State Senate Primary Battle Looms

Analysis and Comment, City Politics, State Politics24 Comments

Who will be Democratic Town Chair Mario Testa’s candidate for Connecticut’s 23rd State Senatorial District? The seat is currently occupied by Ed Gomes who supported Mary-Jane Foster for mayor. Prior to Gomes the seat was occupied by Ernie Newton who also supported Foster. The Moses of his peeps is sending strong signals he will be a candidate with a decision coming shortly after the municipal election next month.

It would be some August 2012 primary battle if Gomes seeks another term. (Gomes is recovering from recent heart surgery, speedy recovery, Ed.) Gomes and Mario are not close. Mario and Newton have been up and down through the years. Mario will give some thought to finding a senate candidate of his own.

East End District Leader Ralph Ford and Newton are good friends who were on opposite sides in the recent mayoral fight. They will be together for Ernie’s next quest. The safer route for Newton would have been to support Finch in the primary. In supporting Foster he sent a signal he’s willing to wage a primary if he does not win the party endorsement.

While Mario’s track record for winning citywide mayoral races is darn good, he has taken his share of losses in legislative races when not as much is on the line. He got his butt kicked a few times putting up candidates against Chris Caruso when the Big Wave was a state representative. In 2008, then State Rep. Bob Keeley won the party endorsement with Mario’s backing, but was knocked off by Auden Grogins in a primary.

Mario did not put up a candidate against Gomes in 2009. But Mario’s feeling quite frisky coming off last week’s primary win by Finch and discussions will ensue between Mario and Finch operatives about a State Senate candidate they can support.

One potential name for State Senate floating around is State Rep. Andres Ayala who brings a strong base of support from the East Side. Would he give up his state rep seat to wage a State Senate run? Could State Rep. Don Clemons make a play for it?

If there’s a primary for State Senate the candidates will have company on the ballot. Looks like we’re heading for a U.S. Senate Democratic primary to fill Joe Lieberman’s seat. Congressman Chris Murphy, former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, Stamford State Rep. William Tong and OIB friend Sylvester Salcedo are among the candidates. The leading GOP contenders are Linda McMahon and Chris Shays.

The 23rd State Senatorial takes in more than half the city from portions of the North End straight down the middle of the city to the South End and the East Side and East End. It also includes a portion of Stratford.

Check out a map of the district here.

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24 comments

  2. Ed lost mucho respect for not backing John, fact. Ayala Jr. lost even more than Ed for not backing John, his friend and treasurer. Ernie will win easily.

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        1. No Jim, or cupcake or whoever you presently are, I am not a KKK member or Jewish, but you probably need to slander somebody now that the election is over, so go ahead and keep name calling. By the way, that was an awesome tactic of slandering your opponents in the past election, how did that platform work out for you?

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          1. Maybe burman is talking to to me?
            Let’s see, Marty missed seven city council meetings and Sue (I’m out of the loop) missed eight council meetings. If that’s slandering someone, Jim Fox, you did a great job! People like burman should check their facts.

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          2. Ronin, cupcake, Jim, you are all the same person, aren’t you?

            Ronin we already know you are afraid to admit who you are anyways, you admitted that months ago. Junk in the trunk, right? You have balls in your trunk, just none where it counts, right?

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  4. Don’t know about the State Senate, but let’s hear what other candidates have to say about the mayoral race, so next Tuesday one of the two remaining candidates for Bridgeport mayor on the show, the non-independent. And tonight we join forces with WPKN radio program news analysts to discuss the current crisis. By the way, when does the whole town committee process start for new people, next February?

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  5. I think I would be disappointed if Mr. Newton befriended Mario Testa to gain Testa’s endorsement to run a primary against Ed Gomes.

    Does anyone think Mr. Newton might do something like that?

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  6. I don’t think Testa can be regarded as competent in winning Mayoral races. He knows what he is doing with primaries which typically convert to a general-election victory.

    I’ll bet we have seen the last of real Democrat primaries as long as Testa is in charge of the DTC.

    People like Foster will give serious consideration to running as independents in the general, bypassing Testa’s primary shenanigans.

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  11. We in the 138th are covered by two state senators and two representatives but we are on the fringes of their territories. We get little or nothing in the way of state aide from having four people in Hartford representing our district.
    I will cite one major problem we have and that is flooding. There has not been one thing done to alleviate our flooding problem in the last 20 years. Same old same old, so for me it does not matter who wins, we will still end up with zilch.

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