Harris, Herbst, Connolly Break From The Pack

More than seven months before Connecticut chooses its next governor, Republican Tim Herbst and Democrats Jonathan Harris and Sean Connolly broke from the pack in early unofficial match-ups.

It’s a big pack: Some two dozen Democrats and Republicans are seeking their parties’ nominations to succeed retiring Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. Like Wall Street and the weather, the precise number of candidates, who also include some independents, changes almost daily.

The two early match-ups took place in reader polls conducted by the New Haven Independent and CT News Junkie.

The Independent invited readers to participate in an ​“instant run-off/ranked-choice” mock election. That means candidates from all parties are lumped together, and voters list all the candidates they support in descending order. The idea is to avoid lesser-of-evils voting; you can give more points to the candidates you support most, but also help a lesser candidate prevail over someone you want to ensure doesn’t get elected. Then candidates are eliminated round by round based on who has the least votes; and the eliminated candidates’ votes are added to their supporters’ next choices. (Here’s a fuller description of these kinds of elections, which some U.S. cities use for local races.)

The Independent readers’ election ended up going 22 rounds. In the end, Democrat Harris came in first place, Democrat Susan Bysiewicz (pictured above at right) in second, and Republican Erin Stewart (at left) in third, edging out Democrat Joe Ganim for that slot.

At the bottom of this article you’ll find charts from the final three rounds to see how it ended up. Click here for a previous story detailing this mock election and providing information on the 22 top candidates pursuing the governor’s office.

The second readers’ mock election is being conducted by the state Capitol news website CT News Junkie. This is one is patterned after the NCAA ​“March Madness” elimination-round tournament. Readers picked one Democrat among the full field of Democrats, one Republican, and one independent in the first round.

In that round, two Democrats led the pack: Connolly, then Ned Lamont. They now proceed to a second-round head-head match-up.

Herbst and then Prasad Srinivasan emerged as the top vote-getters in the Republican field, and now proceed to their second round match-up.

Oz Griebel captured the ​“wild card” or independent contest, and faces second-place finisher Eric Mastroianni in the second round.

You can now vote in those second-round match-ups. The polls for the second round close on Sunday at noon. Click here to read about the match-ups and cast your ballots. The winners of the three match-ups will advance to a final round.

Republican enthusiasm appears much higher in the campaign, at least based on the CT News Junkie results so far. A total of 13,461 readers cast votes for Republican candidates, compared with 1,442 voters casting ballots for Democrats and 283 for ​“wild card” independents.

Thanks again to Brandon Patton for creating the Independent online poll.