Good morning and welcome back to the Tip Sheet, a weekly newsletter from Tom Dudchik’s Capitol Report written by Mike Cerulli.

This week, we’re breaking down all the developments that have unfolded in the race for governor in the past few days.

It’s…a lot.

Plus, what the latest fundraising reports are revealing about key races around the state.

Let’s dive in…

Erin’s wild week

If anyone ever decides to write a book about the 2026 race for governor, the drama that unfolded last week will almost certainly feature in the early pages.

For those who haven’t kept up on the ongoing saga, here’s a brief primer:

In 2007, Cheryl Blogoslawski, a Republican, was elected to be tax collector of New Britain. In the Hardware City, the Blogoslawski name is well known, just like the surname of the woman who would become mayor a few years later: Erin Stewart.

Both Stewart and Blogoslawski hail from families with mayoral pedigree. Stewart’s father, Tim, served in the office for eight years. Blogoslawski’s sister, Linda, served during the nineties. In a tragic turn, Linda Blogoslawski was killed in the 1998 shooting at the Connecticut Lottery Corporation, where was working at the time.

Cheryl Blogoslawski led the town’s revenue office for Stewart’s entire tenure as mayor, the vast majority of it as an elected official. In 2023, a town charter change made the tax collector an appointed position, and Blogoslawski was tapped by Stewart to continue on in the role as a civil servant. The appointment was approved by the Democratic-controlled city council and Stewart has said Blogoslawski was the only applicant. 

Two years later, Stewart called it quits in the city’s top office. She had her sights set on the job she is now campaigning for with a ferocity that has put her in a leading position to nab the GOP’s endorsement at next month’s state party convention.

But the hard hittin’ politics in a city known for its down-and-dirty style have followed Stewart on her quest to carry the Republican banner this November.

On a cold Tuesday in February, the same day the Stewart campaign was releasing their first television ads of the cycle, New Britain’s new Democratic mayor, Bobby Sanchez, announced he had suspended Blogoslawski from her job while alleging “years” of “financial malfeasance.”

At the time, the Sanchez administration didn’t offer any specifics on what, exactly, they were accusing Blogoslawski of. They said they had retained an outside firm, the Crumbie Law Group, to probe the matter. The reaction among the chattering class in Hartford immediately focused on whether or not Stewart’s campaign would be impacted by any future revelations. Stewart’s allies wrote the whole episode off as an example of political score setting by a Democratic administration intent on purging loyalists of the former mayor from city government.

Within a few days, the public attention on Blogoslawski faded away.

And that brings us to last week, when another curiously timed shoe fell in the Blogoslawski affair.

The clock had just struck 12:05 on Wednesday afternoon when an email from Sanchez’s office landed in the inboxes of reporters. Most of the state’s political press corps were attending a press conference helmed by Stewart to announce her selection of State Rep. Tim Ackert, a blue-collar Air Force veteran from Coventry, as her choice for lieutenant governor.

The email contained a preliminary report authored by the Crumbie Law Group detailing the alleged malfeasance that led to Blogoslawski’s suspension. The report, which was introduced as an “update” on the Crumbie investigation, outlined instances of backdated tax payments, poor cash management, and favorable treatment to select taxpayers at the behest of Stewart’s office. Blogoslawski’s own tax payments were among those that she backdated, according to the report.

One instance highlighted in the report described a senior staffer in Stewart’s office hand delivering tax payments to Blogoslawski on behalf of “Taxpayer 1” and directing her to “to honor the payments as being timely.” The alleged backdating allowed Taxpayer 1 to avoid late payments on the taxes. The Stewart official, dubbed “Witness 8,” in the report is not named but is described as having been the mayor’s chief of staff during the time in question. Justin Dorsey, who currently works for the city in a management role, was Stewart’s chief of staff at the time.

The report goes on to say that Witness 8 denied ordering backdating to avoid late payment fees.

“The findings point to a longstanding breakdown in accountability and oversight that allowed misconduct to persist for years,” Sanchez wrote in a statement.

Sanchez said he fired Blogoslawski after learning the report’s findings and referred the whole matter to state prosecutors.

Armed with Sanchez’s statement and an official copy of the report, the press corps readied questions for Stewart, who by that point had stepped away from the podium while Ackert spoke.

Some reporters had already been sent a copy of the report that morning. The sender was an anonymous email account, which made verification of the report’s authenticity difficult until Sanchez published it hours later. The two reports ended up being the same, and the anonymous sender has since followed up with additional information – including the yet-to-be-verified identity of Taxpayer 1.

When Stewart and Ackert wrapped their prepared remarks, Stewart invited reporters to ask questions. After a few inquiries about her decision to team up with Ackert, the topic turned to Blogoslawski and the claims levelled in the report.

With a grin, Stewart responded.

“Cleary, it’s political in nature if we’re releasing this at the same exact time that we’re having this press conference and the press corps happens to be here,” she said.

Sanchez’s office told Mark Pazniokas that the release of the report was timed to coincide with the mayor’s budget presentation, not Stewart’s roll out with Ackert. 

Asked if she stood by Blogoslawski, Stewart said she had not seen the report and thus could not offer comment on that question. Later that day, Stewart released a statement denying that she’d ever ordered any backdating.

Within hours of the report’s release, Stewart’s opponents on both sides of the aisle began issuing their responses to the Wednesday surprise. State Sen. Ryan Fazio, Stewart’s main rival for the Republican nomination, summoned reporters to the Capitol where he called for a fuller accounting of the situation.

Fazio framed his reaction as a call for transparency, rather than a direct strike at Stewart. He repeatedly suggested that the allegations made in the Crumbie report could become a political liability for Republicans should Stewart become the party’s nominee. Confronting these questions now, Fazio reasoned, is preferable to dealing with them closer to November.

