nothin Get Ready For 2 Mayoral Elections This Year | New Haven Independent

Get Ready For 2 Mayoral Elections This Year

Three more Democratic mayoral candidates are leaving open the option to run as independents in the general election if they lose their party’s primary.

Seven Democrats are running for the nomination for mayor in a Sept. 10 party primary, seeking to replacing retiring two-decade incumbent Mayor John DeStefano.

One of those candidates, Justin Elicker, had already announced at the outset of the campaign that he plans to gather signatures and run as an independent on Nov. 5 if he loses the primary.

In recent days, fellow Democratic candidates Matthew Nemerson, Kermit Carolina, and Henry Fernandez all said they’re keeping that option open, too. They all said they haven’t made a decision yet, emphasizing they’re focused on the primary. They have to make that decision by Aug. 7, before the Sept. 10 Democratic primary, in order to collect signatures on petitions to appear on the November ballot on an independent line. (Other independent candidacies are expected, including one by firefighter Sal Six Guns” Consiglio.)

Nemerson cited the endorsement Sunday of Democratic candidate Toni Harp’s campaign by 18 Democratic aldermen as one reason that independent candidacies for non-endorsed Democrats are an inevitability.” Fifteen of those aldermen are backed by the most organized vote-pulling organization in town, which is affiliated with Yale’s UNITE HERE Locals 34 and 35 unions. Those unions are also expected to endorse Harp’s candidacy in what one opponent — Carolina—has called a sham” process. (The union’s executive board interviewed four candidates and plans to issue an endorsement in coming weeks.)

The Democratic establishment is preempting the primary and the nomination. It doesn’t surprise me that people want to take it to the people in the general election,” Nemerson said. He noted that in some other cities Democrats candidates already run twice, often in non-partisan elections, including in a run-off election between the two top vote-getters in an initial primary.

New Haven has not elected a non-Democrat to the mayor’s office since 1951. But the city’s number of unaffiliated registered voters has been growing for years, making independents an increasing potential force in elections. As of the most recent count, the city had 48,887 registered Democrats, 18,700 unaffiliateds, 2,627 Republicans, and 494 members of minor parties.

Democratic candidates Harp and Holder-Winfield said they will abide by the results of the primary and not run in the general election.

I’m a Democrat. If I don’t win [the primary], I will continue serving” as a state senator, Harp said Sunday.

Holder-Winfield in March issued a pledge” that he dared his opponents to sign, that they would compete for the primary and abide by its result, because the voters of this city deserve an honest race of ideas and a candidate with the integrity to abide by their decision.” (Click on the play arrow to watch him discuss the pledge, which also covered participating in the public-financing Democracy Fund.)

On Tuesday, Holder-Winfield bypassed the leadership of Yale unions Local 34 and 35 of UNITE HERE and wrote an open letter directly appealing to rank-and-file union members for their vote.

Click here to read his letter.

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