Elicker Files For Reelection, Raises $97K

by Thomas Breen

Mayor Justin Elicker quietly filed for reelection in April — and has already raised more than $97,000 towards a 2027 mayoral run.

Elicker is currently six months in to his fourth two-year term as the city’s top elected official.

He filed on April 1 to run as a Democrat in New Haven’s 2027 mayoral election. Thanks to 2023’s charter revision, whoever wins that race will become the first New Haven mayor to serve a four-year term. (Next year’s municipal election cycle will also see alders run for four-year instead of two-year terms.)

Meanwhile, on Friday, Elicker’s mayoral reelection campaign filed its first campaign finance report — indicating that he raised $97,165 in individual contributions and spent $5,006.95 between April 1 and June 30.

Click here to read Elicker’s Q2 campaign finance report.

In a phone interview Friday, Elicker said he is “excited to continue the work.” He said he “wanted to make sure that I startted the campaign work early, as I’ve learned very well over a number of campaigns, it takes a lot of hard work and time.”

Asked how much the switch to four-year terms influenced his decision to start raising money so early — less than six months into his current term, and more than a year and a half before the November 2027 general election — Elicker said that that term-length change was not top of mind. He stressed that he has “learned over the last few elections that campaigns often take a lot of time away from running a city. Spreading out the work of the campaign over a longer period of time helps me concentrate more on the work of being mayor.”

In Friday’s phone call and in a campaign email sent out Friday afternoon, Elicker pointed to his administration’s accomplishments fostering the construction of lots of new housing, reducing violence and crime overall, expanding COMPASS, and investing in youth and education.

Asked about how a federal jury recently handed down a $38 million wrongful-conviction verdict against the city in a civil rights trial that is likely the first among several to come that is focused on New Haven police misconduct from the early 1990s, Elicker said, “we’ve inherited a lot of challenges from the past. We confront each challenge with a thoughtful response, to make sure we’re fulfilling our values and to make sure the city does the right thing and has a solid financial footing.”

Elicker will once again participate in the city’s public-financing Democracy Fund, per a form that his campaign submitted to this week.

Elicker has participated in the Democracy Fund each time he’s run for mayor — in 2013, 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2025. That voluntary, clean-elections program requires mayoral candidates to cap individual contributions at $400 apiece in exchange for a public grant and matching dollars.

Thirty of the individual contributions that Elicker’s reelection campaign received last quarter were made on April 13, and 16 were made on April 14.

Donors who gave the Democracy Fund maximum amount of $400 apiece include Elm Advisors consultant David Newton, Billion Oyster Project fundraiser Matthew Halken, former city Corporation Counsel Pat King, lawyer Thomas Gerarde, lobbyist Paul Nunez, Biohaven CEO Vlad Coric, lawyer Andrwe Crumbie, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center CEO Michael Taylor, Fair Haven Community Health Care CEO Suzanne Lagarde, lawyer Ben Trachten, developer Alex Twining, developer Yves Joseph, landlord Menahem Edelkopf, retired former city economic development chief Sal Brancati, construction contractor Alexander Babbidge, former Yale President Peter Salovey, and recently ousted Yale New Haven Health CEO Chris O’Connor.

Elicker said that his campaign has held one small event so far. Mostly he has fundraised by making phone calls.

Asked to comment on Elicker’s early reelection filing and fundraising push, New Haven Democratic Town Committee Chair Vincent Mauro said, “[With] the potential for a four-year term, the mayor wanted to establish the fact that he was running. I think it was a good thing to go and raise the early funds.” He said that $97,000 is a “significant” amount. “He should be proud to raise that in a short amount of time.”