The early innings are going well for Bobby Valentine’s Stamford mayoral campaign. There popular baseball personality raised $300,000 in his first two months as an indy candidate for the city’s top job.

A Tuesday morning statement from Valentine’s campaign ballyhoos 500 contributions totaling $125,000 from Stamford residents and $95,000 from contributors living in neighboring towns.

Democratic incumbent David Martin and state Representative Caroline Simmons are expected to compete in a September primary for their party’s nomination. Simmons, like Valentine, is a prolific fundraiser.

Some numbers from 2020 that delegates to the 36th Senate District nominating convention for August’s special election:

Leora Levy cast Connecticut’s 28 votes for Donald Trump at the party’s nominating convention.

Donald Trump received 37% of the vote in Greenwich, 39% in New Canaan, and 30% in Stamford.

Ryan Fazio won 48.6% of the vote, in his race against incumbent Democrat Alex Kasser, a margin of 1562 votes out of more than 56,000 votes cast. Fazio won Greenwich and New Canaan against a ferocious tide at the top of the ticket.

Levy, who the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate declined to confirm as Trump’s nominee to be the United States ambassador to Chile, will formally announce her candidacy for the open Senate seat on Tuesday, July 6th. The retired commodities trader has spent the past week haranguing delegates and others to support her based largely on her history of making campaign donations.

George Logan, the former state senator, will decide this month whether to seek the Republican nomination for Congress from the state’s 5th District District.

Logan was elected to the state Senate in 2016, defeating veteran Democratic incumbent Joseph Crisco. The Ansonia Republican eked out a second term in the party’s annus horribilis of 2018. Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket proved too much for Logan, and he lost his 2020 bid for a third term.

Popular among Republicans, the energetic Logan has been taking soundings and been encouraged by the response, he told Daily Ructions Friday. He believes he can have the most impact running in the 5th District, where he enjoys many ties and would face two term Democrat Jahana Hayes. Logan currently lives in the 3rd Congressional District.

National Republicans have encouraged Logan to make the race against Hayes. Expect them to make a significant early investment in the environmental manager’s campaign.

The last Republican to win the district was the venerable Nancy Johnson. She served in the House from 1983-2007.

Bob Stefanowski enjoys a wide lead over former state Representative Themis Klarides in the 2022 Republican contest for governor, according to a survey of 300 likely Republican primary voters. The Club for Growth, a conservative campaign fundraising organization, commissioned the poll.

The survey, conducted early in June, found Stefanowski leading Klarides 47-18 in a two candidate contest. The poll found 57% of those asked less likely to support Klarides when told her husband is a top-ranking executive at Eversource, the state’s largest utility. Klarides’s intermittent criticisms of Donald Trump also make primary voters less likely to support her.

Questions about Eversource and Trump pushed Stefanowski to a 48 point advantage over Klarides.

Stefanowski was the 2018 Republican nominee for governor. Klarides served in the state House of Representatives for 22 years, ending her tenure there as the Republican leader.

Fabrizio, Lee & Associates conducted the poll. Read it here.

It’s not a terrible consolation prize. Dita Bhargava has lost races for the state House of Representatives, governor, and state treasurer. The Greenwich Democrat launched unsuccessful bids for governor and treasurer in 2018. Bhargava left the Democratic contest for governor when Ned Lamont and his fortune entered the race in early 2018. Bhargava is considering a long shot bid for the vacant 36th Senate District.

The former “macro portfolio manager” sought to use her financial sector experience to catapult into that year’s treasurer’s race. She suffered decisive defeats by Shawn Wooden at the nominating convention and the primary that followed.

Bhargava raised campaign contributions for Vice President Kamala Harris before the California Democrat’s 2020 presidential campaign collapsed.

Connecticut’s restrictive ballot access rules are especially favorable to party insiders when a vacancy occurs. Delegates from Greenwich, Stamford, and New Canaan who nominated Alex Kasser, the former Greenwich Democrat who resigned last week to concentrate on her contentious, high stakes divorce, will gather to select a nominee for the summer special election. A simple majority of delegates clinches the nomination. Primaries are prohibited.

