Newly minted Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee Ned Lamont did not waste any time framing his opponent in the November election.
During a press conference held at his New Haven headquarters, just 15 hours or so since the Democratic race was called for him, Lamont went right at Bob Stefanowski, his Republican opponent in the fall.
“Nobody embraced Donald Trump more closely than Bob Stefanowski during that primary and I noticed just today that Donald Trump has embraced and endorsed Bob Stefanowski so they are adjoined at the hip,” Lamont said, referring to a tweet sent earlier in the day by President Donald Trump, endorsing Stefanowski.
The President tweeted, “It is about time that Connecticut had a real and talented Governor. Bob Stefanowski is the person needed to do the job. Tough on crime, Bob is also a big cutter of Taxes. He will win in November and make a Great Governor, a major difference maker. Bob has my total Endorsement!”
Lamont coasted to victory like no other candidate in Tuesday’s primary. He defeated Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim by a 63 point margin, 171,918 votes to Ganim’s 39,878 votes.
This marks the second time in Lamont’s career that he has received his party’s nomination for statewide office, the last time occurring in 2006 when he lost to Joe Lieberman in a race for the US Senate, where Lieberman ran as an independent.
Politics
Lamont’s comments come at the earliest possible time in this general election. He felt comfortable making the pivot to all registered voters as opposed to solely registered Democrats that he’s been courting since the beginning of the year.
“We’re going to have a real debate over debating the income over eight years, the central premise of Bob’s platform and I think George Bush the elder would have called that voodoo economics in his day,” Lamont said of Stefanowski’s pledge to eliminate the income tax.
Even Republicans during the primary pounced on Stefanowski’s commitment to phase out the single largest source of revenue in state government.
Lamont said such a move would devastate already cash-strapped municipalities.
“That would result in crushing cuts to education and a big increase in your property taxes which is the exact wrong thing to do.”
Stefanowski brushed off the attacks as expected statements from his leading adversary.