“I’m just simply saying that there are serious, substantive concerns raised in that report that should be answered sooner than later for the benefit of not only all Connecticut residents but especially Republican voters,” Fazio said.

A subsequent press release sent by Fazio’s campaign pressed the issue further, suggesting to reporters a list of questions for Stewart including why Blogoslawski’s name still appears as an endorser on her campaign website.

As for Gov. Ned Lamont, he fell back on his habit of restraint when it comes to discussing controversial, inside baseball matters.

“People are innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “But I think you gotta get to the bottom of it and you gotta make sure there’s no stone unturned.”

The rapid-fire developments that unfolded last Wednesday provided enough fodder for the news cycle to continue into the next day. On Thursday, Stewart hit the radio circuit, fleshing out her explanation for what might have happened in her city’s tax office.

“Is it possible that someone in your office either knew or directed it?” Brian Shactman, the veteran WTIC morning host, asked about the alleged conduct. “It might not have been you, but is that in your opinion, possible?”

“Yeah,” Stewart replied. “But the thing here is, we were involved in negotiations with different tax delinquencies all over the place. This run of the mill for city government and for municipal management. You have people that want to pay, you negotiate the terms of how they’re going to pay up on backdated bills. These are not necessarily things that I necessarily was directly involved with, but you knew of these things happening.”

That narrative put forth by Stewart, along with her repeated insistence that she is being targeted by political opponents, appears to form the crux of her defense against the allegations of the Crumbie report. She owns the fact that she talked with certain taxpayers who came to her asking about how to resolve late payments, but she denies ever personally ordering backdating or being privy to the specifics of negotiated repayment plans.

This was more or less the explanation she gave to News 8’s Dennis House when she sat down with him for a taped interview that was aired on Sunday. House, with his signature, sometimes unpredictable questioning style, honed in on those interactions with individual taxpayers who were seeking help from the mayor.

Stewart’s responses to those questions have opened up a whole new door in the multi-day saga.

“Did anyone ever come to you and say, ‘Listen, if you do this, I’ll donate to your campaign or I’ll do this?’” House asked.

“100% percent,” Stewart replied.

“Who were these people?” House pressed.

“Oh, I’m not gonna say that,” Stewart answered. “It’s irrelevant now.”

“That’s essentially offering you a bribe,” a seemingly surprised House shot back.

“All the time,” Stewart said, firmly stating that she ended those conversations immediately.

Fazio’s camp, and many keen observers who remember the slew of ethics laws passed in the 2000s, noted that a public servant’s failure to report an attempted bribe is a misdemeanor in Connecticut.

All told, the scope of the fallout from the Blogoslawski drama will hinge largely on the reaction of the grassroots Republicans who will determine Stewart’s fate at the May convention and likely August primary.

Before Wednesday, Stewart was widely considered by GOP insiders to be well-positioned to clinch a majority of delegates at the convention. Fazio’s suggestion that the Blogoslawski situation could spiral into a general election liability for Stewart appears targeted at swayable delegates who might not want to risk placing Stewart at the top of the ticket. Perhaps Republican delegates and voters will side with that reasoning and more support will swing to Fazio. Perhaps those same key decision-makers will look at the Crumbie report and any future developments and determine Stewart is not fit to lead the state.

There is also an alternative hypothesis concerning the potential reaction of grassroots conservatives to last week’s drama. Recall in the lead up to the 2024 election, when a field of Republicans presented themselves as alternatives to Donald Trump. Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, pitched himself as the choice for MAGA-coded voters who might want to move on from the controversy of Trump’s first term and the spectre of the January 6th Capitol attack. 

There were many Republicans who believed the array of Trump challengers in 2024 stood a chance. Those beliefs were dampened, if not completely eliminated, when federal agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The raid elevated once and future president’s claims of political persecution at the hands of crooked investigators into the realm of Republican dogma. The “lawfare” narrative pushed by Trump gripped all levers of national Republican power and has never let go. An investigation that might have, in an earlier, quainter time, sunk any presidential aspirant instead boosted Trump back to the White House. And now a similar claim painting the Crumbie investigation as politically-motivated and half-baked is being deployed in Connecticut’s gubernatorial contest.

Perhaps the base of the GOP will find Stewart’s claims of a witch hunt more convincing than the four-page memo released last week – and anything that follows.

The money race: Larson, Bronin, Tong, and more

The latest fundraising numbers have been released in multiple key races across the state. In the fight to be the Democratic nominee in the 1st Congressional District, Luke Bronin continued his streak of outraising incumbent Rep. John Larson. Bronin hauled $511,000 in the most recent quarter and reported $1.8 million on hand. Larson raised around $452,000 and ended the quarter with $1.1 million in the bank. State Rep. Jillian Gilchrest lagged behind her two opponents, raising $25,000 with $20,000 on hand.

In the 5th Congressional District, Republicans have been working to put the race back on the map in this cycle. Incumbent Democratic Rep. Jahana won re-election two years ago by around six points and posted $166,000 in the most recent quarter. She’s reported nearly $1 million on hand. The leading Republican fundraiser was Chris Shea, a retired Navy SEAL who raised a respectable $163,000 and has about $120,000 in the bank.

Cook Political Report continues to rate the 5th District as “Solid D.”

And finally, did you miss it last week? Attorney General William Tong is trumpeting the fact that he raised $100,700, qualifying for public campaign financing within just 36 hours. The rest of the Democratic constitutional officers are still working to hit that mark. Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz has opted out of using the public financing program and is instead raising money the old fashioned way. She posted $287,000 in receipts in the most recent quarter.

That’s all for this week. We’ll be back next week with another edition of the Tip Sheet!