CT Gov. Ned Lamont ‘more inclined’ to seek 3rd term in 2026
mark pazniokas / ct mirror
Gov Ned Lamont describes his current thinking on seeking a third term.
Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday that the challenges of navigating the economic uncertainties and political chaos generated by President Donald J. Trump only increase the chances he will seek a third term as governor of Connecticut in 2026.
“If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said, ‘No, I think the state’s on a good trajectory. We’ve stabilized things. We’re growing again. Time to pass the mantle,’” Lamont said.
He said he no longer is so eager to step aside.
“It’s also an incredibly complicated time right now, starting with all the uncertainty of Washington, the increased possibility of a recession,” Lamont said. “So, maybe a time where experience makes a difference. That’s a way of saying I’m thinking about it seriously.”
Lamont, 71, a self-described centrist Democrat, stopped well short of declaring his candidacy, but he gave his strongest indication to date of an inclination to seek another four-year term with Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz.
“I love the job,” he said. “I think we’ve had extraordinary progress compared to where we were, say, 10 years ago. I think Susan and I are a pretty good team.”
Lamont met with reporters in his Capitol office at midday, just 12 hours after the General Assembly reached its constitutional adjournment deadline of midnight Wednesday.
The governor said the Democratic bench was well stocked if he didn’t run.
“We got some extraordinary folks and Democrats, and I work very closely with each and every one of them,” he said.
But sees himself with an edge.
“I think it’s executive experience, having sat in this chair for the last six and a half years, having been through the Trump administration, having been through COVID, having worked closely with the leadership on both sides of the aisle,” Lamont said.
He defended the granular details of the recently adopted budget and the broad strokes of his record as a governor overseeing a remarkable series of budget surpluses that have filled the state’s budget reserves and allowed the state to pay down unfunded pension debt.
With those surpluses has come pressure from the political left to address unmet needs, including low Medicaid reimbursement rates for medical providers. Lamont, they say, is too concerned with keeping spending within the state’s fiscal guardrails.
The criticism is not discouraging him as he finalizes a decision whether to run, he said.
“I’m a lot more inclined and interested in keeping going, keep this positive momentum going, than I was, say, six months or a year ago. That said, I still have some conversations to make. I put everything on hold during this last four or five months. We had a pretty tricky budget session to get through.”
The “tricky” part was finding ways to satisfy Democrats lawmakers within the constraints of spending caps.
“I think it’s an honestly balanced budget,” Lamont said, adding it’s based upon “a pretty conservative set of assumptions.”
The budget assumes that household income will grow about 4% annually over the next two years. But it also stretches Connecticut’s budget controls without breaking them legally.
The largest initiative, a new $220 million endowment to grow early education and child care services dramatically over the next decade, will be established outside of the formal budget and spending cap.
In doing so, the leaders of the Republican legislative minorities say Lamont is losing his credibility as a fiscal centrist, a theme the GOP will try to develop if Lamont runs.
“Fiscal moderation has officially left the state Capitol,” Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, proclaimed recently.
House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, said, “This budget eviscerates all of our fiscal guardrails.”
House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, smiled Wednesday when asked about the GOP efforts to define Lamont as a born-again, tax-and-spend liberal.
“The governor is being attacked by the left and the right, and so he’s probably here,” Ritter said, pointing to the center of the table. “And the answer is, always here.”
On Thursday, Lamont concurred: the political center is his comfort zone. He noted that Republicans regularly have claimed his two-year budgets were built on shaky foundations.
“‘You’re going to be in deficit within two years. You’re going to be raising taxes.’ Well, at six years later, stop crying wolf,” Lamont said.
Despite the off-budget spending on early childhood education, the governor estimated that at least $1.2 billion of this fiscal year’s $2.4 billion projected surplus still would be used to cover more unfunded pension liabilities
He reiterated his intention to veto a bill that would give jobless benefits to strikers, a source of tension with the Connecticut AFL-CIO. He also announced an intention to veto a bill sought by Republicans — and opposed both by the building trades unions and the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.
The measure, House Bill 7004, is intended to give Plainfield, a small town in eastern Connecticut, the ability to hold a referendum over a proposed trash-to-energy plant and possibly influence the state Siting Council to block the project. He briefly deferred a question about the bill to a senior staff, who confirmed it indeed would be vetoed.
“I’m vetoing that,” Lamont said, laughing. “I just made that strong decision by myself.”
Lamont said he welcomed passage of a bill encouraging housing construction, though he had yet to finish reviewing it.
“We’re never going to get economic growth [and] keep it going if we don’t have a place for people to live, young people to live, workforce housing, getting our cities growing again,” he said.
Opponents in Fairfield County have urged him to veto the bill.
“I think there’s some red flags in it, and I know why it makes people nervous,” he said. “But it’s basically gross misrepresentation from the anti-growth people down there that are stirring people up. They’re saying it’s a big mandate. You’re gonna forcing me to build housing, you know, in my backyard, which is not what the strategy is at all. It’s trying to tell towns, you take the lead, you show us where you want that housing to go. It’s important for your community.”
CT Mirror reporter Keith M. Phaneuf contributed to this story.
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