by Laura Glesby
Elliott backer Sandra McKinnie: Connecticut’s future supports single mothers.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Elliott was speaking to a tightly packed cafe about regressive taxation on Thursday when Sandra McKinnie grabbed a red sharpie from the table in front of her.
On a sheet bearing Elliott’s new campaign slogan, “Build the Future,” McKinnie wrote “SINGLE MOTHERS!” in all capital letters.
She was one of well over 50 people overflowing from Manjares cafe in Westville on Thursday evening.
There, Elliott held the first in a series of campaign gatherings in 13 municipalities across the next seven days, which he’s calling his “Build the Future Tour.”
Elliott, a five-term state representative and deputy speaker from Hamden, is challenging incumbent Gov. Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary on Aug. 11. Elliott secured ballot access in May after winning the support of more than 25 percent of delegates at the state party’s convention. Elliott also said earlier this month that his campaign has raised enough money to qualify for public financing.
The winner of the Aug. 11 Democratic primary will face Republican candidate Ryan Fazio, a Greenwich state senator, in the November general election.
Elliott has built his campaign around raising taxes on the wealthy, tackling energy monopolies, increasing school funding, and transitioning to single-payer healthcare, among other priorities.
Mid-speech at Manjares, Elliott noticed McKinnie’s sign and decided to take an elocutionary detour.
“I was raised by a single mother,” he said.
“Tell it, Josh!” McKinnie called out.
“The fact is that our society makes it as hard as we possibly can for you,” Elliott said. Single parents struggle “to afford the transportation, to afford the childcare, to afford the health insurance, to afford the housing, all of these things. The government makes it harder and harder and harder,” he said. “I am guessing you are doing a phenomenal job in the face of incredible difficulty.”
“My mother, in her early 20s, lived in a trailer park,” Elliott continued. “What she had was the ability to fall back when things weren’t going the way that she wanted them to in her mid-20s. And by her early 40s, because she’s a hippie and she doesn’t really know it—”
“Yay Woodstock!” McKinnie called out.
“— she started a little grocery store. And it ended up doing very well,” Elliott said.
The candidate said he envisions a society in which more people can have the “backup” and economic stability to make it past similar hard times.
He also called out Lamont’s recent positioning of himself as a progressive politician.
“We all see the way that the governor’s co-opting our message after holding it back for the last 8 years. Thinking that he can fool the public into thinking he’s something that he simply is not,” Elliott said.
Hamden DTC Vice Chair Sana Shah (center) among Elliott supporters at Manjares.
Among the people listening were former Hamden Mayor Lauren Garrett and Hamden Democratic Town Committee Vice Chair Sana Shah, both proudly wearing “Josh for CT” t-shirts.
Meanwhile, in lieu of an official campaign shirt, fellow campaign volunteer Tina Duryea wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “Preachy, nasty, bossy, bitchy, emotional, female, ambitious, angry, aggressive, feminist, woman voter.”
Duryea said she was inspired by Elliott’s stance on regulating Eversource and promoting publicly owned utility systems — along with more broadly “having a governor who is not impeding us for the most progressive things.”
Another volunteer, West Rock resident David Taylor Coffey, said he got on board with the campaign as a result of Elliott’s “affordability” policies, including a priority of “investing in adequate healthcare for all.”
“Mystic activist” Norma Pezzini attests to Elliott’s “good heart.”
Hamden resident Norma Pezzini praised Elliott’s advocacy for the rights of incarcerated people, particularly his successful push to end prison phone call charges.
A self-described “mystic activist,” Pezzini identifies as someone particularly attuned to “body language” and to “what people are doing psychologically.”
She believes that “Josh is a real gem, and he has great ideas, and he has good heart,” she said.
Meanwhile, some attendees — like Westville Alder Adam Marchand and state representative candidate Justin Farmer — came without committing to an endorsement.
Farmer was there “to see if people are serious about caring about Black people,” he said wryly. He’s interested in candidates who will “meet the moment” by building a movement beyond their own candidacy. “I think we have enough of the same archetypes of people,” he said.
With virtually no room left inside, Elliott supporters spilled out onto the sidewalk, listening in through the door.
McKinnie, for her part, had met Elliott before, through an early campaign meet-and-greet with a professor at the Yale Access to Law program she has attended.
At the event, Elliott had spoken about his mother — and his words resonated with McKinnie. “He’s an example of exactly what support around a single mother can be,” she said. “Clearly, she did well, didn’t she?”
She explained after the event that her top priority as a voter is that whoever the governor is, “I need them to pay attention to the single mothers.”
McKinnie herself has raised her daughter as a single mom. She’s proud of her daughter, who’s now 29. But she remembers the economic and emotional stress of raising a child without the support of a partner, even while co-parenting with her ex. There’s a lot to be afraid of as a parent, especially “working two jobs, struggling,” she said. Parents fear that their kids will be “shot” — or “they could be on opioids.”
“I’m tired of seeing these mothers bury their kids,” McKinnie said.
She echoed Pezzini’s support for Elliott’s track record on advocating for incarcerated people.
And, like Pezzini, there was something else about the candidate that convinced her to support him — something she felt in her gut.
“I need real in my life,” McKinnie said. “I know that Josh is real. He’s real. He’s tangible. I can touch him. I can feel him. I can talk to him. You know?”