The campaign of Congressman John B. Larson took a populist turn Tuesday with a press call casting his chief rival, former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, as an agent of a shadowy network of billionaires. But the primary evidence offered was Bronin’s connection to a progressive advocacy group, The Connecticut Project.
A major funder of The Connecticut Project is a hedge-fund billionaire, Stephen Mandel, long a major donor to the Democratic Party and, more recently, to The Bench, a political action committee primarily promoting Democrats trying to flip Republican seats and return Congress to Democratic control.
Larson and his campaign suggested that the Mandel connection indirectly ties Bronin to other groups funded by billionaires, including unnamed ones who may be hostile to Social Security, Medicare and the regulation of businesses — none of which are positions advocated by Bronin in his work for The Connecticut Project.
“It’s where is the money coming from, and what is the perceived effort behind it,” Larson said. “And it doesn’t seem to me that they’re aligned with the interest of the people of this district.”
In a financial disclosure required of congressional candidates, Bronin reported $237,000 in income from The Connecticut Project over two years. He said he helped research and write a report outlining an agenda in Connecticut that Democratic primary voters would be happy to support.
“It’s bizarre to see John Larson smearing The Connecticut Project, which is one of the most effective progressive policy organizations in the state, which has fought for everything from childcare funding to tenants’ rights to expanding SNAP benefits,” Bronin said. “John Larson is getting desperate.”
“The Mandels donate to many nonprofit organizations and political campaigns, and their spending decisions are their own,” Meghan Holden, spokesperson for The Connecticut Project, said. “The Connecticut Project and The Connecticut Project Action Fund have no insight into, provide no input regarding, and make no appeals or solicitations for, their donations to other groups or individuals. As nonpartisan nonprofits with the sole purpose of making Connecticut work for working class people, The Connecticut Project and The Connecticut Project Action Fund do not contribute to, endorse, or oppose any political candidates for office.”
Larson’s press call was part of an effort to reframe the fight for the Democratic nomination in the 1st Congressional District of Hartford and 26 other communities as an ideological battle and not a generational challenge between a 77-year-old congressman and a 46-year-old former mayor.
Larson is trying to move past the Democratic nominating convention on May 11, when Bronin narrowly won the party endorsement on a second ballot, a blow to a 14-term incumbent who never has faced a serious challenge in the safe Democratic district.
The convention set the stage for a three-way Democratic primary on Aug. 11. Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford also qualified at the convention, clearing the 15% threshold to get on the primary ballot, helped by Larson supporters who see a three-way race as favorable to the incumbent.
Soon after losing at the convention, Larson told reporters the primary would be about drawing a distinction between his childhood in the Mayberry Village public housing of East Hartford to Bronin’s in Greenwich. And his press call Tuesday afternoon tried to deliver on that promise.
Bronin’s ability to raise money has been central to that narrative. As of April 21, Bronin had $1.7 million in his campaign account, compared to $1 million for Larson. Gilchrest had $19,188.
Bronin has outpaced the field with donors able to afford the maximum of $3,500. Larson has raised half his money from political action committees.
Gilchrest criticized the fundraising of both men.
“Voters deserve better than corporations and billionaires competing to pick our next member of Congress. Congressman Larson is right to call out the influence of billionaire money in this race, but after 27 years in Congress, he is still funding his campaign with corporate PAC money from companies like Eversource, Walmart, and Bank of America,” she said in an emailed statement. “Luke Bronin may be new, but he is not different. My campaign is the only one in this race showing what change actually looks like: getting big money out of politics and putting people first.”
On Tuesday, Larson was capitalizing on a story in The American Prospect that linked Bronin, mainly on the basis of his work for The Connecticut Project and campaign contributions from Mandel, his wife Susan and other wealthy donors, to a “dark-money network.”
Mandel is a major contributor to mainstream Democratic entities, including $265,600 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In February, he gave $2 million to The Bench, which is supporting candidates in districts Democrats are trying to swing. It also has endorsed Bronin.
The congressman offered no opinion on what dark money agenda, if any, he believes Bronin would advance if elected to Congress.
“You’ll have to ask Luke that,” Larson said. “I don’t know what Luke stands for, other than I’m old.”
Joining Larson on the conference call were Sarah Ganong, the state director of the Working Families Party; Joe Toner, executive director of the Connecticut Building Trades; and Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works.
The building trades and the union-financed Working Families Party previously had endorsed Larson and accused Bronin of being hostile to labor, based in part on his demand for concessions while trying to lead nearly bankrupt Hartford to solvency.
Ganong spoke specifically about Bronin’s difficult relationship with labor and broadly about the interests of unnamed billionaires.
“These interests have a clear agenda. They’re interested in deregulating private industry, building AI data centers, rejecting universal health care and pushing for more privatization, particularly for charter schools and against public education,” Ganong said.
Bronin said that is not his agenda.
Note: Stephen Mandel is a donor and The Connecticut Project is a funder of The Connecticut Mirror.
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.