Democratic observers believe the delegates are unlikely to support Bhargava.

Let us celebrate the singular Jon Lender’s remarkable career in the service of news–and the disinfectant of sunlight. This week marks his final Government Watch column.

We met at a political convention in Hartford 35 years ago. A few years later as I made my way in politics, I discovered Jon could be trusted with the care and feeding of a tip. The origins of several stories from those salad days remain under seal. They were choice.

A high-ranking official in an administration Jon covered recalls believing she could hear his footsteps approaching her office in the Capitol–her cue to prepare to be cast in a a local version of a “Columbo” episode. She would pose the futile question, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the office next door?”

Even the state’s auditors would struggle to reach the amount of money Jon saved the people of Connecticut with his stories of misfeasance, malfeasance, and entitlement. Leaving the Courant does not terminate any requests for documents made under the Freedom of Information Act.

A decade ago, a delegation of young leaders from Sri Lanka and Nepal visited Hartford to observe the elements of a free society at work. They were weary after more than a week of meetings. In a stuffy conference room that Friday afternoon, Jon invigorated them with the details of John Rowland’s hot tub at his lake cottage. The triumph of investigative reporting is a universal language before an audience intent on enjoying the benefits of freedom.

Something you may not have discerned reading Jon’s columns: he is a polymath of high and low culture. The range of his knowledge of the essentials and fripperies of the human condition informs his savvy instincts in the pursuit of a story. So we will mark this day with Maria Callas’ final appearance in an operatic production. After nearly four decades as a sentinel for freedom, Jon will have more time to enjoy the music he loves.

An aspiring candidate could save a bundle on consultants by reading Eric Phillips’ autopsy of Andrew Yang’s campaign for mayor of New York. It’s worth the many times the cost of a Daily Beast subscription.

The essential message: No campaign—and Yang’s was excellent—can paper over a candidate who hasn’t done his homework. Celebrity helps, but that you can win shouldn’t be the rationale for it. For a guy who ran a test prep company, Yang didn’t cram enough to make up for his breezy resume.

The City of Hartford has not been paying attention to its monthly water bills. It owes the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), the Hartford region’s water utility, $1.3 million in unpaid water bills. A June 18th letter from MDC CEO Scott Jellison and longtime board chairman William DiBella to Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin points out that $1.1 million of the hefty tab is over 60 days outstanding.

MDC, according to the letter, is seeking cooperation from the city in grappling with a number of costly administrative hurdles that continue to interfere with timely billing and payment. “Those outstanding balances are due to a variety of circumstances and we are seeking your assistance in focusing your staff to work with ours to resolve them,” Jellison and DiBella wrote.

The $1.3 million bill “is a significant past due balance due,” the duo continued, “which negatively impacts the District’s cash flow, which in turn affects all our member towns.”

Put your dreams away. Connecticut’s tightly drawn ballot access laws give recent candidates a hefty advantage in a special election. Delegates to the 36th Senate District in 2020 will reassemble to select their party’s nominee for the August contest A year ago, the Republican delegates supported Ryan Fazio. He went on to impress local and state Republicans with an energetic campaign that brought him close to defeating incumbent Democrat Alex Kasser, from whom he withstood considerable abuse.

Kasser’s abrupt resignation Tuesday morning have Democrats hunting for a candidate. Fazio is expected to announce his candidacy soon–on the wings of encouragement from local party leaders.

The winner of each party’s convention is the nominee. Primaries are not permitted in special elections under Connecticut’s ballot access laws.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, a Democrat, will announce Wednesday morning that she will not seek a fourth term in 2022. Merrill was elected in 2010 on the ticket that saw Dannel P. Malloy become the state’s first Democratic governor in 20 years.

Merrill served in the state House of Representatives for nearly 20 years, rising to become the majority leader. She was first elected in a special election to fill a Mansfield seat.

Merrill’s announcement is expected to cause a stampede among Democrats to win the party’s nomination for the rare open spot on the state ticket.