Analysis: What GOP Governor Candidates Are Fighting For Before Votes Are Cast

Stratford GOP delegate Ben Proto Jr. provided the line of the day before votes are cast for governor.

“Everybody is where everybody says they is,” he said.

The fight for delegates could not be encapsulated better than that simple line, which he, of course, said in jest.

It speaks to the nature of vote counting, delegate commitments, and a nomination process that has the potential to slide off the rails at any given moment.

If you believe what you’re told by campaign staff and even the candidates themselves, you would be convinced that 10 people are all secure to be on the August primary ballot. The problem is that’s mathematically impossible.

Out of roughly 1,000 delegates, there will not be 1,500 votes cast equally to provide the 15-percent threshold of voting delegates to provide ballot access.

“We’re there,” Glastonbury Republican Representative Prasad Srinivasan said.

“Right now, we’re at 15 percent,” Fairfield Conservative Peter Lumaj said.

Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti’s representatives are convinced they are 15 percent.

Westport businessman and Navy veteran Steve Obsitnik at least concedes he has only eight percent, but that’s enough to get him to a critical second ballot where delegates can shift their support.

Then there are who are considered the odds-on favorites to reach the August primary: Trumbull’s Tim Herbst and Danbury’s Mark Boughton.

The consensus inside Foxwoods, hours before votes are cast, is that Boughton and Herbst each have more than 15 percent of delegates committed, likely more than that, to secure a spot in the August primary.

Estimates for Boughton, Danbury’s longtime mayor who twice failed in statewide runs for office, range from 25 percent to possibly as high as 40 percent.

For Herbst, the former First Selectman from Trumbull who lost a run for Treasurer in 2014, estimates from adversaries range from about 15 percent on the low end to as high as about 30 percent.

The math does not work for all of these candidates to secure enough delegate support, and that is without even mentioning former Comptroller David Walker and City of Stamford CFO Mike Handler.

Math is hard, but somehow, it will all work out, and by the end of Saturday, we will have an idea as to who Republicans think should be the next governor.

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