Trump looms over blue state primary as progressive gov faces far-left challenge

Connecticut Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont is no fan of President Donald Trump, but his progressive primary challenger, state Rep. Josh Elliott, says he’s too cozy with the president.

Lamont defeated Elliott in a high-stakes New England primary Tuesday in a state that not long ago shifted from competitive territory to reliably Democratic.

Elliott, D-Hamden, painted Lamont as too "nice" to Trump, saying that being "nice is a problem right now."

"Nice doesn’t solve affordability. Nice doesn’t solve fascism or fight back against fascism," Elliott told the Connecticut Mirror.

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"[Ned] can be nice all day long, but that’s a liability right now."

Lamont, meanwhile, told the outlet that "talk is cheap" and said Elliott has little to offer compared with the incumbent’s record during his nearly eight years in office.

Lamont’s camp said it wants to see single-payer healthcare and additional resources for early childhood education in the state. Connecticut is increasingly becoming a bedroom community for the New York City, Providence and Boston metropolitan areas.

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Lamont faces state Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, in the November general election.

While now reliably blue, Connecticut not long ago had several Republicans in Congress and GOP governors with staying power, including John Rowland, who was later imprisoned.

Republicans held Connecticut’s governorship for much of the period between the Reagan era and 2010, when the late Gov. M. Jodi Rell decided against seeking another term and Democrat Dannel Malloy succeeded her.

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Former Sen. Prescott Bush, father of former President George H.W. Bush, represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate for more than a decade in the mid-20th century.

Lowell Weicker, a liberal Republican U.S. senator who preceded Joseph Lieberman, also served as governor in the 1990s under the "A Connecticut Party" line, which he founded.