The Last Time Connecticut Primaried a Governor, It Was Her Own Lt. Governor

Tuesday is the first challenge to a sitting Connecticut governor since 1978.

Democrats in Connecticut will decide who their nominee for governor of Connecticut is on Tuesday, something that hasn’t happened to a sitting governor since 1978. That year the challenger was Governor Ella Grasso’s own lieutenant governor, Robert Killian, a longtime state attorney general before he joined her ticket in 1974. He then spent the summer of 1978 trying to take her job.

At the state convention in July of 1978, delegates endorsed Grasso for a 2nd term but gave Killian enough votes to force a primary, and he was then replaced on the ticket by William O’Neill. Richard Madden of the New York Times reported from the convention floor that balloting for lieutenant governor opened with 9 candidates and then whittled down to a few contenders who withdrew backstage. There was a five-way fight for secretary of state that went on for hours and ended with Barbara Kennelly winning a close race.

Kennelly was the daughter of John Bailey, who ran the Connecticut Democratic Party for 30 years, with a stint as national DNC chairman under JFK and LBJ. He would run conventions from a small office offstage that everyone called the “green room.” But by 1978, Bailey had been dead for 3 years. O’Neill, Grasso’s new running mate, occupied the green room that night and by the New York Times’ reporter’s account, no one had control over the convention. The days of John Bailey were over.

Grasso won the September 12 primary 137,904 to 66,924, per CQ Press’s Guide to U.S. Elections. The state didn’t publish official vote statements for primaries back then, which is why the data sits inside a reference guide you’d find at Barnes and Noble and not an official state document. Many claim the primary was wire thin, but they’re confusing it with a 1974 contest between the same two candidates. In November, Grasso beat Republican Ronald Sarasin 613,109 to 422,316, a margin of 190,793.

Killian ran at Grasso from the middle and the establishment center. A sitting governor being dragged into a primary again, but this year, where the challenge is coming from reversed. The margin on Tuesday is what’s worth watching.

I am a member of the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee. I worked on Ned Lamont’s 2010 campaign.