Two former state treasurers Thursday endorsed one of the candidates seeking to become a future state treasurer.
The former treasurers, Denise Nappier and Joseph M. Suggs, Jr., endorsed the campaign of fellow Democrat Erick Russell.
Russell, a New Haven attorney, won the state party’s endorsement at a May convention. He now faces Aug. 9 Democratic primary challenges from Karen DuBois-Walton, who runs New Haven’s housing authority and chairs the board of the state Board of Education, and Dita Bhargava, a former Wall Street trader from Greenwich who sought the position in 2018. Republican State Rep. Harry Arora is also seeking the position.
“Erick’s vast experience in working with towns, cities, and the state demonstrates his ability and qualifications to effectively oversee the management of our state’s financial resources including the risk adjusted growth of our pension funds,” Nappier is quoted as stating in a Russell campaign release announcing the endorsements. “He’s positioned to ensure that our state’s overall financing needs and payment obligations for capital improvements such as school construction and critical infrastructure improvements, like road and bridge repairs, are met at the lowest possible cost.”
Nappier made history as the country’s first Black female state treasurer; she served from 1999 to 2019. The Russell release noted that if elected, Russell, too, would make history, as “the first Black, openly LGBTQ+ statewide official ever in the United States.
