In Connecticut, a two-decade power monopoly is at stake for Democrats, led by Gov. Ned Lamont, who is trying to cement his place as the longest-serving occupant of the state’s top office.
Republicans have approached the governor’s race with seemingly more modest goals: to return to competitiveness in the reliably blue state. The party has not won a statewide election in Connecticut since 2006.
Ryan Fazio, a relatively untested state senator from Greenwich, is the party’s choice to try to lift it from the political doldrums and deny Mr. Lamont a third term. A sitting governor has not been unseated in the state in more than 70 years.
Mr. Fazio, 36, is facing strong headwinds. A Quinnipiac University poll showed him trailing Mr. Lamont by 20 percentage points in mid-October.
That poll also reflected voters’ strong disapproval of President Trump, the leader of a party that is trying to protect its control of the House and Senate during a midterm season that is tilting in Democrats’ favor.
A J.P. Morgan scion from Greenwich who expanded his wealth in the cable television industry, Mr. Lamont, 72, is seeking to become only the second governor in state history elected to three consecutive terms.
He has presented himself as a moderate who used his business acumen to wipe away deficits and cut taxes for middle-income residents while guiding the state through the pandemic. Mr. Lamont has argued that he provides a counterbalance to what he describes as the harmful policies of the Trump administration.
Mr. Lamont has sought to tie Mr. Fazio’s candidacy to what the governor calls an extreme Republican agenda on immigration, education, cuts to the social safety net, gun control laws and the environment.
During a debate on WTNH News 8 on Tuesday, Mr. Lamont said that the Republican Party had become unrecognizable under Mr. Trump, as evidenced by the war with Iran and the president’s support of deficit spending.
“He never stands up to Donald Trump,” Mr. Lamont said of his opponent. “I don’t know what happened to the Republicans in this state.”
Mr. Fazio had disputed earlier in the debate that he was in lock-step with Mr. Trump.
“I call balls and strikes,” he said. “If I disagree with my own party, I say it.”
Mr. Fazio, who is among the thin ranks of Republicans in Connecticut’s Legislature, has sought to cast Mr. Lamont as a plutocrat whose economic policies have created hardships for residents and businesses.
One of Mr. Fazio’s main lines of attack has centered on Connecticut’s high electricity rates, which he argues have been exacerbated by the regulatory climate under Mr. Lamont. He has accused Mr. Lamont of fostering a cozy relationship with Eversource, the state’s largest utility company.
Mr. Fazio has seized on remarks that Eversource’s chief executive made to a group of investors in September in which he referred to three New England governors who are favored to win re-election in states where the company provides energy, including Connecticut, describing them as friendly despite their occasional criticism of the industry.
Mr. Fazio also pointed to a text message exchange in which Joseph Nolan Jr., the utility’s chief executive, urged Mr. Lamont to help Eversource recover about $1 billion in costs it had incurred from a series of storms in recent years, along with $300 million in associated interest payments. The messages were obtained through a public records request by CT Insider.
State utility regulators approved $933 million of the total, but denied the remainder, including the interest payments.
Mr. Lamont has responded that he has brought a collegiality to the governor’s office while being able to put his foot down with interest groups, including Eversource.
He has said that he pushed back on high utility rate increases, which Mr. Lamont noted are decided by a state regulatory body. Those regulators are appointed by the governor and require legislative approval, which Mr. Lamont said Mr. Fazio had not opposed.
Mr. Fazio has also attacked the governor over taxes and data centers — the governor supported a 2021 law that provided tax incentive agreements to some data centers — and for preserving a decades-old statute that allows developers to sue cities and towns that fall short of affordable housing requirements over project denials.
This is Mr. Lamont’s fifth time running for statewide office. His first two bids — for Senate in 2006 and governor in 2010 — ended in defeat.
Mr. Fazio is making his debut in that arena, aided by the withdrawal in May of Erin Stewart, his chief rival for his party’s nomination, amid fraud accusations tied to her time as mayor of New Britain. The shake-up occurred two days before Republicans were scheduled to choose their nominee.
The party quickly coalesced around Mr. Fazio, who qualified for $18 million in public financing for his general election campaign under Connecticut’s so-called clean elections program by raising $335,500 in small donations from individuals.
Mr. Lamont has poured nearly $18 million of his own money into his re-election bid, which he has supplemented with some small individual donations, according to public filings.
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