Piper: Finds Ohio GOP a better fit.
The most vocal Donald Trump supporter running in this year’s Hamden municipal elections has ended his campaign and headed to Ohio after receiving blowback for his outspoken presence at the Jan. 6 D.C. “Stop the Steal rally” and advocacy of Covid-19 vaccine conspiracy theories, including that magnets stick to inoculated arms.
The candidate, Justin Piper, was the endorsed Republican seeking the Legislative Council’s Fourth District seat.
After receiving the nomination, Piper expanded in this article about his presence at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally in D.C., his promotion of vaccine hesitancy theories and his belief that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election.
He has now formally withdrawn his candidacy. Piper told the Independent that he experienced significant backlash after that article and subsequent articles appeared: “I was told I have no place in Connecticut, and that I need to leave… that there would be drastic problems if I decided to continue my race.”
Frank LaDore, the chair of the RTC, said that “there were some people in my party who didn’t agree with his stance, but nobody asked him to step down.” He said that it is important for all candidates to “forget about Jan. 6, forget about Trump, and to focus on Hamden,” arguing that national politics have no place in local progress.
Piper said that the main reason he decided to leave the race — and to leave Connecticut — was pressure from campaign workers for Ron Gambardella, the Republican candidate for mayor.
“They basically said that you should leave the race because your political views can hurt our candidates and people at the bottom of the ticket, and that you should consider trying to run for office in two years when all of this dies down,” Piper said.
Frank Musante, the treasurer of the New Haven County Young Republicans and part of Gambardella’s campaign team, confirmed that he recommended to Piper that he should suspend his candidacy. Neither Gambardella nor anyone else in the GOP publicly denounced Piper’s perspectives. (Gambardella said he tries “to find commonality with everyone.”) But Musante said that he felt Piper’s loud social media presence detracted from the GOP’s likelihood of winning elected seats in November.
Musante has also openly declared his support for Trump online, but told the Independent that “there’s a difference between supporting President Trump and then supporting what happened that day,” referring to the Capitol insurrection. Musante also clarified, “I no longer support Trump or any of his actions taken after the 2020 election. I’m a conservative and do not endorse Trumpism.”
He added that Piper’s “not a bad guy; he’s just not a good candidate.” He said that Piper’s candidacy ended before the election because “he couldn’t take the heat once he got it.”
Council member Marjorie Bonadies, whom Piper has called his primary supporter in Hamden, said that she was “sorry to see him go,” asserting that “with time and grooming and learning about politics” he could have been successful.
“I do share his views,” she said. “I voted for Trump, happily so. But I did not go to Washington on Jan. 6.”
“We believe in strong families and ethics, individualism, and self-responsibility,” she said. “But, I think he was naive in thinking that people would embrace his brand of conservatism.”
“Justin didn’t understand that we have to temper ourselves,” she reflected.
Piper said that while his controversial time in Hamden did not alter his local or national political views, they changed the way he views the Republican party.
“At the end of the day, conservatives are supposed to be the party that goes against cancel culture and canceling people we don’t agree with,” he said. He said he saw conservatives attempting to silence one another in order to “achieve their agenda — which is power, and not really trying to help the local people in need.”
He said that he is currently staying with a friend in Ohio, where he plans to permanently move in the coming months.
“I’m probably going to make moves to join the Ohio GOP,” he said. “For one, the state agrees with my political views.”
I get Hamden Republicans discouraging Mr. Piper from continuing his campaign; but did they really tell him he had to leave Connecticut as well?