Mayor Stewart Goes All In With MAGA In Bid For Statewide Office

By John McNamara

Mayor Erin Stewart’s second bid for statewide office formally began on January 28th at an announcement about her exploratory committee. Standing outside her City Hall office with a throng of municipal employees and supporters looking on, the six-term Republican mayor said she needs to raise $350,000 this year to viably contend for either Governor or another constitutional office in 2026.

In 2018 Stewart ran for Governor as a “millennial professional” touting moderation and what pundits called a “crossover” appeal, having won several terms as mayor in Democratic New Britain. She withdrew from that race, short on both delegates and money, and switched to Lt Governor losing to former State Senator Joe Markley (R-Southington), in a three-person primary. Republican nominee Bob Stefanowski, a self-financed one percenter who skipped the nominating convention altogether, went on to lose to Ned Lamont who succeeded two-term Democrat Dannel Malloy with a self-financed campaign of his own.

In all of her successful New Britain campaigns the “millennial” and “moderate” Stewart with a current social media following of 31,000 rarely called herself a Republican within city limits. Her plentiful “Democrats for Stewart” lawn signs in municipal years worked well after her first-scorched earth and dark money campaign against Democrats in the 2013 election. Her socially liberal views and frequent debt refinancings creating short-term tax and budget relief helped win election six times as turnout in city elections steadily declined. Most of that time Stewart has kept her sympathies for Trumpism and a hyper-partisan style of governing in the background, rarely if ever mentioning that she voted for Trump all three times until her rollout of an exploratory committee to kick off the fundraising drive last month.

At her January 28th news conference Stewart let it be known that any post-mayoral, statewide run for office will be different. Her intra-party viability not only depends on raising the money but winning primary votes in a political party consumed by Trump 2.0.

At the start of another Trump term Stewart, “encouraged” by the electorate’s rightward turn, fully embraced President Trump and his MAGA agenda, including executive orders with the ink barely dry on them, just one week into the presidential term.

The timing of the “Erin 26” launch coincided with news of a Trump freeze on all federal grants. The White House backed off temporarily over the “irreparable harm” and the usurping of Congressional authority as the fight moves into federal courts.

Asked how the Trump executive order freezing or potentially delaying millions of federal dollars would impact the city Stewart demurred: “We don’t know that yet so I will move on to the next question.”

Under the executive order Elon Musk’s ad hoc Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seeks to defund federal agencies. The onslaught is not about eliminating waste and fraud as the Trump Administration claims. Based on Trump-Musk public statements alone, the clear intent is to destroy agencies and programs first, diverting trillions to other purposes favored by Trump and Musk that exclude federal resources for health, education, community development and the social safety net. DOGE’s crazed forays to dismantle government functions will ultimately be more costly as states and communities demand funding and programs counted on to balance their budgets and deliver services.

NB POLITICUS

“You want to talk about electing somebody who says we’re going to do something and actually does it,” Stewart said. “We knew what we were getting when he (Trump) won. We know that everything that’s happened in the last week, all the executive orders, we know that that was going to happen because he’s the type of leader who says he’s going to do something and does it. He doesn’t waffle. And I am that same type of leader,”

Stewart would not be showing as much blind allegiance to Donald Trump and his executive orders if she were in a seventh mayoral contest instead of vying for a slot on the Republican ticket next year when many GOP primary voters will make MAGA loyalty the litmus test for their candidates.

She will be touting a mayoral record based in part on the benefits of post-pandemic federal funds that have come into the city in recent years, including $56 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for high profile projects, over $60 million in school aid and millions more in categorical grant programs.

In 2022, Stewart handed the keys to her former campaign office on West Main Street to the Republican National Committee (RNC) for a GOP outreach center to help Congressional Nominee George Logan against Cong. Jahana Hayes (D-5), but she kept her distance at its campaign opening with former RNC Chair and Trump sycophant Ronna McDaniel.

“Not to be seen at the rally, however, were Republican Gubernatorial Nominee Bob Stefanowski and Mayor Stewart, who obligingly cut the ribbon on the RNC Community Center in March but was nowhere near the place this week. Stewart would have had a hard time standing next to McDaniel as McDaniel accused Democrats of not caring about our “families” and “kids”. Her (Stewart’s) administration is using the Biden Administration’s $56 million in local COVID funding as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a law that was enacted without a single Republican vote in the U.S. House. Stewart is announcing initiatives and projects with barely a mention that the money comes from the Democrats’ “Washington priorities” trashed by McDaniel, Logan and Nora Levy (U.S. Senate Nominee) on the campaign trail.” –NB Politicus

To draw a contrast with Democrats and Ned Lamont in 2026, Stewart rushed through a prepared statement citing “over taxation and strangling regulation” by the state and broadly promising “real, tangible results” based on her record as Mayor in Connecticut’s eighth largest city.

“Connecticut will be stronger when we chart a vision for real growth. We have to bring in a new generation of leadership to the hallowed halls of Hartford to make it happen. A new generation of leadership means lowering taxes, cutting the cost of utilities and making Connecticut affordable.”

When a reporter asked what “specifically” she would do differently than Governor Ned Lamont, however, Stewart, a former Republican legislative aide before becoming mayor, struggled for an answer, offhandedly saying “everything” at first and then disparaging Lamont’s credentials compared to hers. “I have a lot of differences with Ned Lamont. I am an administrator here. I have a successful record of running a government, something that he certainly didn’t have.”

Referencing Lamont’s ill-fated highway toll plan in his first year as Governor, Stewart offered that she would be a better listener: “One of the things I would do differently from him is just hear people. Ned has a lot of happy-go-lucky ideas. None of them have worked. Then he got lucky and COVID happened.”

But on the question of the state’s “fiscal guardrails” and surpluses for the “rainy days” that may come with Trump 2.0, Stewart flipped from saying “nobody’s minding the store” in the Lamont Administration to it was “a good decision.”

Erin Stewart is the first candidate out of the starting gate to “explore” a gubernatorial run on the strength of serving six mayoral terms in New Britain before age 40 and being an alternative to the well-heeled GOP nominees (Stefanowski and Foley) of the past who lost. Governor Lamont will decide later in the year whether to go for a third term, a decision awaited by a Democratic bullpen that includes but is not limited to former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin and Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz.

Reaching the $350,000 threshold to qualify for millions in citizen election funds will be the easy part for Team Stewart. Despite asserting loyalty to Donald Trump, Erin Stewart has presumably not dropped her socially liberal views. That will make winning votes in today’s MAGA-dominated Republican Party the bigger hurdle to be on the ballot in November 2026.

John McNamara is an alderman from New Britain’s Ward 4 and the Common Council Majority Leader.