The first head-to-head debate by Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski ended Wednesday night without Connecticut voters learning how either man would close a $2.1 billion deficit or how Stefanowski would begin to deliver on his audacious promise to eliminate the state income tax.
Bob Stefanowski
Bob Stefanowski is the 2022 Republican nominee for Connecticut governor. He is a business executive who first ran for governor in 2018, losing to Democrat Ned Lamont.
Read more: Who is Bob Stefanowski?
Posted inPolitics
Lamont calls DMV ’emblematic of state government’
You probably think of the DMV as just a place to get your license or registration — usually after an interminable wait. Comics have long used it as a punchline. Ned Lamont on Monday became the latest politician to use it as a metaphor for what is wrong with government bureaucracy.
Posted inPolitics
New chapter in governor’s race opens Wednesday
The first opportunity for side-by-side comparisons of Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski, each a businessman trying to become Connecticut’s next governor without significant government experience, will come Wednesday night on the stage of a 1920s movie palace enjoying a second life as a performing arts center.
Posted inPolitics
Lamont, Griebel jab absent Stefanowski over income tax pledge
Gubernatorial contenders Ned Lamont and Oz Griebel took advantage of Bob Stefanowski’s absence at their first debate Wednesday to criticize their rival’s controversial pledge to phase out the state income tax.
Posted inPolitics
Stefanowski unsure about state’s role in crumbling foundations
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski toured a house plagued by the crumbling-foundations phenomenon that present a multi-billion-dollar loss to homeowners in eastern Connecticut. He offered sympathy to the homeowner Wednesday, but skepticism to reporters about government’s role in addressing the slowly unfolding disaster.
Posted inPolitics
Stefanowski is on the trail, looking for money and votes
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski shook hands with office workers at the pre-Labor Day picnic that real-estate developer Robert D. Scinto throws for tenants and their employees at his office park in Shelton. Then Stefanowski retired to a borrowed office in Scinto’s headquarters to make calls for money, an activity that consumes about half his working day. “It’s part of the game.”
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Lamont challenges Stefanowski to Sept. 5 debate in West Hartford
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ned Lamont challenged his Republican rival, Bob Stefanowski, on Friday to participate in a Sept. 5 debate at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford.
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Pick a poll: Lamont over Stefanowski by 13 points — or 4
Democrat Ned Lamont holds a 13-percentage point lead over Republican Bob Stefanowski in the race for governor, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday, while a Sacred Heart University/Hearst Connecticut Media poll has his lead at four points.
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First poll: Lamont leads Stefanowski in tight race
Democrat Ned Lamont holds a lead over Republican Bob Stefanowski that falls within the margin of error in the first public poll of the Connecticut race for governor, reinforcing an assumption long expressed by analysts: It’s a toss up. The poll of Sacred Heart University/ Hearst Connecticut is the first of two coming out today.
Posted inMoney
Democrats line up to take a swing at Stefanowski’s tax pledge
Connecticut Democrats stepped up their campaign Tuesday to fill in the gaps of Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob Stefanowski’s promise to phase out the state income tax over eight years — arguing it would come at a steep cost to local schools, municipalities and property taxpayers.
Posted inNews
Ned & Bob’s first week: Lots of Ned, not much of Bob
Ned Lamont aired the first general-election commercial the day after his Democratic primary win, staged his first public event the same morning, and has been campaigning daily ever since, backed by a unified Democratic ticket. His Republican opponent, Bob Stefanowski, has been off the air and off the trail since winning his primary last Tuesday. His campaign promises that Lamont will have company soon enough.
Posted inPolitics
Once again, CT GOP bets on a business outsider
Bob Stefanowski is the latest in a series of outsiders from the world of business to win a Republican primary for top-of-ticket statewide offices in Connecticut, none of whom were able to beat their conventional Democratic opponents in the fall. But those races for governor and U.S. Senate came before the ultimate outsider, Donald J. Trump, captured the White House. And none of them followed the path taken by Stefanowski.
Posted inPolitics
Opponents parse ‘reduce’ vs. ‘phase out’ in Boughton’s tax ad
A new Facebook ad from Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Boughton says he would “reduce” the state income tax, prompting two opponents Friday to question whether the Danbury mayor had abandoned his pledge to phase out the tax over a decade. The Boughton campaign says nothing has changed.
Posted inPolitics
Stefanowski invites reporters to listen, not ask questions
If a candidate holds a press conference and leaves without taking questions, is it a press conference? Don’t ask Bob Stefanowski.
Posted inPolitics
A GOP turnaround exec’s turn as a Democrat goes unexplained
Britain’s Sky News emphasized the plummier aspects of Bob Stefanowski’s resume — trustee of London’s venerable Victoria and Albert Museum, visiting professor at Oxford, “top investment banker” — in reporting his arrival in late 2014 as the new boss of a decidedly down-market business: Making payday loans in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe. Stefanowski, a GOP candidate for governor, is happy to talk about his time in the payday loan business. His briefer tenure as a Democrat? Not so much.