Sam Gurwitt Photos
Justin Farmer: Officially running. Jorge Cabrera: Done fundraising.
Though both are holed up inside, refraining from the person-to-person interactions that define their political lives, 17th State Senate District candidates Jorge Cabrera and Justin Farmer both announced that they had passed major campaign hurdles.
Cabrera and Farmer are both Hamden-based Democrats vying to challenge incumbent Republican State Sen. George Logan to represent the district, which includes parts of Hamden, Naugatuck, and Woodbridge, and all of Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, and Derby.
Cabrera won a three-way Democratic primary in 2018 and went on to lose one of the state’s most prominent races that year by only 77 votes.
Whoever wins the Democratic primary, the general election is likely to be one of the hottest races of the cycle, with Democrats pouring resources into flipping the seat, and Republicans trying hard to hold on to it.
In February, Farmer launched an exploratory committee. It allowed him to begin fundraising, but he was not yet officially running. On Sunday, he posted a video on his Facebook page announcing that he has decided to run, and had created a candidate committee.
After a holding a campaign kickoff and growing connections with voters and organizers in the valley, Farmer said he had decided it was worth pulling out the stops and moving ahead with his bid for the party’s nomination. “All those things culminating in the last month made it go from ‘Oh, you’re kind of late to throw your hat in the ring,’ to ‘Oh, you’ve got a shot,’” he told the Independent.
Cabrera had begun his campaign as a candidate committee from the beginning, rather than starting in an exploratory capacity. On Saturday, he also posted a campaign update on Facebook. He announced that he had raised the $16,000 necessary to qualify for Citizens Election Program (CEP) funding. The CEP is a state grant program that provides public funding for candidates, and will unlock a grant of $42,805 for Cabrera for the primary.
Cabrera said he has spent a lot of time building relationships with voters and politicians throughout the district over the last few years. “I think it showed in our fundraising, which was pretty broad-based,” he said.
Farmer said he is a little over half-way to meeting the CEP threshold. Donations must range between $5 and $270, and at least 300 of them must come from residents of municipalities that are either entirely or partially in the district.
Virtual Door Knocks?
Cabrera at last year’s Stop & Shop strike.
Both candidates have said that one-on-one conversations with voters are the backbone of their political engagement, and that canvassing will be the lynchpin of the campaigns. Both come to politics from backgrounds as organizers.
Cabrera is a union representative for United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 919. He is used to driving between the Stop & Shop stores whose employees he represents to meet with workers and support them as they interact with their employer. (Last spring, he led them through a strike that lasted 11 days.) Since he ran his last campaign, he said he has been out door knocking with other candidates throughout the valley. He had also knocked doors in Hamden, for instance, for Mayor Curt Leng.
Farmer was an activist before he was a politician. For years, he showed up to rallies in New Haven for various social-justice causes like immigrant rights, Black Lives Matter, and LGBTQ rights. Once elected, he did not stop his work as an activist, and is now advocating in Hartford to end prison gerrymandering.
When Farmer launched his exploratory committee in February, a large crowd gathered outside the Keefe Community Center for a rally. People huddled close for a big group photo and hugged each other and shook each other’s hands. A few weeks earlier, Cabrera had launched his campaign at a Hamden resident’s house, where supporters crowded together and leaned in close to hear each other over the din, hugging and shaking hands as they came and went.
Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across Connecticut, the tried-and-true methods of grassroots campaigning are not an option. A knock on the door from any fist, no matter how well sanitized, would likely not be welcome. Big gatherings are out of the question.
Farmer at his campaign launch.
Both candidates said they are trying to figure out how their campaigns will adapt to the age of coronavirus. March was supposed to bring warmer weather that would allow both candidates to launch canvassing operations. The month has brought the warmer weather piece. The canvassing, not so much.
Cabrera said a lot of his campaign would probably move online. He said he has been making a lot of phone calls, and has considered holding live-streamed question and answer sessions with voters on social media — that is, if he has the time.
“We’re kind of in an emergency state here with work,” he said, because workers are trying to figure out how to earn enough money to support their families while also staying safe. Some have elderly family members at home that they don’t want to infect. Others have young children and no one to care for them while they work because schools are closed.
Farmer said he will also probably have to turn to social media, phone calls, and texts. He said he will need to find other ways of having conversations with voters. “I need to hear from people rather than just share out my message,” he said.
The Democratic Party will endorse a candidate at a district convention in May before the primary on Aug. 11.
Farmer said he will also probably have to turn to social media, phone calls, and texts. He said he will need to find other ways of having conversations with voters. "I need to hear from people rather than just share out my message," he said.
Patois: Mi a shotta inna di streets.