Thomas Breen photo
State treasurer candidate Erick Russell with husband Chris Lyddy outside their polling station, Davis Street School.
Erick Russell and his husband (and former state representative) Chris Lyddy, who live on Stevenson Road in Ward 26, walked out of the scorching heat and into the air-conditioned gymnasium at Davis Street school to cast their ballots in Tuesday’s Democratic primary elections Tuesday at around 10:45 a.m.
They were particularly familiar with one name on the ballot: Russell’s.
The two had already spent hours Tuesday morning criss-crossing the state, from Stamford to Norwalk to Fairfield to Bridgeport, to help get out the vote for Russell’s state Democratic Party-endorsed candidacy for state treasurer. He’s running in a three-way race Tuesday against city housing authority chief Karen DuBois-Walton of New Haven and Greenwich trader Dita Bhargava.
Russell and Lyddy were the 113th and 114th Upper Westville residents to cast their votes at Davis Street School (fomally known as Davis Academy for Arts and Design Innovation). That’s out of a total list of 1,739 eligible Democratic voters in the district, as well as 110 eligible Republican voters — reflecting an expected low turnout in the August primary, which has no Democratic contests for the top-ticket-tier positions of governor, lieutenant governor and U.S. senator.
“I know it’s hot,” Russell said when back out in the parking lot as he detailed his closing pitch to voters to come out to the polls. “But we’re expecting [the three-way Democratic primary for treasurer] to be close.”
He argued that his professional qualifications as a lawyer specializing in government bond issuances, as well as his personal “lived experience” growing up working class in the Hill, make him the best fit for the job, which oversees $45 billion in state pension fund investments.
If he wins the primary and then prevails in the Nov. 8 general election, Russell would become the first openly gay elected Black statewide official in the U.S.
Is he worried about a split among New Haven voters choosing between two hometown candidates, him and DuBois-Walton, who are running for the same office?
“It’s a statewide race,” he said. He said his campaign has been working hard to get the message out about his candidacy “all across the state.”
At a foldout table stacked with leaflets for Russell and secretary of the state candidate Maritza Bond, Local 34 member and West Haven resident Samantha Violante (pictured above) squinted through the sun to voice her support for Russell.
“He’s a local person from New Haven,” she said. “He grew up in the Hill, where his parents” ran a neighborhood store. “He knows all about the struggles of the working class.”
Upper Westville resident David Stone told the Independent that he cast his primary day votes for Russell and Bond.
Why them? “Frankly, they were all fairly close on the issues,” he said about all of the Democratic candidates running on Tuesday. What ultimately swayed him for Russell and Bond was some research he did on those candidates online on Ballotpedia before coming to the polls.
Another Democratic voter, who asked not to be photographed or named for this article, said she came to the polls on Tuesday because she thought it was the general election. She wanted to make sure she voted for a Democrat against a Republican, and was taken aback by finding that she had to choose between Democrats.
How did she decide whom to vote for on Tuesday?
“Commercials,” she said. She knew that wasn’t the best reason to cite when picking a candidate. But that’s what influenced her decision. She declined to say which candidates she voted for.
