Melissa Bailey Photo
Harp and Candelaria.
Twenty-five years of legislative relationships paid off for Toni Harp Wednesday, as she won the endorsement of New Haven’s top Latino elected officials in her quest for the mayor’s seat.
Latino leaders announced their endorsement Wednesday at the Fair Haven Elderly Housing Community Room on Saltonstall Avenue, in the heart of the city’s Latino community.
“She’s been there for us,” said Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez. “She’s been a true friend. She deserves our support.”
Harp, a state senator, is one of seven Democrats vying in a Sept. 10 party primary for the nomination to succeed retiring two-decade incumbent Mayor John DeStefano. She is expected as well to pick up the endorsements in coming weeks of Yale’s UNITE/HERE Locals 34 and 35, which fuel the most organized vote-pulling operation in town.
The event gave Harp the second major boost in two weeks and sets in motion a battle for the votes of New Haven’s growing Hispanic population. Twenty-seven percent of New Haveners were Hispanic as of the latest census; New Haven had 12,500 Hispanic voters as of last year. The endorsement follows on the heels the June 2 Harp endorsement by 18 members of the Board of Aldermen.
Reyes, Garcia and Clifton Graves.
Here is the full list of Latino leaders who announced their endorsements Wednesday: state Rep. Juan Candelaria, former aldermanic President Tomás Reyes, former Alderman Gerry Garcia, New Haven Democratic Town Committee vice-chair Carmen Reyes, Fair Haven Democratic Party ward co-chairs Celestino Cordova, Carmen Rodriguez and Evelyn Rodriguez; former Aldermen Kevin Diaz and Raul Avila; former co-chairs Elba Franklin and Mama Garcia; La Voz Hispana publisher Norma Rodriguez-Reyes; Danny Diaz of Arte, Inc.; religious leaders Cesar Velez, Hector L. Otero, Eliseo Aponte, Armando Hernandez, Abraham Hernandez, Ariel Martinez, Victor Gomez, and Brixeida Marquez; as well as five aldermen, Perez, Santiago Berrios-Bones, Migdalia Castro, Dolores Colon and Ernie Santiago.
Harp now has 20 aldermen backing her, according to campaign manager Jason Bartlett.
The crowd represented some long relationships: Harp and Perez were first elected to the Board of Aldermen the same year, in 1987. Harp later was elected to state senator in 1992. The crowd also included non-Latino Harp supporters, such as Karen DuBois-Walton (pictured), head of the city housing authority.
Reyes, who also worked with Harp on the Board of Aldermen, said as city legislator, Harp worked to make sure federal block grant money was invested in neighborhoods. Reyes credited Harp in more recent years with supporting the statewide Dream Act, which gave undocumented immigrant children access to in-state tuition at public universities and colleges; statewide health care reform; and driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants. As co-chairwoman of the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, Harp has worked to preserve funding to Junta for Progressive Action, a Fair Haven Latino advocacy group; as well as to the Hispanic clinic at the Connecticut Mental Health Center, Reyes added.
In accepting the endorsements, Harp pledged to work for immigrants and to make sure city government reflects the makeup of the city. “There will be many Hispanic leaders in our city government,” she said.
Wednesday’s endorsement by Latino leaders also sets in motion a battle reminiscent of the 1989 mayoral campaign.
Another mayoral candidate, Henry Fernandez, is also in the process of assembling a Latino-identified group to endorse his candidacy and pull votes in the primary. Fernandez and his wife, Kica Matos, the former head of Junta for Progressive Action and now director of immigrant rights and racial justice at the Center for Community Change, have developed strong ties to immigration-reform activists in New Haven, some of whom have been participating in Fernandez’s campaign events.
“It’s a nice group of folks. I understand why they felt the need to do this,” Fernandez said of the Latino elected officials who endorsed Harp on Wednesday. “I do believe that the Latino vote, like all votes in this city, should be fought for. We’ll have very big announcements over the next two weeks with regard to significant support in the Latino community.” He added that his campaign is developing a Latino-issues platform and plans a major get-out-the-vote effort.
A similar Latino campaign dynamic occurred in the 1989 Democratic mayoral primary between John DeStefano and John Daniels. At the time the top Latino elected officials in town endorsed DeStefano; the group then included Jorge Perez and Tomas Reyes, who were also part of the group endorsing Harp on Wednesday. The Daniels campaign, meanwhile, drew support from a group of newer-generation, non-elected Latino activists who fought hard with the DeStefano team for Latino votes. (No hard numbers were available on the results; both sides claimed to have pulled a significant chunk of the Latino vote.)
None of the candidates running this year is Latino. Harp, Fernandez, Gary Holder-Winfield, Sundiata Keitezulu, and Kermit Carolina are African-American; Justin Elicker and Matthew Nemerson, Caucasian.
Paul Bass contributed to this story.
When the Chair of Appropriations runs, everyone gets in line - not to help her win, but to make sure they aren't the reason she loses.