Now It Looks Like 3 In The 17th

Farmer’s exploratory campaign went live this week with a Facebook event planned for this Saturday, and with a donation webpage. By midday Monday, he had already raised about $2,000, said campaign Treasurer Laurie Sweet.

Farmer, 25, a Democrat has represented Hamden’s Fifth Legislative Council District since 2017. He has been one of the leading progressive voices in town politics, and is a mainstay at equity and justice-related events in Hamden and New Haven. He is also a frequent advocate in Hartford for progressive legislation. He is currently a plaintiff in a court case against the state with the NAACP and the Rule of Law Clinic at Yale Law School to end prison gerrymandering.

The State Senate district Farmer is now contemplating running to represent at the Capitol includes about half of Hamden, as well as Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Derby, and parts of Naugatuck and Woodbridge. It is an ideologically diverse district, with more conservative votes in the Valley and more left-of-center votes found in Hamden. An estimated 40 percent of the district’s voters are unaffiliated with a party.

Logan, a Republican, currently holds the seat. In 2018, union representative Jorge Cabrera challenged Logan and lost by 77 votes after prevailing in a hard-fought three-way Democratic primary. Cabrera is running again, and has the support of many of the top Democrats in the state. Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz, State Senate President Pro Tem. Martin Looney, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff all spoke at his campaign kickoff and fundraiser at the beginning of the month. (Click on the story for more about Cabrera’s campaign.)

Generational Change

Farmer said that with the 2020 presidential election on its way, getting new, young voices in politics and drumming up excitement about the Democratic platform is essential.

“We have from now until August to talk about why we’re great as Democrats,” he said. ​“As far as I’m concerned, if we’re going to win in November, we have to get young people involved [and] have people feel that there are real changes coming.”

With only an exploratory committee filed with the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC), Farmer’s bid for the Democratic nomination is not yet official. He said he will spend the next weeks and months raising money, gauging his momentum, and talking to voters throughout Hamden and the Naugatuck Valley. If he decides to mount a full-fledged campaign, he would face Cabrera in a Democratic primary on Aug. 11.

“My goal is to forge a conversation about what we need to be doing for the future — not just the future of the Valley and the state, but of the party, and I’m going to take that conversation as far as I can go with it,” Farmer told the Independent.

Farmer highlighted a few areas of focus as he pushes his vision for the region’s and the state’s future. He named environmental stewardship, saying he plans to discuss what a sustainable future looks like for the state, including an expansion of public transportation in the Valley. He said he hopes to push the party to build out the bench and bring more young people into the fold to train the next generation of political leaders. He also mentioned figuring out how to ensure that Hamden and valley residents have the training they need to get jobs in the area and provide the workforce that can help local businesses survive.

He said he would fight for more state education funding for towns in the district, and to smooth over inequities in tax rates among municipalities in the state.

Farmer said his campaign would focus on conversations with voters at their doors and at community forums. He must raise $16,000 in order to be eligible for funding from the state-funded Citizens’ Election Program. With $2,000 of donations in the first 24 hours of the campaign, Farmer is well on his way to raise what he needs, said Campaign Manager Brad Macdowall.

“When we’re talking about running a grassroots campaign that can defeat George Logan, that is a big, big indicator that we’re on the right track,” said Macdowall.

Farmer plans to hold a campaign launch rally Saturday morning at 10 a.m. at the Keefe Community Center in Hamden.

Logan Ups His Game

Logan, for his part, has stepped up his already omnipresence at diners and civic events in the district since his 77-vote victory in 2018. (The district has around 55,000 voters.)

The message he took from the narrow margin was that he needs to demonstrate ​“even more accessibility,” he said during an interview Monday on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. (He brought his electric guitar and offered some sizzling blues leads for the show’s outro, seen in above video.)

Logan said his top priorities this legislative term are to prevent tax increases, restore the state’s ​“fiscal health,” fight for more education dollars for local schools in his district, and fund additional rail cars for the Waterbury-to-Bridgeport line.

Unlike Cabrera, Logan said he does not support a proposed state-run ​“public option” health care plan. He argued that such a plan would create unfair competition for private insurers. The better approach is to push private insurers to do better, he argued. Logan, who serves on the board of Griffin Hospital, also said he favors greater preventive care. ​“The public option,” he argued, ​“is doomed to failure.”

He came out in favor of bail/bond reform so that people don’t end up in pre-trial detention because they’re poor. ​“The details matter” of any eventual bill, but he supports the concept, he said.

Logan also sided in general with the idea that federal immigration authorities should not enter state courthouses to arrest immigrants answering unrelated nonviolent charges. But he disagreed with efforts to prevent local law enforcement from cooperating with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He argued that such noncooperation will lead to federal authorities stepping in to conduct local law enforcement, and ​“the last thing we want in Connecticut is a federal police force.”

He also joined his Republican colleagues at the Capitol in opposing any of the governor’s various toll plans. He supports a Republican alternative plan to take $1.2 billion out of the rainy day fund to pay down state debt, then use the resulting interest savings on transportation improvements.

And Logan dismissed Gov. Ned Lamont’s efforts to rein in state borrowing as a ​“false debt diet” because ​“he’s held [borrowing] hostage to tolls,” referring to the governor’s offer to support increased borrowing in districts of Democrats who support his plan to institute electronic highway tolling for large trucks.

Click on the video to watch the full interview with State Sen. George Logan on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven.”