejected by Connecticut voters,” the DGA said.

McCaughey’s personal and professional life long has been fodder for New Yoirk tabloids, and she was playful during the news conference and then in an interview with the Connecticut Mirror.

McCaughey was born in Pittsburgh and raised in Connecticut but came to public notice in New York in 1994 as the author of an influential and controversial critique of health care reforms Hillary Clinton was advancing on behalf of her husband’s administration.

The piece, published by The New Republic, won a National Magazine Award for “Excellence in Public Interest” in 1995, the judges stating, “More than any other single event in the debate, what she wrote stopped the bill in its intellectual tracks.”

Her analysis and one later aimed at Obamacare came under withering fire over what critics contended were factual errors and wrong-headed conclusions, including an assertion that the Clinton plan would have prohibited doctors from accepting private payments for services. But her newfound role as influential Clinton critic won her a spot as the lieutenant governor of New York under Gov. George Pataki.

She had a falling out with Pataki, who jettisoned her from the ticket before seeking a second term. McCaughey briefly became a Democrat in a failed effort to unseat him. All appears forgiven: Pataki recently offered a statement of support for her run in Connecticut.

While she writes a column for the New York Post, the tabloid hasn’t always been kind, noting her difficulty with Pataki and her divorce from her second husband, Wilbur Ross Jr., the wealthy financier who would become Trump’s commerce secretary.

“The woman who’s most famous for being dumped — first as lieutenant governor by George Pataki, then as wife by wealthy hubby Wilbur Ross — says she wants to be taken seriously in her new role as a public-policy scholar for the Hudson Institute think tank,” Amanda Peyser wrote 25 years ago in the Post.

On Friday, McCaughey said she stood by everything she wrote about health care and didn’t much care about gossip about her love life. She has married for a third time and has lived in Greenwich for a decade.

“You know what? When you’re a romantic, you can get married a lot of times, right? I’m a romantic,” she said.

As for Trump, an endorsement would be nice, but not necessary.

“I would welcome an endorsement, but I stand on my own two feet. Donald Trump is doing everything he can for America, and I’m going to do everything I can for Connecticut,” she said.

But would she seek an endorsement? a reporter asked at the news conference.

“I don’t have to seek it, honey,” she replied.

What that means was not explained. An aide interrupted.

It was time to go.