Malloy beats Lamont in Democratic gubernatorial primary

Hartford -- First Dan Malloy looked like he'd barely be an also-ran. Then he trailed badly. Then it was supposed to be a dead heat.

On Tuesday, it wasn't even close: the former Stamford mayor trounced his rival, the entrepreneur Ned Lamont, 58 percent to 42 percent to win the Democratic nomination for governor.

After a spirited primary battle that had turned sharply negative in the closing days, Lamont and Malloy appeared to be headed for a dead heat as the polls opened Tuesday morning, with both sides expecting a contest to turn on get-out-the-vote operations.

But it ended quickly, and early, when Lamont called to concede around 9:20 p.m., after returns from cities and towns along the shoreline showed Malloy winning many towns outright, and holding Lamont roughly even in the large, Democratic cities he had hoped to win handily, including Bridgeport and New Haven.

By 9:53 p.m., Lamont's televised concession speech was being drowned out in the back room of City Steam in Hartford, as a victorious Malloy and his running mate, Comptroller Nancy Wyman, entered to cheers.

"If we'd known it was going to turn out this way," Malloy declared, "we would have gotten a bigger room." Malloy pledged to his supporters that he would unify the party -- a promise Lamont, with running mate Mary Glassman, also made -- while also declaring that he had broken new ground, becoming the first candidate to win a gubernatorial nomination under Connecticut's historic and troubled public financing program for political campaigns.

Afterward, pressed on how he had managed to defuse Lamont's advantage in major cities, where Lamont had won key endorsements from mayors and town committees, Malloy said he had expected to contend, in part because of stronger union backing.
"Suffice it to say that this is a bigger night than I anticipated," Malloy said.

With 73 percent of precincts reporting, Malloy had overwhelmed Lamont, 58 percent to 42 percent, a margin of 21,000 votes.

Lamont pledged to support Malloy, and called for a no-nonsense approach to the state's projected $3.5 billion budget deficit.

"The way you win and the way Dan's going to win is by telling the truth," he said.