Garrett Crushes Leng In Hamden Primary; Progressive Slate Goes 10 For 10

(Updated) Hamden Democrats voted for change Tuesday night, as Lauren Garrett defeated three-term incumbent Mayor Curt Leng in a Democratic primary by a 2 – 1 margin.

And Garrett had coattails: All nine other candidates running on her Town Committee-endorsed line, including town clerk candidate Karimah Mickens and a host of Legislative Council and Board of Education candidates, won their primaries as well.

According to official final returns, Garrett had 2,962 votes to Leng’s 1,497.

A third candidate, Peter Cyr, collected 853.

Garrett had previously challenged Leng two years ago in a primary, when she lost. That year, and again in this season, she made Leng’s stewardship of town finances and questions of transparency and communication central to the campaign — making the election essentially a referendum on the incumbent.

Tuesday night she defeated Leng soundly in all nine voting districts in town.

The other candidates who won Tuesday’s primary election on Garrett’s slate, in addition to clerk candidate Mickens, included David Asberry, Siobhan Carter-David, Melissa Kaplan, and Mariam Khan for Board of Education; and Dominique Baez, Katie Kiely, Cory O’Brien, Laurie Sweet for council at-large. The team has emphasized more concerted action on the town’s crushing long-term debt, contract reform, racial equity, and police reforms.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us. But we got the biggest hurdle out of the way,” Garrett told spirited supporters and fellow ​“Row A” candidates gathered at her home after the polls closed.

Garrett will now face Republican Ron Gambardella and Independent Party candidate Albert Lotto in the general election on Nov. 2. 

Her victory also reflected the ascension since 2016 of a progressive wing within the town’s Democratic Party, which took control of the town committee this past year.

Leng told the Independent he planned to call Garrett to offer his congratulations. Asked if he will endorse her in the general election, he said he needs to sleep on it.

At a post-election gathering at the MiKro Depot gastropub, Leng thanked his supporters in an 80-second speech for ​“putting up a good fight.” (Watch the speech here.)

“I love all of you,” he said.

He spoke of how this was the ​“first time since 1997 that I lost the home district” in an election. ​“That’s a long time.”

He also recalled advice he received from former Mayor John Carusone about serving as mayor: ​“If everybody’s happy, you’re not doing your job.”

“There’s no mayor who’s gotten to a fourth term, probably for a reason,” Leng reasoned. ​“You don’t make people happy during a pandemic; I’ll tell you that.”

Leng said he felt his fiscal record was misrepresented in the campaign, which he found frustrating. ​“A lot of residents were afraid that we were in a financial spiral, and it’s not true,” he maintained.

“I think the voters just wanted change,” Leng supporter Jim Pascarella said.

At his parents’ house after the polls closed, mayoral candidate Cyr was asked if he will endorse Garrett in the general election. He said he first needs to have a conversation from her and ​“still need[s] some commitments from her first.”

“I wouldn’t have run it any differently,” he said of his campaign, which emphasized bringing a young, fresh face into Town Hall to get the town past a toxic political culture and decades of crushing debt. ​“We did what we could; it just wasn’t our time yet. I’m proud of what we did. We put a lot of really good ideas out there. This is just the start for us.”

Cyr said he has no concrete plans for the future yet, but said he will continue pushing on his main campaign issues beyond the election.

Tuesday’s election capped a busy primary campaign, with 21 candidates seeking offices ranging from mayor and city clerk to seats on the Board of Education and Legislative Council. Twenty of those candidates ran on one of two lines: Row A, for Democratic Town Committee-endorsed candidates, led by mayoral challenger Garrett; and Row B, led by incumbent Mayor Leng. Mayoral candidate Cyr ran on a separate line affiliated with no other candidates.

Republicans and the Independent Party are also fielding candidates for Council and Board of Education seats in the Nov. 2 general election.

Poll Snapshot: Spring Glen, 1 PM

Candidates from all three ballot rows pitched voters at Spring Glen School, District Four’s polling location, at 1 p.m. The location saw some of the town’s highest voter turnout in the 2019 Democratic primary.

