New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart announced her declared candidacy for governor of Connecticut on Monday.
The 31-year-old is the youngest candidate for governor on either side of the aisle and she is the only woman on the long list of Republicans who has officially declared for office.
"It is the year of the woman," Steward said, following her campaign launch at Central Connecticut State University, her alma mater in her hometown.
The mayor describes herself as a liberal on some topics and conservative on others like finances, a point she makes to just about every audience she comes in contact with.
"If you're looking for a candidate who's going to fit inside a certain ideology, I'm probably not the candidate you're looking for," Stewart said.
Stewart won her first of three terms as the Connecticut city's mayor in 2012 becoming, at the time, the youngest mayor of a city of New Britain’s size in the country.
She came into office as the city faces a $30 million budget shortfall. About five years later, following rounds of tax hikes, spending cuts, debt restructuring and negotiations with organized labor, the city emerged with a $15 million surplus.
Stewart was criticized for the debt restructuring, which she defended by saying the alternative would have been for the city to make unsustainable balloon payments.
"I don't necessarily think that restructuring debt is a bad thing," Stewart said Monday. "It's not issuing new debt on top of it that's the problem. I mean, we spend what we spend and that money is out there but you can't issue new debt on top of that and that's where we have to be responsible."
Stewart may face long odds of increasing her profile within her own party due to rules set up for pre-convention debates.
The Connecticut GOP laid out rules over a year ago in order to assure that committed, progressing candidates for governor ended up on stage. According to party chairman JR Romano, the criteria for participation for the two debates allowed for exploring candidates who had raised as little as $75,000 in small donations to qualify for the Citizens Election Program.
Local
By the third debate, however, the threshold was raised to $125,000 and only declared candidates would be allowed to participate.
The fourth debate, scheduled for April 4, requires a fundraising threshold of $175,000.
Stewart said that’s unrealistic since she’s only been exploring since the first week in February.
"We are raising money at a steady pace and it's coming in ways that I feel very confident in our ability to get us to that mark, hopefully by convention but to say I would have $175,000 in the bank by April 4 is a little unreasonable," Stewart said.
When asked about her participation, Romano said, "Obviously, Erin has a great track record in New Britain. These rules were decided over a year ago. If people want to see Erin on any one of these stages then people should send her a check."
Stewart said the response has been overwhelming and says her record in New Britain is what will force Republican voters to take a close look at her qualifications.
"You're not seeing many cities in the state, urban areas that our growing and their grand list is growing by six and seven percent at a clip and we're really proud of the work we've done I think it translates," Stewart said.
