Amber Webster spent last year helping get presidential nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s name onto Connecticut’s ballot. Now, as municipal election day nears, she’s working to get Republican Steve Orosco into City Hall as New Haven’s next mayor.
Webster, 32, met Orosco through social media in 2021. She now works as the campaign manager for Orosco’s bid to unseat three-term incumbent Democrat Justin Elicker in next Tuesday’s mayoral election.
“Steve’s always been a big supporter of medical freedom,” Webster said in an interview with the Independent, characterizing “medical freedom” as the right for people to make their own healthcare decision free from government interference. The movement has largely been associated with vaccine skepticism.
“I’m a MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] mom, and Steve has always been a supporter of that,” she said. Webster has two sons, ages 2 and 4. Webster joked, “Steve’s a little MAHA himself!” in reference to Orosco’s history as a mixed martial arts fighter and his support for the “one meal a day” lifestyle.
Webster lives in Colchester, where she’s also managing her own campaign, for the town’s Board of Finance as a Republican. “Mine is a lot smaller scale,” she said of her campaign, compared to Orosco’s. “Thankfully.”
Managing the two campaigns — Orosco’s and her own — is currently Webster’s full-time job. She also has experience working in healthcare revenue management and as a branch operations assistant at a bank.
While working for Kennedy’s 2024 presidential campaign, Webster helped secure 17,000 petition signatures in order for Kennedy to be on Connecticut’s general election ballot as an independent. “It was a great grassroots campaign of people not loyal to either party and wanting to see change in DC,” she said. Orosco himself signed the petition. (Kennedy wound up dropping out of the race and endorsing Republican candidate Donald Trump. He now serves as the Trump administration’s health secretary.)
“I myself was a Democrat at one point and walked away from the party,” Webster said, before becoming a registered Republican. “Steve and I can appreciate the need for a third party.” She noted Orosco’s endorsement by a new local chapter of the state’s Independent Party.
She said that she wanted to become involved with Orosco’s campaign because “Colchester is doing alright,” she said, “but New Haven needs help.” She cited “crime, cost of living, bad education” as three issues impacting New Haveners.
Webster said that through canvassing New Haven voters, she has been struck by “seeing how many people want change.”
Campaign t-shirts, courtesy of Merica Merch. Credit: Contributed photo
“It’s so heartwarming to see people coming together,” she said, from the Hill to Westville to East Rock. She said she admires New Haven’s diversity. “That’s what everyone wants, just make it a little safer” by minimizing homelessness and getting “drugs off the streets.”
Of the $14,729.96 that Orosco’s campaign spent from July 1 to Sept. 30, $3,500 went to Webster’s wages for her work (and $3,000 to campaign strategist Jason Bartlett). The campaign also paid $160 to Plantsville merchandise store Merica Merch for custom T-shirts, which the campaign gave away.
This weekend, the last before election day, Webster said that Orosco will be canvassing outside of Southern Connecticut State University, which is serving as one of the city’s two early voting locations. Other Orosco campaign volunteers will be making calls to voters and distributing campaign materials — possibly focusing on Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights. “We have a lot of literature we want to drop,” Webster said.
Elicker’s campaign manager, meanwhile, is Remus Sottile. Sottile, the only paid staffer working for the campaign, has held the position since September.
In an interview on Thursday, Elicker said Sottile has worked on a number of campaigns, including a congressional and a mayoral campaign. To find him, Elicker said that he put out an ad for a campaign manager and interviewed applicants. “Remus came out on top,” he said.
Elicker’s third-quarter campaign finance reports do not show any payments to Sottile. Instead, they show that he paid nearly $17,000 to consultants, including to the Manchester-based Blue Edge Strategies and former city spokesperson and 2013 Elicker campaign manager Kyle Buda.