CT gubernatorial candidates make their case ahead of May 16 convention. What to know.

Hartford Courant – Sunday, May 10, 2026
By Christopher Keating

With perceived Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Erin Stewart skipping two consecutive debates, an opponent says that her absence will not help the party defeat two-term Democratic incumbent Gov. Ned Lamont.

State Sen. Ryan Fazio, a Greenwich Republican, made his comments at a second debate that Stewart missed last week in front of a live audience in Berlin.

“Debates are important,” Fazio told the crowd. “It’s not about beating up on each other. … Guess what? If you can’t debate against your Republican competitors, how are you going to stand on a debate stage against Ned Lamont with his millions of dollars, his eight years on the job and convince people that we need a change for the entire state? These debates are important.”

But John Healey, the senior adviser for Stewart, said she was following the advice of the state Republican Party since February to avoid any debates before the convention that will be held Saturday, May 16.

“Frankly, I don’t know of another Republican frontrunner who has been more accessible than Erin,” Healey said. “As you know, with 1,100 delegates as our focus, we can have far more productive Q&A in those intimate settings, on the phones, or one-on-one, than ever could happen in a debate with three candidates. Because of that, every conceivable minute between now and next Friday has been meticulously scheduled. No disrespect is intended to the hosts at all. We are just being consistent with the position we have long communicated.”

With less than one week remaining before the state party conventions, the five major candidates for governor are gearing up their campaigns and reaching out to delegates for important votes. Political insiders expect both Democratic and Republican primaries in August, but the candidates will be decided Saturday if they receive the minimum support of 15% of the delegates.

On the Democratic side, state Rep. Josh Elliott says he will reach the necessary level of 305 delegates out of 2,033 against Lamont. But the more important question is when Elliott might raise enough money to qualify for public financing to run a serious campaign against the well-funded Lamont, a Greenwich multimillionaire who spent more than $25 million of his own money on his last campaign. Elliott says he is “fully confident” that he will qualify for funding because he now needs to raise less than $80,000 to reach the threshold and has until July 17 to raise the money.

On the Republican side, Stewart and Fazio are expected to qualify for the primary, but the wild card is former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, an energetic firebrand who says her two Republican opponents do not have plans that are bold enough to unseat a popular, two-term governor like Lamont. As such, McCaughey said she is a “red-meat Republican” who is calling for bold plans like eliminating the state income tax over the next five to seven years and filing a lawsuit against New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for blocking a natural gas pipeline that could lead to lower electric rates in Connecticut.

With her supporters viewing her as the frontrunner in the delegate count, Stewart has refused to debate her two Republican opponents before the convention at the Mohegan Sun casino. But Fazio and McCaughey went ahead anyway in a live, radio debate on WTIC-AM in Farmington on Thursday that covered a wide range of topics.

On Friday night, the two candidates debated for a second night without Stewart, which prompted the response by Fazio without mentioning Stewart’s name. A cardboard cut-out of Stewart was placed in between where Fazio and McCaughey were standing in front of a live audience in Berlin.

In the radio debate, McCaughey and Fazio tangled over three of the most controversial issues of the just-completed 2026 regular legislative session: homeschooling, vaccines, and gun control. In each case, Democrats who control both chambers of the legislature passed the bills, but Republicans and advocates spoke strongly against all three measures as an intrusion on fundamental rights.

“The last session of the legislature was an all-out assault on our Bill of Rights and our United States Constitution,” McCaughey said, adding that she has written two books on the Constitution. “If you’re worried about government forcing you to vaccinate your children or about government taking away your firearms, or about government preventing you from homeschooling your children, I have your back … And I will litigate against those laws that were just passed. That vaccine law — I’m already shopping to decide which of the great litigation thinktanks on the conservative side … should take that case. That case is a slam-dunk victory for us in the United States Supreme Court.”

McCaughey added, “My children and grandchildren are vaccinated, but that does not mean I believe the government should force someone else to do that in violation of their First Amendment religious freedom.”

Fazio showed his conservative principles during the legislative session on key issues, including being one of only six Republican senators to vote against the $28.6 billion budget that was largely written by Lamont and Democrats who control both chambers.

“I have been willing to stand up and say ‘no’ to the overreaches and abuses at every turn of this governor and this supermajority in this state legislature,” Fazio said. “I spent hours and hours. I was there till 4 a.m. with the homeschool and private school families saying ‘no’ to the elimination of their parental rights. I was the very first or second one to testify against the medical mandate bill, taking away people’s medical freedoms in this state. … In my book, freedom is not a problem. Freedom is guaranteed by God, and it’s government’s job to defend it.”

Citing his political victories, Fazio said that Republicans can hold conservative principles and still win elections. He noted that Kamala Harris won his senatorial district in Greenwich, Stamford, and New Canaan in the 2024 presidential election by 17 percentage points, but Fazio still won his race. Harris won the state that year by 13 percentage points.

While the Greenwich-based 36th senatorial district was a hardcore Republican stronghold for decades, Fazio says it is now a blue district based on the presidential results.

“This is not about winning one election. This is about winning the future of our state,” Fazio said. “I’ve won the toughest races of any Republican in the state.”

Eliminating state income tax

While Republican candidates have been talking for decades about eliminating the state income tax, it has never happened. Some governors gave up trying and instead raised the income tax.

The tax started in 1991 with a maximum rate of 4.5%, and many workers paid far less because the lower rates were baked into the tax tables. Today, the highest rate is 6.99% for the wealthiest residents, and they pay that level on their entire income, rather than a blended rate that other taxpayers pay.

But McCaughey, who lives in Greenwich’s famed “backcountry” near some of the nation’s wealthiest residents, says the tax can be eliminated in five to seven years.

“It’s clearly very possible,” McCaughey said. “Eight states have no income tax.”

