CT gets first side-by-side look at Lamont and Fazio in TV debate

Republican Ryan Fazio worked aggressively Thursday night in his first televised debate with Gov. Ned Lamont to reframe the gubernatorial election, urging voters to disregard the daily distractions of a unpopular president and focus on the governor’s responsibility for the high cost of living in Connecticut.

Fazio, 36, a state senator from Greenwich, arrived at the studio of WFSB in Rocky Hill needing to enliven a static campaign that polling indicates has coalesced in favor of the 72-year-old Lamont, a Democrat seeking a third term that would make him Connecticut’s longest-serving governor since statehood.

From his opening statement, Fazio was the aggressor.

“Tonight, all across Connecticut, families are struggling,” Fazio said. “They’re suffering under the weight of the fourth-highest energy bills, the third-highest taxes and the highest unemployment rate in the entire country. Gov. Lamont had eight years to fix it. Instead, he broke his promises and made every single one of those problems worse. He raised your taxes by $3 billion.”

Fazio used the one-minute opening to try to inoculate himself against the certainty of the governor leaning into public opinion that President Donald Trump’s war on Iran and tariffs have had a far bigger impact on inflation than any governor.

“Now tonight, you can expect Gov. Lamont to blame those failures on Washington, D.C.,” Fazio said. “But leadership is about taking accountability. I’ve been willing to criticize the Trump administration when I disagree, just like Democrats in Hartford, and I’ll lead in the exact same way, as an independent voice and a bipartisan leader.”

Lamont cast his eight-year record against Connecticut’s lost decade after the Great Recession of 2008, the start of a chronic fiscal crisis.

“Connecticut, we’ve been through a lot,” Lamont said. “You know, eight years ago, came into office, inherited $2 billion budget deficits as far as the eye could see. Then we ran into COVID. Now we have Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran driving up the cost for everybody. But I hope you believe that we’ve made progress over the last eight years.”

Fiscal stability and the opportunity he says it brings is Lamont’s central brand.

“Eight balanced budgets in a row,” Lamont said. “We’ve gone from one of the slowest-growing economies in the country to one of the fastest-growing economies. You know what that means? That means jobs and opportunity.”

Political commercials, including some paid by Lamont and Fazio, bookended the one-hour debate and filled the single commercial break. A second and final debate will be aired live at 7 p.m. Tuesday on WTNH, Channel 8.

The first debate, sponsored by WFSB and CT Insider, came after four days of early voting. As of Wednesday night, 140,830 votes already had been cast by absentee ballot or in early voting that began Monday, the secretary of the state’s office reported Thursday.

Fazio was an assured television presence, finding an easy cadence and command of facts as he looked into the camera and worked to undo Lamont’s assessment that Connecticut has turned a corner on economic stability. Lamont complimented his challenger after the debate — with a significant proviso.

“I thought it was pretty civil, but his numbers do not add up. He says it with a great deal of authority, but the numbers are going to get us in the exact same mess I inherited back in 2018,” Lamont said. “That’s why the state Senate never could come up with a budget.”

He actually was referring to the Senate GOP minority. Unlike the House GOP minority, Senate Republicans did not offer alternatives to the budget negotiated by Lamont and the Democratic majority.

Viewers could be confused listening to Lamont outline his record cut to the state income tax, worth about $660 million annually, and Fazio insisting it was more than offset by other increases. Fazio’s claim of $3 billion in tax increases is a cumulative figure, not an annual boost.

Once the pluses and minuses are tallied, Connecticut is collecting an average of $412 million more annually over Lamont’s eight years, Fazio says. 

His accounting includes the $500 million collected yearly through a 0.5% tax on payroll that pays for benefits created by the passage in 2019 of a law creating a Paid Family and Medical Leave program, a benefit that taxpayers have accessed since 2022. 

Lamont’s first budget in 2019 also delayed or canceled roughly $650 million in previously approved tax cuts that had not yet taken effect. Most of that suspended relief was headed to hospitals, but retired teachers, property taxpayers without dependents and college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering or math also came up short.

Lamont doesn’t count those as tax hikes. Many Republicans do.

“Maybe he wants to get rid of Paid Family and Medical Leave. If he wants to do that, he ought to say so,” Lamont said after the debate. “We set up an insurance program. It’s incredibly popular. It’s solvent, and if your child gets very sick, you can take some time off, be with your child and still be able to put food on the table. That’s what it’s all about.”

Fazio said he would reduce the payroll tax that he says has produced a surplus for the program.

On Trump’s war against Iran and the resulting jump in gasoline prices, Fazio put himself on the side of consumers, proposing a gas tax holiday — and complimenting Lamont’s anti-war run for the U.S. Senate in 2006.

“I oppose the war in Iran. I’ve said it repeatedly. I’m more of a non-interventionist,” Fazio said. “I actually respected 2006 when Ned Lamont ran for the Senate in opposition to the Iraq war. I think he was right at the time.”

Fazio said the state can afford a gas tax holiday, given that the revenues go to a special transportation fund that is running a surplus. The 25-cents-per-gallon retail tax on regular gasoline and the 49.9 cents-per-gallon levy placed on diesel fuel generate about $42 million and $12 million, respectively, each month.

“Why haven’t you supported a gas tax holiday?” Fazio said, turning the governor.

Lamont, who favored a holiday four years ago, said Fazio is opting for an easy gesture.

“When the price of gasoline goes up $1.75 a gallon, that’s costing our families say $20 a week. I appreciate, ‘Twenty-five cents, we’ll figure out how to pay for it later.’ That’s just the type of political thinking that got this state into trouble,” Lamont said

A question on ICE and Trump’s immigration crackdown prompted Fazio to talk about public safety and border security and pivot to affordability.

“We need common sense. I love legal immigration and our legal immigrants in this state, and we have to support them and make the state affordable for them,” Fazio said.

“You may love them, but ICE is picking them up. ‘You are guilty until proven innocent.’ If you look Hispanic, you are gone,” Lamont said.

The candidates clashed over electric rates in Connecticut, which are among the lowest in New England and highest in the U.S. Fazio has tried to capitalize on text messages published by CT Insider in which the chief executive of Eversource urged the governor to “intervene” in the company’s dispute with Connecticut regulators over $1 billion in unpaid storm costs.

Fazio called the relationship “cozy.” Lamont dismissed Fazio’s claim as “Just no truth to this at all.”

“I do have a relationship with the business leaders of the state. That does not mean I do not hold them accountable,” Lamont said.

In his closing remarks, Fazio made a rare reference to the governor’s age.

“I respect Gov. Lamont’s public service, but he’s had his chance. The first time he ran for office was the year I was born for the office that I currently hold,” Fazio said. “He’s been in politics for decades, and after eight years, Connecticut is more expensive than it’s ever been. We can do better.”

Fazio said later his comment was not about age.

“It’s not about the age. It’s not anything about that. It’s that Gov. Lamont’s been running for office for 36 years, and he’s been in office for eight years. And at a certain point, you have to accomplish what you’re going to accomplish and go back to the farm.”

Lamont, who founded a cable television company geared to university campuses, told reporters he found the comment odd, coming from a man who he says entered politics with a thin resume.

Fazio has said he was a commodities trader, then became an investment adviser employed by Capital Services, an affiliate of the company his father founded and chairs, MARCorp Financial. He currently has no employment outside the Senate.

“Look where people come from, and that gives you an idea. I think people have a pretty good idea of the business I started,” Lamont said. “I have no idea what experience he brings to politics. All I know is he’s all politics all the time. Figure out what he did in the private sector. I can’t.”

CT Mirror reporter Keith M. Phaneuf contributed to this report.