From Christopher Keating, Hartford Courant:
After two decades of public financing in Connecticut elections, the 2026 political cycle is expected to be the most expensive yet.
The state has handed out nearly $175 million to more than 2,600 candidates since the voluntary program started, but the total for the governor’s race alone will jump to more than $18 million for a single candidate who qualifies for public financing, wins a primary, and reaches the general election in 2026.
The 2026 total represents more than double the amount from the days when Democrat Dannel P. Malloy received $2.5 million for the primary and $6 million for the general election in the governor’s race that he won in 2010.
The state legislature changed the law and increased the totals in an effort to ensure competitive races as major self-funders, including Democrat Ned Lamont, have entered the race in recent years.
In the 2022 contest, neither Lamont nor Republican candidate Bob Stefanowski accepted public financing. Instead, Lamont spent $25.7 million of his own money, while Stefanowski spent $14.5 million of his personal money in the most expensive governor’s race in Connecticut history. Unlike in 2022, three of the four major candidates in the current race, Democratic state Rep. Josh Elliott of Hamden, Republican state Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich and former New Britain mayor Erin Stewart, are seeking public financing. While they all have been raising money, none of them has formally applied yet for the state grant, officials said.
Full story here
