Party Chair Confronts Un-Conventional Era

Inside the convention hall, candidates jostled for last-minute support to win the party’s endorsement. Democratic Town Committee Chair Vincent Mauro Jr. had his two candidates picked. If this were his uncle’s day in charge, or his father’s — heck, even if this were 2010 — he could have given the signal, and all of New Haven’s delegates would have lined up behind him to vote with one voice.

But this wasn’t his father’s or uncle’s day. It wasn’t even 2010 anymore.

It was the first weekend of May in 2022. Democrats were gathered in Hartford’s Xfinity Hall to endorse candidates for statewide office. As chair of New Haven’s Democratic Town Committee, Mauro led the state’s largest group of delegates, representing the single largest vote in municipal elections.

That didn’t translate into a single large vote at the convention. And the largest party blocs did not determine who would become the party’s nominees.

That was a reflection of how much politics has changed in a generation — leading at least one retired political leader, former Mayor John DeStefano, to propose ditching these conventions altogether in favor of a new system for selecting and electing candidates. (See more about that, and weigh in, in the last section of this article.)

Mauro came to last weekend’s convention hoping to help land a New Havener a spot on the statewide ticket for the first time since 2006. He had two candidates picked out: New Haven’s Karen DuBois-Walton for state treasurer and New Haven’s Maritza Bond for secretary of the state. Both were in competitive races for the party’s endorsement at the convention.

Mauro had been talking up the candidates. When it came for New Haven to cast its 96 delegate votes, a majority did go for DuBois-Walton and Bond. But not all. Neither won the party’s nomination, though both did earn enough delegate support to qualify for primaries. 

DuBois-Walton picked up 52 New Haven delegate votes, compared to 33 for fellow New Havener Erick Russell, and 1 for Dita Bhargava of Greenwich. 

There were two rounds of balloting for secretary of the state. Bond collected 63 New Haven delegate votes in round one, compared to 15 for Hilda Santiago (who was backed by New Haven Latino activists), 6 for Hamden’s Joshua Elliott, and 3 for Stephanie Thomas of Norwalk. In the second round, New Haven’s vote was even more diluted, and less determinative: 42 for Lesser, 28 for Santiago, and 17 for Thomas, the eventual winner, who therefore captured the endorsement without needing New Haven and even though she was the candidate in the race with the least insider-institutional backing.

Unlike in the days of machine politics yore, New Haven’s town chair couldn’t line up 100 percent of the vote behind a candidate.

“If I say, ​‘This is where we’re going’ — it doesn’t work anymore,” Mauro reflected during a post-convention conversation on WNHH FM about how the nature of party politics has changed.

Not His Uncle's Party

Elected ward committee members sit on the town committee and serve as delegates. They often bring independent views or represent independent-minded neighborhoods — like Ward 25, which held its own straw poll for candidates before the convention, leading the chair to support candidates other than those Mauro was backing.

“I think of my father at times — the delegate list would be everybody who would do what they say. But those days are gone,” Mauro reflected.

“It’s too diverse a group. It’s too diverse in ideas. There’s not one voice of that group. There never will be.”

Mauro, who has served as town chair for a decade, grew up learning at the dinner table about a different style of politics. His uncle, Arthur Barbieri, ran the party for much of the second half the mid-20th century, from the 1950s through 1975 and again from 1988 – 1996.

It was an old-school machine then. The town chair could translate patronage and contract opportunities and unchallenged control over party appointments and nominations into a deliverable block of votes for a preferred candidate. He could seal the deal in a backroom (like the mirrored-ceiling backroom of his Crown Street office where he also conducted business in insurance, asbestos, travel, real estate, and weight-loss drinks).

The party chair could command an extensive network of vote-pullers to win a primary if it came to that. Party bosses in those days could also ensure that different constituencies got their shares of positions on a slate: For instance, that a Black candidate would also be nominated for state treasure for four decades.

Politics were already evolving by the time Mauro’s father, Vincent Sr., became town chair in the 1980. It became easier to qualify for a primary at a convention, with only 15 percent rather than 30 percent of delegates’ votes. It became possible to gather signatures to make the primary ballot even without any delegate convention votes. Candidates were building independent brands with independent sources of money, especially for higher-level offices requiring bigger budgets that big-dollar donors had an interest in supporting in return for legislative favors. Government continued to give construction or legal or consultant contracts to political allies, of course, but reforms were at least injecting more transparency and opportunity for competition into the process.

Meanwhile, mirroring other trends in society, established organized parties fell out of favor with many people interested in political issues. It became harder to find people to do the ground work required in campaigns and elections, let alone run for office. And the largest group of voters in Connecticut became not Republicans, not Democrats, but the unaffiliated — by six figures.

“Issues became more important than parties at some point,” Mauro observed. 

“The electorate is more informed than it ever has. Anyone who wants to know anything about a candidate… everything is at their fingertips.” Mauro said, noting how social media has improved the publics’ ability to do independent research into candidates and their campaigns.