Besides the states that have eliminated the tax, such as Florida, she said that 18 other Republican states are heading in that direction. She wants to follow the lead of the Florida governor who ran unsuccessfully in 2024 for president.

“Those states are cleaning Lefty Lamont’s clock,” she said. “We must eliminate the income tax. … Connecticut can be Florida without the palm trees. I am running to be your Ron DeSantis.”

Fazio countered by promising to make the deepest cut in the state income tax in Connecticut history, which would be done by cutting $1 billion in spending on a variety of programs including Medicaid spending for illegal immigrants.

“We should reduce the rate of government spending across the board,” Fazio said. “I’ll get it done.”

But McCaughey dismissed Fazio’s current plan to cut taxes by $1,500 per family as small potatoes.

“To me, this is baby steps,” McCaughey said. “If we’re going to turn Connecticut around and create a comeback, a Connecticut comeback, we need to go bold. A $1,500 tax cut will not attract companies back to Connecticut. It may be nice to have the extra money in your pocket, but it will not produce higher wage jobs. It will not produce business startups. It will not produce a boom in Connecticut.”

Electricity prices

Electricity has been Fazio’s signature issue as he has led the Republican charge in the legislature to eliminate the unpopular public benefits charge on ratepayers’ bills.

Fazio said flatly that Republicans need a candidate like him who “knows these issues better than the governor does” and would be happy to debate Lamont on stage.

Recently, Democrats announced that customer bills could come down as much as $30 per month for Eversource customers who use the average of 700 kilowatt hours per month. The reason is the back-and-forth swing from contracts with the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford. Based on the price of natural gas, customers can get hit hard with the public benefits charge — as they have in the past — or they can receive a credit on their bills. The credit will allow the price cuts that ratepayers will be seeing in their bills, but Fazio says it did not represent a fundamental change in the issue.

“Fake news,” Fazio said. “Everybody knows it in their hearts.”

Connecticut, Fazio said, ranks near the highest electricity rates in the nation with “Hawaii, which is detached from the mainland, and California, which is detached from reality.”

But McCaughey did not surrender any ground to Fazio, who is seen at the Capitol as the leading Republican voice on electricity.

“I can cut the rates more. I have a bolder plan,” McCaughey said. “It takes the guts to go to court and be the plaintiff.”

That plan was unveiled when McCaughey filed her own lawsuit against New York state, saying that she has legal standing as a Greenwich resident who is paying for natural gas. The lawsuit, filed by McCaughey’s husband, states that New York’s “refusal to allow construction of the pipeline has inflicted economic injury and harm” on McCaughey, who “has been compelled to pay higher rates for the use of natural gas and the electricity generated by natural gas.”

Both Fazio and McCaughey note that New York regulators have approved pipeline plans for their own state but have blocked plans that would help Connecticut. Lamont, who is not a fan of lawsuits, says that he would rather seek negotiations instead of taking legal action against Hochul, a fellow Democrat.

Rather than filing a lawsuit, Lamont says the best move is to move forward with nuclear power and renewable energy like the windmills that have been constructed off the shores of Connecticut and Rhode Island to produce electricity.

Based on Lamont’s strong support for wind power, McCaughey derides him as “Windbag Lamont.”

New Britain tax collector

One of the key issues in the campaign is the ongoing investigation into the ousted tax collector of New Britain Cheryl Blogoslawski, who served for 12 years when Stewart was mayor. Blogoslawski was fired by the new Democratic mayor after accusations that she had allowed taxpayers to back-date their late payments in order to avoid the state-mandated, 18% annual interest on overdue taxes. New Britain Democrats released a scathing report by a law firm that charged a pattern of misconduct and favoritism by the tax collector in a case that has been referred to prosecutors.

Fazio has called for transparency and released a series of 11 questions related to the issue that included Stewart’s comments that she was offered bribes “all the time” during her tenure. Stewart later told The Courant and other news outlets that she was talking about low-income residents of New Britain who were hoping to somehow lower their taxes.

“We’re not talking about quid pro quo stuff,” Stewart told The Courant in an interview. “We’re not talking about these big developers who are coming in and offering me tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for something else. We’re talking about the tax collector situation and negotiating tax payments, which was part of this report.”

As they look ahead to an August primary, Democrats will be debating over the issues of the just-completed legislative session.

Lamont summoned reporters to his Capitol office after the session ended last week to talk about the highlights of the past three months. His campaign sent out a detailed, multi-page summary of the session’s accomplishments, including providing millions in additional education funding, $100 million in extra aid for cities and towns, $300 million for the early childhood endowment fund for day care, free breakfast for all school students across the state, regulating artificial intelligence, 4.5% pay raises for many state employees, and banning the sale of new pistols that can be converted to fire like machine guns.

While mayors, first selectmen, superintendents and teachers have consistently complained about funding, Lamont released statistics showing that the state will provide $2.63 billion in the 2027 fiscal year for the all-important educational cost-sharing funds for the public schools. That represents an increase of 31% since Lamont took office. The overall aid to municipalities, including education and all other categories, will be $5.1 billion in the 2027 fiscal year, up 47% since Lamont took office.

While Lamont and his supporters hailed the accomplishments, Elliott said they did not go far enough.

“The most important things we could do — sending significant money back to municipalities, investing in k-12 and higher education, creating a permanent and fully refundable child tax credit, making all school meals free, working on health insurance affordability — these were all things we couldn’t get past the governor,” Elliott said. “He is hands down the most significant player in the fight for an affordable Connecticut — and he consistently comes up woefully short. The legislature pushed as hard as we could to get our wins, but they are always hampered by a governor who is most concerned with protecting his class.”

With millions of dollars expected to be spent on the primaries, the voters will get the final word on Aug. 11.

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