Facing low poll ratings and an uphill battle, Newington Mayor Jeff Wright dropped out of the governor’s race early Tuesday afternoon – less than two months after officially announcing for the race.<\/p>\n
Instead, Wright will seek the Republican nomination for state treasurer against longtime Democratic incumbent Denise Nappier of Hartford, who has won three statewide races for treasurer over the past 12 years.<\/p>\n
Wright, 38, made his announcement to reporters at the state Capitol press room, saying his experience as a certified financial planner since 1994 gives him the experience to run the state’s large pension fund and serve as the state’s chief financial officer.<\/p>\n
While serving as the volunteer mayor of Newington since 2007, Wright earns his living by giving financial advice to retirees, small businesses, and working individuals on how to develop their financial plans.<\/p>\n
An outspoken Republican, Wright was encouraged by Republican state party chairman Christopher Healy to run for treasurer. He instantly moved into front-runner status because the only other person to express interest is Andrew White of Ridgefield, a political unknown at the statewide level who does not hold elected office.<\/p>\n
“The constitutional offices are important,” Healy said. “He’s got the background. … I hope he’s nominated.”<\/p>\n
Having Nappier in the treasurer’s office for 12 years is “more than enough,” Healy said.<\/p>\n
Wright was far behind in the polls among Republicans to former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley of Greenwich, who is the GOP frontrunner. Foley is being challenged by Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele of Stamford, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, former U.S. Rep. Larry DeNardis of Hamden, longtime business executive Oz Griebel of Simsbury, and Chester First Selectman Thomas E. Marsh.<\/p>\n
In the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, Foley had 30 percent of those polled, followed far behind by Fedele and Boughton at 4 percent each. The others had even lower percentages. Some insiders believe that the Republicans, based on the votes of nearly 1,500 delegates at the party convention on May 22, could have a three-way primary between Foley, Fedele, and Boughton.<\/p>\n
Wright predicted that Foley, a close friend of former President George W. Bush, will be Connecticut’s next governor.<\/p>\n
“Ambassador Foley seems to be pulling away dramatically,” Wright said. “The rest of the field, we were in the margin of error, essentially. … I think he’d be an excellent governor. I think, at this point, Tom Foley will probably go on to win the party nomination.”<\/p>\n
A commissioner of the Metropolitan District Commission for seven years, Wright abruptly stepped down this year to protest the tenure of Democrat William DiBella, a former state senator and lobbyist who is the controversial chairman of the MDC.<\/p>\n
Wright joins a growing group that has dropped out of the governor’s race for 2010, including Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, former House Speaker James Amann of Milford, and state Sen. Gary LeBeau of East Hartford.<\/p>\n
In one day, Wright turned from being a long-shot for governor to being a politician with a solid chance of being on the statewide ballot this fall.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to be part of the solution, and I wanted to be on the Republican team for this November,” Wright said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Facing low poll ratings and an uphill battle, Newington Mayor Jeff Wright dropped out of the governor’s race early Tuesday afternoon – less than two months after officially announcing for the race. Instead, Wright will seek the Republican nomination for state treasurer against longtime Democratic incumbent Denise Nappier of Hartford, who has won three statewide races […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4001,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-490048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}