Working Families Party's Roger Senserrich at WNHH FM.
Roger Senserrich wants you to make a second choice on Election Day: Not just voting for specific candidates, but voting for them the second, not the first, time you see their names on the ballot.
Senserrich is the wonk-in-chief (aka policy and and communications director) for the Connecticut chapter of the Working Families Party (WFP). The labor-aligned party mostly cross-endorses candidates from the Democratic Party who support their progressive agenda.
The WFP has endorsed the full Democratic slate for statewide constitutional offices and 80 Connecticut candidates in the Nov. 8 election, including New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield and New Haven State Rep. Patricia Dillon. (The party did endorse its own candidate versus a Democrat in Bridgeport, former New Haven Register reporter Juliemar Ortiz.) Click here to see the full list of endorsed legislative candidates.
Voters choosing a candidate on WFP’s Row E, rather than on the Democratic line, “send a message” of support for an agenda that includes higher income taxes on the wealthy, expanded access to health care, stable and predictable working hours, and equitable education funding, Senserrich said in an interview on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”
Unlike in the past, the WFP did not endorse New Haven U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro this year. The party still considers her a supporter of its agenda, Senserrich said; in fact, she has introduced a federal version of the stable-working-hours bill the WFP is supporting at the state level. DeLauro simply didn’t ask for the party’s endorsement this time around.
Concerns over inflation and crime have propelled Republican candidates nationwide in recent weeks. From Arizona to New York, GOP candidates have pulled ahead in Congressional and gubernatorial races that had once leaned Democratic and within reach of seats that had previously been deemed “safe” Democratic seats.
Senserrich said the WFP is confident Democrats will sweep statewide constitutional offices and hold onto solid majorities in the legislature. He was asked how progressive candidates should address the inflation and crime issues on the trail.
He said they should argue that inflation has resulted in part because corporations are “jacking up prices” while enjoying “record prices.” On crime, he argued that candidates should support both the need for police to solve “hard” major cases while finding more effective strategies for dealing with other problems that may be better handled by crisis response-style teams of mental health professionals.
Click on the video to watch the full interview with Roger Senserrich on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”
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We need ranked choice voting so voters can have a variety of choices, and so candidates not anointed by the Republican or Democratic parties power brokers, and third party candidates can have a chance of electability.