As recently as 2010, Mauro noted, Democratic Party leaders were still able to deliver all the city’s delegate votes to Ned Lamont at the gubernatorial endorsement convention. However, many active party members (including State Sen. Martin Looney; Mauro, who hadn’t yet become party chair; and labor activists affiliated with Yale’s UNITE HERE unions, who hadn’t yet taken over the local party) preferred Dannel P. Malloy. And they were able to outwork the other side and deliver New Haven to Malloy in the Democratic primary.

As town chair, Mauro Jr. still has plenty of clout. He has chits and influence to try to convince candidates to pursue or stay out of a race, to help them find funding or support, and to round up people to back them. But the job today, he said, has become more like a ​“facilitator” who is primarily focused on bringing candidates and party members face to face in order to personally persuade voters of a given candidate’s merits.

To that end, he organized a pre-convention forum for all secretary of the state candidates to meet with New Haven Democrats and answer their questions.

“You make sure people have the opportunity to meet candidates, talk to them. Come August or September, when they go out and knock on doors, you want them to be invested in that person,” Mauro said. ​“If it’s somebody you believe in, you’ll make calls every single night. You’ll make sure all your neighbors vote.”

That's The Ticket

Asked why it matters to have a New Havener in one of the statewide constitutional offices, Mauro replied that municipal representation gives the city ​“a seat at the table” when many consequential decisions are made.

He attributed the absence of New Haveners from the ticket over the past 16 years to the decision of potential candidates to remain focused on their roles in the state legislature. As a result, New Haven wields significant influence at the Capitol, including in the positions of Appropriations Committee Co-Chair State Rep. Toni Walker and Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney (for whom Mauro works as chief of staff).

“Toni Walker could have run for higher office. Toni Harp could have run for higher office” instead of remaining a state senator for 21 years, Mauro observed. ​“They were more interested in policy” and leading on legislation. 

New Haven does still have a shot at the two statewide ballot slots this year. The candidate who outpolled DuBois-Walton to win the state treasurer endorsement was Russell, who also lives in New Haven. In fact, Mauro has supported his involvement in the party for years. ​“Erick is a personal friend. I watch football with Erick and his husband.” In this case, Mauro said, he concluded that DuBois-Walton is a better fit right now for the treasurer post and would have more of an ability ​“to motivate a base of voters statewide. That doesn’t take anything away from Erick.”

So New Haven will have two candidates in a three-way state treasurer primary, assuming Bhargava remains in the race.

New Haven’s Bond has decided pursue her candidacy in a primary after the convention, in the secretary of the state’s race. Most of the others have dropped out of the race, meaning it will be either a one-on-one contest against Stephanie Thomas or a three-person competition including Hilda Santiago (depending on whether or not she decides to drop out and focus on getting reelected as a state representative).

“I’ve filed my paperwork for the primary and look forward to taking my message directly to the Democrats across Connecticut,” Bond said this week.

Dump Conventions? DeStefano's Alternative

The decline of the power of party establishments, as evidenced by last week’s convention, came as no surprise to former New Haven Mayor DeStefano, who began his political career as the candidate of town committee leaders.

He saw firsthand how, in 2006, he lost the party endorsement for governor, then won the primary anyway.

“I’m struck by the lack of utility of state conventions for state constitutional officers,” DeStefano reflected in a conversation Friday. ​“Party conventions don’t mean much at the end of the day.”

He proposed doing away with party conventions, and having all candidates petition their way onto the ballot.

“I feel the same way about New Haven,” DeStefano said. ​“We have affiliations, groups that affiliate over time. They happen to mostly be in the Democratic Party. It disenfranchises independents and other party members.”

In the final terms of his 20-year mayoralty, he saw how election primaries basically led to do-overs. For instance, in 2011 and 2013, four Democrats ran in the mayoral primary. The two top vote-getters then advanced to the general election, with the second-place primary finisher petitioning to run on an independent line. (The 2019 election worked the same way.)

DeStefano’s recommendation: Non-partisan elections for mayor (a process in use in some other cities in the U.S., including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago).

Here’s how that works: Candidates petition their way onto the ballot. If one receives 50 percent of the vote, that candidate becomes the mayor; If not, the top two finishers advance to a second, final election. That’s sort of the way competitive elections work in New Haven now, anyway.

Another twist on that idea: Some local officials and activists have pushed for ranked-choice voting (RCV), which allow voters to suggest multiple candidates in order of preference. Maine elects its candidates that way, for instance. New York’s most recent mayoral primary also used it. The goal is to allow voters to choose their favorite candidates without worrying about ​“wasting” their votes and feeling they need to choose between the ​“lesser of two evils,” as well as to influence candidates to campaign more on issues and resort less to negative campaigning tactics in order to avoid alienating supporters of opposing candidates. Joshua Elliott made RCV a central plank of his now-discontinued run for secretary of the state. Read more about that here and here.

What do you think? Add your take in the ​“True Vote” boxes, and/or in the comments section below.