CT Governor 2022 Race: Lamont, Stefanowski Hotaling

CONNECTICUT — Three candidates are vying to become Connecticut’s next governor.

Gov. Ned Lamont is seeking a second term, and holds a commanding lead in recent polls to Republican Bob Stefanowski. The two faced off in 2018 and Lamont won by about 44,400 votes. The third candidate in the race is Rob Hotaling, who won the Independent Party nomination over Stefanowski.

Ned Lamont

Lamont was elected governor in 2018. Prior to that, he ran for U.S. Senate in 2006 and beat Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary, but lost in the general election.

Lamont’s business background is in the telecom industry, where he started his own company. He married to Annie Lamont, who is a co-founder of a venture capital firm. They have three children together.

A large chunk of Lamont’s first term was focused on the COVID-19 pandemic response, but he also signed several important bills into law. Adult recreational cannabis use became legal last year. Sports betting and online gambling were also legalized under his tenure.

He also signed the state’s police accountability bill into law during 2020. Another bill established a debt-free community college program for Connecticut high school graduates.

Lamont pushed for highway tolls early in his tenure as governor, but couldn’t get enough legislative support for the initiative. Legislators passed a highway usage tax on large commercial trucks last year.

He also made updates to the Department of Motor Vehicles, including online driver’s license renewals and other basis tasks.

Connecticut has benefited from strong revenue during most of Lamont’s tenure. The state’s 2017 bipartisan budget set up a volatility cap, which places excess funding into the state’s rainy day fund when business is booming and the stock market soars. Money is transferred to the state’s pension fund when the rainy day fund reaches capacity.

Lamont has touted recent tax cuts and rebates, including the child tax rebate, child care worker bonus, and the cap on motor vehicle taxes. The state property tax credit was also increased from $200 to $300 and will cover more people. The state also suspended its gas tax through the beginning of December.

Lamont’s most consequential decisions as governor came during the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools, gyms, movie theaters, indoor dining and many other in-person businesses were closed down by executive order in the early months of the pandemic as hospitals were quickly filling up with patients.

The state started reopening in late May 2020 with the return of outdoor dining, retail and office spaces. June brought more reopenings, including indoor entertainment and limited-capacity indoor restaurant service.

In-person school classes resumed for the 2020-2021 school year. Students and teachers were required to wear face masks and cohorting was encouraged. Many schools operated on a hybrid basis and eventually switched to full in-person classes. The 2021-2022 school year returned for in-person and the mask mandate was made optional around March 1.

Lamont’s administration also had wide latitude in designating COVID-19 vaccinations when supplies were limited.

The first COVID-19 vaccines arrived in December 2020 and were designed for healthcare personnel, long-term care residents and medical first responders. The state then rolled out vaccines mostly on an age-basis, going from the oldest to youngest eligible residents. Residents and staff of certain congregate settings and PreK-12 teachers and staff were also given priority regardless of age.

Lamont maintained that the age-based system was less complicated than other nearby states and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which were based on type of employment and other factors.

Bob Stefanowski

Stefanowski grew up in New Haven and later North Haven before going to college. He is a certified public accountant and financial analyst and holds a masters in business administration from Cornell University. Previously, was an executive at several large companies, including General Electric.

Stefanowski is married to Amy Stefanowski, who has a background in business auditing and owns her own home remodeling and staging company.

He helped secure more than 1.6 million masks during the early days of the pandemic.

Stefanowski has criticized Lamont holding on to so much of the state’s rainy day fund, and said more money should be used to help residents through inflation.

As governor, Stefanowski would stop collecting the bottom 200 taxes, which generate about 0.22 percent of state revenue. He also wants to cut the state sales tax, gross receipts gas tax and eliminate the meal surcharge tax that was implemented under Lamont. Stefanowski also wants a full audit of state government and quasi-government agencies.

His CT First plan calls for $875 million in tax cuts, including suspending all fuel taxes through the end of 2023.

Stefanowski promised to repeal parts of the police accountability bill that passed in 2020. He rhetorically asked during a debate whether anyone listening felt safer now than they did four years ago, despite a recent drop in the official reported crime rate.

He also proposed a “parental bill of rights” that would expand school choice, leave sex education decisions up to parents and prohibit transgender athletes from competing in female competitions.

On housing, Stefanowski is critical of the state’s 8-30g law and has said the state should partner with municipalities to buy abandoned buildings and build affordable housing.

He is supportive of Connecticut’s abortion laws and said he would protect a women’s right to choose as governor.

Rob Hotaling

Rob Hotaling is the Independent Party nominee for governor. He is a senior vice president at Webster bank and has worked in several different business industries. Hotaling was the founder and CEO of Verbi, a mobile automated gunshot and explosion and detection platform. He lives in Cheshire with his wife, Luz, and their four young children.

Hotaling casts himself as the only candidate who can work across the aisle and work on the best ideas, instead of being tied to party ideology.

Some of his priorities include restructuring the state’s education cost sharing formula to be based on class size and student-teacher ratio, not income and property taxes. He also wants to expand community health center access and offer a public health care option for seniors who have lived or worked in the state for at least 10 years.

The state’s labor shortage also has to be better addressed with expanded programs for retraining, retaining and recruiting, Hotaling said.

“I fight for economic empowerment, affordability, civil and voting rights protection, ranked choice voting and open primaries, ballot access, combating gun violence, closing the achievement gap and financial literacy,” Hotaling said. “I value civility, accountability, and transparency.”