Stemerman places third in five-way GOP gubernatorial primary

By Scott Benjamin

WESTPORT -- He was considered, among other things, the analytical candidate.

He had detailed plans for getting concessions from the state employee bargaining units and rebuilding Connecticut’s transportation infrastructure.

The Hartford Courant gave him and effusive endorsement, as did its political columnist Kevin Rennie, a former state legislator, who wrote that he was the smartest candidate he had interviewed in his 16 years at the newspaper.

He enjoyed interacting with reporters and was noted for being prompt, an apparent carryover from his days from working in financial services and then heading his own hedge fund.

He was the best-dressed candidate in the field, often wearing designer suits that fit the role of being a business executive.

He also was noted for his politeness.

During the final weeks of the primary, it appeared that he had posted the most campaign lawn signs.

But David Stemerman, who lives in a Greenwich neighborhood that the Stamford Advocate has reported is the wealthiest in the United States, placed a distant third in the five-candidate field in the Republican gubernatorial primary.

Another first-time candidate, former GE and UBS executive Bob Stefanowski of Madison, easily took the contest with 29.6 percent of the vote. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who has been in office since 2001, placed second at 21.31 percent and Stemerman took third with 18.38 percent.

Former Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst was fourth at 17.56 percent and Westport business executive Steve Obsitnik had 13.38 percent.

A year ago, hardly anyone in Connecticut politics knew Stefanowski or Stemerman.

After giving a brief concession speech Tuesday night at his primary night headquarters at the Westport Inn, Stemerman said in an interview that Stefanowski won because “he ran a campaign that appealed to the prime Republican primary voters that are looking for an outsider businessman to cut taxes and is going to support hard work, which our party stands for.”

Stefanowski held forums and a news conference last December with former University of Southern California economist Art Laffer – who developed the famed supply-side Laffer Curve tax cut – which was the basis for former Republican President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax reform and the package that Republican President Donald Trump signed last December.

Laffer wrote a plan that Stefanowski introduced to eliminate the income tax that former Connecticut third-party Governor Lowell Weicker of Essex signed in 1991.

During his concession speech, Stemerman urged his supporters to work for Stefanowski in the 11 weeks remaining before the November 6 election.

Stefanowski has written two books on acquisitions and mergers, the most recent having been published earlier this year, and has said that during his business career he frequently forged relationships with co-workers and customers. He had noted that he spent little time in his office, and instead devoted many hours to talking with business associates.

Stemerman first indicated that he would run for governor last September and formally launched his campaign in March.

As a largely unknown candidate, should he have entered the contest sooner?

“I think it was the right strategy for us,” he said.

Stemerman said the message he heard from voters throughout Connecticut was that they “are concerned that our taxes are too high. People in Hartford [the General Assembly and the governor] are spending money like it is somebody else’s. They’re worried that our state is going down the drain and there are no job opportunities.”

He said Connecticut is a diverse state and no better example of that occurred last Sunday when he marched in two different parades.

“You could not find two things more diverse” than the parades in Moosup, with a population of 3,321, and Bridgeport, the state’s largest city with a population of 147,000.

“In Moosup, it’s one of the last two VJ Day Parades in the state,” he explained. “The people there are celebrating our success in World War II. People are lined on the streets with the American flag covering every part of their body from their chest to their headbands to the tassels on their boots.”

“You then go to Bridgeport for the Puerto Rican Day Parade, and you have a diverse population,” he continued. “I marched a five-mile route and I think there are more Republicans in this room than there were on that five-mile route.”

When asked if he might run for elected office again, Stemerman said, “We’ll save that for another day.”