At Hill Doors, Russell Comes Home

Twenty years had passed since Nakia Dawson-Douglas last saw Erick Russell — until Friday evening, when he knocked on her door.

Dawson-Douglas had known Russell as the kid who worked at Fast Food Deli, his parents’ store, a neighborhood anchor. 

Now Russell is a candidate for state treasurer — and he can count on Dawson-Douglas’s vote in Tuesday’s three-way Democratic primary.

The primary will determine who will advance to November’s general election to seek to hold a job responsible for overseeing Connecticut’s nearly $45 billion in pension and trust fund assets.

Tuesday’s primary also pits two New Haveners against each other: Russell and housing authority Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton, seeking a position last held by a New Havener, Hank Parker, in 1986.

In the final days before the primary, Russell and DuBois-Walton hit local turf to reconnect with familiar local faces to make closing arguments about why they’d best represent a hometown progressive agenda. (Click here for an article about DuBois-Walton’s run; click here to read about the campaign of the third candidate, Greenwich quantitative hedge fund manager Dita Bhargava, whose campaign has not been visible in the New Haven-Hamden area.) 

As the sun began to set on Friday evening, Russell, equipped with a stack of flyers, went door-knocking in the Hill. Russell was joined Friday by his husband, Chris Lyddy, and an old friend, Howard Boyd, who now chairs the Hill North Management Team and knows exactly which doors to knock on for a reliable vote.

“ERICK!” shouted Dawson-Douglas when the canvassers knocked on her Hallock Street door, giving the candidate a hug. Dawson-Douglas had seen Russell’s name on lawn signs, his face on campaign flyers. She knew exactly why he’d come to her door. 

Russell didn’t need to launch into a list of his campaign priorities: ensuring that pensions are fully funded, expanding financial literacy programs, launching a fund to help out-of-state abortion patients come to Connecticut. He didn’t need to explain his background as a lawyer specializing in public financing.

Dawson-Douglas said he’d already earned her vote because ​“he’s him.”

Most of Russell’s interactions with voters on Friday evening played out this way. ​“He’s from this community,” Boyd would say by way of introduction. Russell would ask interlocutors if they remembered his parents’ deli. He would stress that if he makes it to the treasurer’s office, he would be representing the Hill community, thinking of families like his own and his former neighbors’. 

One resident told Russell she’d vote for him simply because he showed up at her door. ​“At least we finally met somebody,” she said, adding that politicians don’t usually focus on the Hill.

“Damn, that’s my guy,” called another old friend passing by in his car. ​“I’m gonna get some lawn signs and pass them around.”

It doesn’t matter how much time has passed, said Boyd. ​“Once you’re in the Hill, you stay family.”

Why He's Running

Russell, who is 33, won the official Democratic Party endorsement for state treasurer at a May convention. In Tuesday’s primary he faces New Haven Housing Authority Director Karen DuBois-Walton and former Wall Street trader Dita Bhargava.

Russell cast himself as the candidate best at representing working families, with a perspective rooted in his own life experience. He was the first in his family to go to college, and then law school.

He now works as an attorney at the firm Pullman & Comley, where he helps state and local government finance infrastructure projects and navigate debt and pension-related issues. His legal and financial background is another factor he said sets him apart from other candidates. ​“I’ve had very broad financial experience,” he said, ​“and that will allow me to jump in from day one.”

If elected, Russell has promised to expand financial literacy education across the state. He has pledged to support the state’s new Baby Bonds program, establishing trusts for children in poverty. And he has emphasized a commitment to keeping state pensions fully funded.

Russell also said he hopes to establish a Safe Harbor Fund for patients from states that restrict reproductive healthcare, so they can receive abortions in Connecticut. He said he would finance lodging for those patients and fund the abortion providers caring for those patients. ​“It’s going to be women in poverty, women of color, members of the LGBTQ community who are most affected” by abortion bans, Russell said. He envisions working with Democratic state treasurers across the country to create a centralized system where patients seeking abortions can connect with a state prepared to support them.

A former vice chair of the Connecticut Democratic Party, Russell said he views his own bid for office as part of a broader fight against politicians who discriminate against people of color, queer people, and families in poverty. Russell said he was partly motivated to run for office by a national trend of elected politicians on the far right expressing or associating themselves with bigoted views.

“We’ve seen unprecedented attacks on communities across the country,” Russell said. ​“We all need to band together and make sure we have the strongest ticket possible for November.”

Russell recently learned that if elected, he would be the first openly gay Black politician to occupy a state-level office in the country. ​“I am proud to be a representative of the many communities that I identify with,” he said.

On Friday, before heading out to the doors, Russell and secretary of state candidate Maritza Bond were joined by the four alders representing the Hill — Carmen Rodriguez, Evelyn Rodriguez, Kampton Singh, and Ron Hurt — and by members of the labor-affiliated activist group New Haven Rising for a canvassing kickoff.

Gathering in the field behind Roberto Clemente School, the alders and labor organizers reiterated commitments to advocating for more jobs accessible to New Haven residents. They celebrated the Graduate Hotel’s recent voluntary recognition of its employees’ union. And they touted Bond and Russell as candidates with New Haven roots and working families in mind.

Russell said he has lived all over New Haven over the course of his life, including Fair Haven, Dixwell Avenue, City Point, and now Westville.

Boyd’s mother, longtime activist Ann Boyd, appeared at the event to support both candidates. She knew Russell when he was a ​“very quiet, hardworking” kid, she said, and she has faith in him now.

“People judge the area that [political candidates] come from,” Ms. Boyd observed. ​“But they can’t do that — because look at the people who come out of here.”