City Councilman Ernie Newton came up one vote short of the necessary 15 percent support threshold from delegates at Tuesday’s state convention to primary incumbent Herron Gaston to win back the seat he held 20 years ago.
Team Newton has a few weeks to pull together signatures from five percent of Democratic electors in the Bridgeport-Stratford district to qualify for an August 13 primary, no easy task, an exhaustive process while he’d rather be focused on raising money.
Newton is also pursuing another petitioning avenue with the backing of Tony Barr, leader of the New Movement Party, for a November ballot spot, a much more difficult proposition should he not qualify for August and if he does and loses relies on that sole option in a high turnout general election with Democratic voters accustomed to that line.
Another issue for Newton: he’ll be heavily out-financed by Gaston who is participating in Connecticut’s Citizens Election Program of public money races that will avail him $110,000 for an August primary, a tidy number to make a case.
Newton is barred from the program from his decades-ago conviction on public corruption charges.
