Q2 Fundraising: Elicker $30K, Orosco $6K

Incumbent Democrat Justin Elicker outraised Republican challenger Steve Orosco $30,131 to $6,595 over the past three months, according to newly released campaign finance reports for this year’s mayoral race.

Those reports also show that Jason Bartlett, a former Harp administration official and local mayoral campaign veteran, has taken on the job of helping Orosco try to topple the three-term incumbent.

Elicker’s reelection campaign and Orosco’s challenge campaign uploaded those second-quarter campaign finance reports to the State Elections Enforcement Commission’s database Thursday, which was the deadline for campaigns to report out how much money they raised and spent between April 1 and June 30.

Elicker, who is seeking a fourth two-year term as mayor, raised a total of $30,131 in individual contributions. That means he has raised a total of $139,410 over the course of the campaign so far. Elicker’s campaign spent a total of $37,112 in the second quarter, leaving a balance on hand of $85,650.

Orosco, meanwhile, raised a total of $6,595 in the second quarter; he entered the race in late March, and didn’t do any fundraising in the first quarter. Orosco’s campaign spent a total of $2,774 in the second quarter, leaving a balance on hand of $3,820.

Click here and here to read those Q2 reports in full.

As with each of his previous runs for mayor — in 2013, 2019, 2021, and 2023 — Elicker is participating this year in the city’s public financing program, the Democracy Fund. That program, which dates back to 2007 and was most recently updated last year, attempts to limit the influence of special interests and encourage more candidates to participate in mayoral races by capping the top amount of individual contributions at $400 apiece.

Some of Elicker’s $400 campaign contributors in the second quarter include Paul McCraven of Cheshire, the chief operating officer of ConnCORP; Guilford’s Diane Petra, of Petra Construction Corporation; Delaware’s Eugene Young, a senior vice president at Enstructure; and New York City’s Matthew Satnick, a logistics executive at Enstructure.

Orosco, a mixed-martial artist and frequent Republican candidate for different local and state offices, is not participating in the Democracy Fund. That means he can raise up to $1,000 per contribution.

Of the $6,595 he raised over the past three months, $4,000 came in the form of four $1,000 contributions from four different people: David Candelora, a landlord who lives in Madison; Jonathan Hryb, a chiropractor who lives in Northford; Joseph Milone, a New Haven paramedic; and Lisa Milone, the city’s Republican Registrar of Voters and Orosco’s campaign treasurer.

Orosco’s Q2 campaign finance report also shows that he has paid Jason Bartlett a total of $2,500 — including $1,500 on June 20 and $1,000 on June 24. Bartlett served as the youth services administrator under former Mayor Toni Harp; he’s worked on mayoral campaigns in New Haven dating back to 1999, including for Jim Newton, Martin Looney, Toni Harp, Tom Goldenberg, and, now, Orosco.

In a phone interview Friday, Bartlett said he is working as a ​“general strategist” on behalf of Orosco’s campaign, trying to ​“help him put together a strategy” to win this year’s mayoral race.

“He’s a fresh face. He’s young. He’s an entrepreneur. I think he’s very independent,” Bartlett said in praise of Orosco. ​“I just think we need a fresh approach.”

Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans ten-to-one in New Haven, and all of the city’s contested elected positions are currently held by Democrats. New Haven’s last Republican mayor was elected in 1953.

Bartlett also spoke on Thursday about his dissatisfaction with the incumbent as a motivation for him getting involved in this year’s election.

“I don’t think Mayor Elicker has a vision for the city. I have no faith in his leadership,” he said. He pointed to the city’s proposed sale of a currently state-owned lot on Sargent Drive to the APT Foundation for the construction of a new healthcare office building and methadone clinic as an example of the mayor’s ​“misplaced priorities.” Bartlett described that deal as ​“ruining” Long Wharf with a methadone clinic.

In a separate interview Friday, Elicker pushed back on that critique.

“It’s really important that people get treatment” for substance use disorder, he said. ​“We need to facilitate people getting treatment.” He noted that APT already has an office at 1 Long Wharf, and that this planned new building would see them ​“move across the parking lot into a site that is a much better design, that is going to facilitate people in a responsible way getting treatment.”

He also pointed out that this agreement between the city and APT, which is still before the Board of Alders for review, would require APT to close its existing methadone clinic on Congress Avenue in the Hill. ​“This is going to be an immense improvement for people getting treatment,” he said.

Asked more broadly about his Q2 campaign fundraising and his reelection campaign so far, Elicker said, ​“We’re in a confident position” and that, ​“when I can, I prioritize running the city over fundraising.”

“Big picture, we’re solving challenges that New Haven has struggled with for decades,” he said about his administration.

He said New Haven consistently leads the state with the construction of new housing, with roughly 3,000 new residential units having come online over the past five years and another 7,000 in the pipeline. He praised the police department for adopting new technology to help solve gun-related crimes, and said his administration has increased the city’s contribution to the public school district by more than 50 percent in recent years. He praised the recently launched New Haven Tutoring Initiative for helping improve math and literacy competencies among students, and said school absentee rates are down. ​“The city is more financially stable than it’s been in decades,” he added, with rating agency upgrades and budget surpluses.

While there’s still more work to do, he concluded, ​“we’re making huge progress on all these issues.”