One side had paid workers as well as veteran vote-pullers practically dragging people to the polls. The other relied on volunteers, some greener and more timid. That made the difference in a dramatic rematch between the Democratic machine and New Haven’s unions in the Dwight neighborhood Tuesday.
The two sides — which represent the main vote-pulling forces in New Haven politics — backed different candidates in the Democratic primary for alderman in Ward 2. The same sides had faced off four years ago, with labor winning.
The result was different this Tuesday, as veteran City Hall vote-pullers teamed with an army of well-paid youth to out-muscle a union-backed challenger.
Gina Calder, a Yale graduate student backed by City Hall, pulled off a win over Yale employee Frank Douglass Jr. by a vote of 277 to 249. The two candidates were scrambling to fill the vacant spot left open by departing Alderwoman Joyce Chen.
Dwight streets and porches were flooded with visitors Tuesday as both citywide organizations blitzed the neighborhood.
The event was a semi-repeat of 2005, when City Hall backed Calder against administrative critic Chen in a Democratic primary. Calder lost that race by 24 votes.
From the union perspective, the race felt more like 2003, when unions turned out in force to elect Chen over Democratic machine-recruited contender Andrea Nicole Baker.
Waiting For Voter Godot
Douglass, who works at a Yale dining hall and is an executive member of Yale’s blue-collar union, welcomed the troops to his home at the corner of Elm and Orchard Streets Tuesday. The makeshift headquarters teemed with Yale-affiliated union members and students, gathering clipboards and grabbing pieces of Popeye’s chicken between door-knocking runs.
Suzanne Clark (pictured), an organizer for SEIU 1199, and Melissa Mason, the chair of GESO, the group seeking to form a graduate student union at Yale, set off up Sherman Avenue in the drizzle Tuesday afternoon.
In this working-class ward of 1,506 registered Democrats, a tenth of the voters are union members at either Yale or Yale-New Haven Hospital, according to union organizers. Vote-pullers paid particular attention to those houses along the route.
To gain the support of a hospital employee, Clark said she would drop the M‑word, “Marna Borgstrom.” As a student at Yale’s school of public health this summer, Calder spent the summer working at an internship for Borgstrom’s administration; and Calder hosted a neighborhood get-to-know-Marna gathering. To aspiring union members at the hospital, Borgstrom is the antithesis of workers’ rights, Clark explained.
With other voters (like Lillie Wilkes, pictured at the top of the story), Clark emphasized the candidate was born and raised in the city. “He’s here to stay,” she said, implying that Calder, who just moved to New Haven to attend Yale University in 1999, was transient. Clark mentioned Douglass was active at the now-defunct Dixwell Community House.
“That’s what I know him from — the Q House,” said Wilkes, promising to vote.
The Clark-Mason team continued down Sherman Avenue, approaching voters with a soft, at times apologetic approach. “We’re not in any rush at all,” Clark said, waiting around for a voter they had summoned to come downstairs. The voter never came. At another door, a man answered and the team apologized for bothering him, since he wasn’t on their list. They forgot to ask if he happened to be a voter.
The City Hall Charge
Down on Dwight Street, veteran vote-puller Brian McGrath (pictured) was practically kicking down doors for votes. McGrath, a former director of traffic and parking and long-time champion of the party’s absentee ballot operation, never misses a chance to pull votes for the party establishment.
When no one answered the door at a Dwight brownstone, he entered into an inner foyer and called upstairs: “Democrats!”
Voters weren’t there. But he reeled in a man on the stoop, and a passing jogger, to rush to the polls in the last half-hour of the race.
“Gina’s got a lot of support here,” remarked McGrath, except for “a few communist-oriented Yale students who are enamored with unions even though they’re not in one.”
The ward comprises mostly working-class families, with Yale students renting heavily along Dwight Street.
Many more Calder voters were rallied by a team including developer Matt Short, who has relationships with tenants in several apartment buildings in the ward.
Calder also brought an army of vote-pullers to the Dwight School Tuesday, all donning bright red T‑shirts. “I’ve never seen a campaign team this large,” beamed McGrath, who counted at least 50 workers. Several Calder campaigners said they were paid $100 each to work for the day.
Democratic Town Chairwoman Susie Voigt called that wage “standard,” adding it was a “testament” to Calder that she was able to raise a lot of money for her campaign.
Gwen Mills, who was running the operation at Douglass’ headquarters, said all their team’s workers were volunteers, except for one monitor at the polls.
“Too Close For Comfort”
Rain-soaked troops from both sides trailed back to the Dwight School at 8 p.m., where a new optical scan voting machine spit out a receipt with the results: Calder had beat Douglass by just 14 votes on the machine. (Absentee votes later widened the margin, bringing the vote to 277 to 249.)
“That’s frightening!” said McGrath, who had pulled exactly 14 votes through his day’s work on Dwight Street. “This is too close for comfort.”
Calder, enveloped in a crowd, wept tears of joy. Click on the play arrow to watch her emotional acceptance speech, in which she pledged: “Whatever it is I can do for you, I am completely committed to this community.”
A Douglass supporter said Douglass did very well for a candidate who had been campaigning for only two months, compared with Calder, who gained name recognition in 2005 and has been running for over two years.
Douglass, the picture of chivalry, gave Calder a hug.
“I’m glad this is all over, and she does deserve it,” said Douglass. “Now, all we have to do is step up to the plate and do what we said we were going to do.”
Tell me how does either of these sides -- city hall machine or a couple of nationally-based unions -- represent the interests and needs of New Haven citizens, and more particularly of the Dwight ward?
If Dwight area primary voters feel like pawns in someone else's power struggle, it's because they are.
If this were theater, would it be a tragedy or a comedy?
One thing is certain: it was a great day for vote-wankers.