SuBy Files Paperwork To Wage Primary Against Murphy–The War Of Warts

You can now officially mark your calendar for Aug. 14. A primary will take place for U.S. Senate. Former Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz filed the necessary paperwork to place her name on the ballot challenging the endorsed Democratic Chris Murphy.

SuBy cracked the 15 percent delegate support threshold at the party convention to qualify for the ballot. She has a reputation for scorched-earth campaigning and she wasted little time warming up the blowtorch. Murphy, she claims, is too cozy with Wall Street profiteers who finance his race. The Murphy campaign has plenty of financial firepower to fire back, if necessary about SuBy’s public-service warts.

Murphy and SuBy will likely have company on the primary ballot in Bridgeport. On Monday Democratic delegates for Connecticut’s 23rd Senatorial District will choose among incumbent Ed Gomes, former State Senator Ernie Newton and State Rep. Andres Ayala. No one appears to have a lock on the endorsement.

On the Republican side it looks like Linda McMahon and former Congressman Chris Shays are also headed for a primary. GOP delegates will endorse at the party convention on Friday.

From Taylor Lavender, spokeswoman for Murphy campaign:

Statement from Murphy campaign in response to Susan Bysiewicz filing to run for the Democratic primary on August 14th and attacks on Murphy:

“Saturday was an overwhelming show of unity for Connecticut Democrats, and Chris is honored to earn the endorsement of the thousands of grassroots activists who are going to work hard to elect him. Bysiewicz is known for running nasty misleading campaigns, and it looks like this one will be no different. The truth is that grassroots Democrats overwhelmingly support Chris and not Bysiewicz, because Chris is the only candidate with a proven record of fighting for our party’s values.”

 From Jonathan Ducote, Bysiewicz campaign:

“It’s no surprise that Congressman Chris Murphy doesn’t want to talk about the issues or how he’ll stand up for the middle class. He has accepted nearly half a million dollars in campaign contributions from Wall Street including $11,500 from JP Morgan. JP Morgan put a full-court press on Congress with their lobbyists to water down financial reform and then lost $2 billion with casino-style trading. It is clear Congressman Murphy won’t stand up to Wall Street but Susan Bysiewicz will.”