Laura Glesby photo
Mayor Elicker (right) before winning 47 of 54 votes cast at Tuesday's convention.
Mayor Justin Elicker won the local Democratic Party’s official support in a landslide on Tuesday evening in his bid for another term in the city’s top elected office — while his three intraparty challengers geared up to petition their way onto September’s Democratic primary ballot.
Dozens of party officials assembled in Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School’s Parish Hall at 150 Kimberly Ave. Tuesday for the Democratic Town Committee’s (DTC) convention, a ceremony in which two designated representatives from each of the city’s 30 wards come together to vote on which candidates to endorse.
Elicker, who is running for a third consecutive two-year term as mayor, won the nomination with 47 votes from ward co-chairs. As a result, his name will appear at the top of the ballot during the Sept. 12 Democratic Party primary.
His projected primary opponents include retired police Sgt. Shafiq Abdussabur, who received 5 votes at Tuesday’s convention; ex-McKinsey consultant Tom Goldenberg, who received 2 votes; and former legal aid attorney Liam Brennan, who was not nominated on the floor of the convention and therefore did not receive any votes.
Those three challengers will have from Wednesday until Aug. 9 to collect signatures from 5 percent of registered Democrats citywide (about 1,700 signatures) to make it onto the primary ballot. Whoever wins the primary will then be the party’s official nominee in the Nov. 7 general election.
The endorsement followed two weeks worth of Elicker racking up straw poll victories from Democratic ward committees around town. Tuesday’s vote signaled broad institutional support for a post-pandemic future for the Elicker administration. Elicker first took office in early 2020, weeks before Covid-19 first appeared in New Haven. If re-elected, he would begin his first full term without (knock on wood) the need to navigate an ongoing public health emergency of Covid’s scale.
“It is easy to stand on the sidelines,” Elicker told the crowded room on Tuesday night. “It is easy to run for mayor. It is hard to do the work.”
At Tuesday's convention.
Elicker's campaign set up a table in back and offered highly popular potato chips to convention attendees.
His 2023 re-election campaign has focused so far on promises to continue ongoing efforts of his administration, which include a push to redevelop the entire Long Wharf neighborhood; the growing COMPASS crisis response team taking on homelessness, addiction, and mental health-related 911 calls; and a number of initiatives to boost active and public transportation and increase the supply of affordable housing.
During his acceptance speech on Tuesday night, Elicker hit on many of those themes, saying that New Haven under his leadership and in collaboration with a host of local leaders and community organizers “persevered through the pandemic,” “created hundreds upon hundreds of affordable housing units,” created the Elm City COMPASS program, made sure that adult education would relocate to Newhallville, got the state to double PILOT funding, and convinced “Yale University to pay more.”
“We have done this work together.”
Elicker accepts the party nomination: "We have done this work together."
He also repeated a criticism he has leveled against his mayoral challengers throughout the ward committee endorsement process. “It is easy to have an idea and say, ‘Go and do this,’ but it’s actually hard to get the work done,” Elicker said. Effective governance requires “rolling up your sleeves. It requires compassion. It requires perseverance. And it requires commitment. And, most importantly, it requires doing things together.”
Each of his opponents has campaigned heavily on a particular issue.
Abdussabur, a retired New Haven police sergeant and local business owner and former Beaver Hills alder, has emphasized police reform and public safety.
Brennan, a former legal aid lawyer and federal prosecutor who’s now Hartford’s Inspector General, has focused on zoning, affordable housing, and tenants’ rights.
And Goldenberg, a former consultant for McKinsey, has centered his campaign on public education and calling out local harm-reduction initiatives to address addiction.
Ward 20 Democratic Ward Committee Co-Chair Barbara Vereen, a chief steward at Yale’s UNITE HERE Local 34, nominated Elicker for reelection as mayor at the top of Tuesday’s convention.
She praised “his integrity, his honesty, his dedication to getting things done. Mayor Elicker approaches issues with clarity and honesty and seeks to find a solution that benefits all residents.” She said he “did a wonderful wonderful job during the pandemic,” “led the charge” on passing a local hotel worker recall bill, pressed Yale to “pay their fair share,” and worked collaboratively with Newhallville residents “when dealing with the APT Foundation and the Board of Ed.”
Former Hill Alder Dolores Colon seconded Elicker’s nomination, saying that his administration has delivered on providing quality-of-life services like good sidewalks and new trees to communities like hers that have waited years for such treatment.
Abdussabur was nominated for mayor by Ward 28 Democratic Ward Committee Co-Chair Gary Hogan. “I consider myself a friend and mentor to Shafiq,” Hogan said. He said he’s watched Abdussabur “grow as a police officer, a businessman, an entrepreneur, and now a politician.” Ward 30 co-chair Iva Johnson seconded Abdussabur’s nomination.
Goldenberg was nominated from the floor by Ward 11’s Sonia Álvarez, and was seconded by Ward 21’s Pat Solomon.
Brennan said he did not make arrangements to be nominated on Tuesday deliberately, knowing that he wouldn’t have won the endorsement. “I think we got to take it to the streets and on the doors,” he said, adding that “I appreciate everyone in this room.”
After the convention, Abdussabur quoted a statement Elicker made during his first mayoral campaign in 2013 after that year’s DTC convention, in which Elicker had called the DTC “part of an antiquated political process” that “in many ways is designed to favor the incumbent.”
Goldenberg stated, “This process was not fair the moment Vinnie Mauro walked Justin into the City Clerk’s office.”
Brennan, Abdussabur, and Goldenberg all said they plan to petition their way onto the primary ballot.
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