Mayoral challenger Peter Cyr stood by his mother, uncle and girlfriend — and Melinda Saller, the candidate for Town Clerk running on a Row B ticket with Incumbent Mayor Curt Leng.

To the right of that group was Brian Murphy, the campaign manager for the Democratic Town Committee’s endorsed candidates on Row A. State Rep. Josh Elliott and BOE candidate Siobhan Carter-David floated by the team’s table as well.

As District Four residents approached their polling location, Saller and Murphy offered sample print-out ballots instructing voters to support Row A or Row B straight across. ​“Vote Row A for change,” Murphy said. ​“Vote Row B, Vote Row B,” Saller followed up.

Sarah Cyr and Peter McGuiness, Peter Cyr’s mother and uncle, handed out literature featuring Cyr’s name and platform. Cyr was the only candidate running alone without a team of candidates running for town clerk or seats on the Board of Education or Legislative Council.

All three campaigns said that they had volunteers working from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at all of Hamden’s nine polling places. Given the number of campaign workers at each station, it was difficult to make last-minute arguments to convince residents to change their minds. Instead, the idea was to promote slates, show candidates’ faces, and thank the voters who did turn out on Tuesday.

Manny Patel came out on Tuesday to vote for ​“anyone but Leng.” He always votes in the presidential election, he said, but rarely participates in local ones. He did not vote two years ago.

“Leng isn’t doing anything for us. He’s taken all of our services away,” said Patel, a civil engineer. He complained about Leng ending bulk-pick up, describing the burden he faces in driving his trash to the local dump. ​“I want him out!” he asserted.

Because he does not usually participate at the local level, Patel was confused about Tuesday’s vote, thinking it to be a general election rather than a Democratic primary. He said he voted for Garrett because he recognized her name and understood her to be Leng’s main challenger. He believed Row A were Republicans and Row B Democrats. So after voting for Garrett, he filled in bubbles for Row B across the rest of the board, he said

Meanwhile, Robert Whitkin had come out specifically to support Leng. ​“I don’t know the others,” he said, referring to the 20 other Democrats running for contested seats. Whitkin, who has lived in Hamden for 16 years, is now retired. ​“I like the people who run and serve to make themselves known not just to those who attend meetings but to everyday folks,” he said.

Leng has been in office for over six years, he noted. He has met him in person during casual encounters at church and elsewhere during that time.

He argued that Leng has been getting a ​“raw deal” during campaign season, and that the other mayoral challengers were looking ​“to pin the blame on somebody.”

“I don’t think he should wear the banner of impoverishing his town,” Whitkin said. ​“That issue has greater roots.”

So, he said, he would support Leng as the most experienced and dedicated candidate, and vote Row B based on an extension of that logic — with one exception. He also voted for Melissa Kaplan, a Row A Board of Education candidate, though he only remembered her as candidate ​“9A” and not her name. He said he had consistently heard great things about her throughout the community, and voted in her favor based on his memory of her collective reputation.

Leigh Cromey chose to vote after finding a flyer from Peter Cyr. ​“He had actual actionable items he wanted to take,” she said. ​“For a while I didn’t think I even had an option in this election.” she said. She said others have told her that Cyr was a ​“throwaway vote,” but ​“I gotta vote my conscience,” she said.

Cromey, who works at the Yale School of Medicine, said her major concern was fiscal mismanagement in town. ​“We need new blood, new eyes would be a good thing,” she said, citing ever rising taxes.

“Time’s up,” she said. ​“He’s been in office too long.”

Both Garrett and Leng, she said, had run negative campaigns. She didn’t want to vote for Garrett, she said, because she had too much public ​“baggage.”

“It gave me pause,” she said. She said she couldn’t trust Garrett’s judgement and sensibilities.

For Cromey, Peter Cyr, who had remained a relatively neutral and stable candidate throughout the election process, was the only sound choice.

As candidates and campaigners offered smiles, thank you’s, and literature to voters quickly passing through, they also lamented the poor turnout of the primary, despite— or because— of the very heated competition over the mayoral office.

“If the people don’t vote, we’ve missed the whole point,” Saller said. She said she was proud of every candidate who participated in the election. ​“It was an unprecedented effort on all parts,” she stated.