Betsy McCaughey, a former New York lieutenant governor, filed paperwork Thursday to seek the Republican nomination for Connecticut governor and challenge Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, who is running for a third term. McCaughey first announced her candidacy on Wednesday evening.
McCaughey, 77, currently works as a conservative host on Newsmax and as a columnist for the New York Post. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, and said friends and social media followers urged her to run.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press, McCaughey said, “There’s a desperate hunger in this state for a competent, battle-tested fighter who will turn the state around, who will take on Ned Lamont and the other what I call lunatic lefties up in Hartford,” describing what she said Connecticut needs in the governor’s race.
At the top of her platform, McCaughey said she wants to lower costs for homeowners, including property taxes and electricity bills. She proposed capping annual property tax increases to 2% and eliminating property taxes for most seniors. She also said she wants to scuttle a new state law signed by Lamont in November that seeks to increase affordable housing, which Republicans have criticized as removing local control of housing development.
Lamont’s campaign responded Thursday by pointing to a statement from Kevin Donohoe, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association. Donohoe said McCaughey “has spent the last years of her career shilling for Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular agenda that is driving up costs for middle-class families,” adding, “The last thing Connecticut families need right now is a Trump mouthpiece as their governor.”
McCaughey supports abortion rights and said she agrees with most of the Republican president’s policies. Lamont, 72, is also a Greenwich resident and a wealthy former cable TV entrepreneur, and he is facing a primary challenge from progressive Democratic state Rep. Josh Elliott of Hamden.
In the GOP primary so far, McCaughey is also joined by former New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart and Greenwich state Sen. Ryan Fazio.
The race has roots in McCaughey’s earlier political career. In the 1990s, Republicans portrayed her as a policy wonk who helped derail President Bill Clinton’s health care reform plan with her critique in The New Republic. In 1994, George Pataki picked McCaughey as his lieutenant governor running mate; they won, and she served as lieutenant governor from January 1995 to December 1998.
The AP reported in 1998 that her working relationship with Pataki eventually frayed. In 1996, during Pataki’s State of the State address, she remained standing throughout his speech and later said she merely forgot to sit after speculation that she was trying to upstage him. She also denied accusations that she harassed her hired household help and used her state police security detail as chauffeurs and valets. After Pataki dropped her from the 1998 GOP ticket, she switched parties and unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for governor before continuing her gubernatorial campaign as the Liberal Party candidate.
McCaughey is also the founder and chairman of Reduce Infection Deaths, an educational organization seeking to stop hospital infections. She grew up in Connecticut in Milford and Westport, has a bachelor’s degree in history from Vassar College, and a doctorate in U.S. constitutional history from Columbia University.