A day after filing the necessary paperwork to run again for governor, Ned Lamont has made it official.
Yes, he’s running.
“I love the job,” the governor said yesterday while touring a school in New Britain. “I think we”™re making a difference and I just didn”™t want to get tied down in the politics of it for the next six months so I kept it a little ambiguous.”
“I’m ready to go,” the incumbent said.
The 67-year-old Lamont, who was first elected in 2018, filed the initial required paperwork with the State Elections Enforcement Commission on Monday, which he said “facilitates our getting into a political campaign,” though he fell short of confirming he was running.
Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz has also filed her paperwork and will be Lamont’s running mate.
According to the latest poll of 1,000 residents conducted by Sacred Heart University’s Institute for Public Policy and Civil Engagement between Oct. 14 and Oct. 27, the governor”™s approval rating remained generally high ”“ though not as high as it was in April, when the last SHU poll was conducted.
50.5% of respondents said they approved of how the Greenwich resident is handling his job in October, compared with 55.7% in April. That reflected 30.2% approval among Republicans (13.8% unsure), 42.2% approval among independent voters (28.3% unsure), 44.4% approval among unaffiliated voters (25.9% unsure) and 75.7% approval among Democrats (15.9% unsure).
Republicans considering a run for governor next year include former House Minority Leader Themis Klarides of Derby, who has also filed the required paperwork, and businessman Bob Stefanowski, who lost the 2018 campaign to Lamont by over 44,000 votes.
Connecticut”™s last Republican governor was M. Jodi Rell, who was elevated to the post from lieutenant governor in 2004 when John Rowland resigned in the midst of a corruption investigation which ultimately netted him 10 months in a federal prison. Rell won in her own right in the 2006 campaign but decided not to seek another term in 2010; she was succeeded by former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy (D), who was Lamont”™s immediate predecessor.
