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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’ll recap the shakeups in the Senate Republican caucus and how they're connected to the race for governor. Plus, it’s that time of year again. Politicians are posting their end-of-year playlists. We’ll show you what each of the candidates for governor listened to this year. Or, at least, what they say they’re listening to.
Let’s dive in…
‘26 race sparks a shake up in the Senate Republican Office
When word got out that John Healey would be leaving his post as chief of staff for the State Senate’s Republican caucus, few were surprised.
Healey, a hardened veteran of state Republican politics, has been caught in an awkward political pickle for several months now. The Senate Republican leader, Steve Harding, has endorsed Fazio alongside several key GOP senators. Healey is a close ally of Erin Stewart, Fazio's rival.
The native son of New Britain is expected to formally depart the office in January, giving Harding some time to get a replacement in place.
Healey’s departure from the Senate Republican Office is not the only staff shakeup precipitated by the gubernatorial race.
Eddie Aledia, one of the office’s sharpest young aides, will go on leave to join the Fazio campaign full time as political director.
Did Ned Lamont fake his Spotify Wrapped? And what are Fazio, Stewart, and Elliott listening to?
It’s that time of year. Spotify and Apple Music users are posting their year-end playlists, revealing what songs and artists have formed the soundtrack of their lives.
For politicians, music can be an integral part of their public identity. Bill Clinton’s use of Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” in the 1992 presidential race communicated the thesis of his winning campaign. Donald Trump’s taste in music can often paint a more striking image of his inner life than his speeches and public statements. Songs as varied as Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” and “The Music of the Night” from “Phantom of the Opera” frequently bookend the president’s public appearances.
Ned Lamont's love of music is a key part of his folksy, aw-shucks persona. His preferred walk-up song is almost always Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up.” Occasionally, the governor will belt out the lyrics as he strides up to the microphone.
Last week, as the annual wave of Spotify Wrapped posts were flooding social media, Lamont shared his top artists to his official accounts.
Or, at least, he posted something that is supposed to resemble a Spotify Wrapped list.
“I love how they didn’t even try to make it look like this year’s spotify wrapped,” one commenter wrote beneath Lamont’s Instagram post.
“Ned, this is clearly fake,” another user said. “Release the real 2025 wrapped.”
Other commenters were more kind, even if they questioned the credibility of the list.
“Why does Ned [lowkey] know ball,” the top liked comment read.
“He doesn’t,” a reply said. “This list is made up to make him seem more relatable.”
The original commenter agreed that the list was probably not real but said they found it amusing to call Lamont a ball knower.
Indeed, Lamont’s list of his top artists doesn’t look like it came from a screenshot of the lists produced by Spotify. The real lists display two columns listing top artists and top songs, plus a sum total of minutes spent listening to music and a top genre. Lamont’s list simply ranked five artists – Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, The Rolling Stones, Bad Bunny, and Taylor Swift – with “spotify.com/wrapped” written in the bottom right corner.
Spotify does provide a list that just displays top artists, but Lamont’s post doesn’t appear to be a genuine screenshot of that either.
Aside from obvious design discrepancies, music aficionados will spot other telltale signs that suggest Lamont’s post is the work of graphic design tools rather than the real thing. The image of Swift in the governor’s post is from the cover of her re-recording of “Speak Now.” That album is not Swift’s most recent release nor is it the most recent installment of her “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings and thus is not used as the singer’s thumbnail photo on this year’s Spotify lists.
Lamont’s list also refers to the Mick Jagger-fronted rock group as “Rolling Stones.” The band’s full name, and the one listed by Spotify on Wrapped lists, is “The Rolling Stones.”
The questions about Lamont’s list are reminiscent of a similar debate that plays out every time Barack Obama posts what GQ once described as a “suspiciously comprehensive” playlist of songs he claims to like.
There are any number of reasons why someone who is not a sitting governor might doctor up their year-end playlist. Maybe they want to look cooler for their friends or that special someone they’ve got their eye on. Or maybe they’re a man who feels constrained by society’s gendered expectations and is uncomfortable revealing what they’re jamming out to on a regular basis.
A 24-year old male political reporter, for example, might feel a little embarrassed to admit to his valued newsletter readers that Gracie Abrams was his fourth most listened to artist this year (sandwiched in between The 1975, Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, Jason Isbell, and Caamp).
Those close to the governor insist that the list posted on his social media pages authentically reflects his taste in music. There is reason to believe this is true.
Lamont’s record as a Deadhead and Bob Marley fan is well established. Aside from his tendency to break into song when Marley is playing, Lamont also frequently sports a “dancing bears” belt that fellow Deadheads often point out.
As for his claim to be a true Swiftie, Lamont can point to the Halloween when he dressed up as Travis Kelce, with Annie Lamont dressed as Swift.
In a show of his admiration of The Rolling Stones, Lamont more or less invented a new state award to present to Keith Richards, a Weston resident, and once aced a test of his Stones knowledge live on WPLR’s “Chaz & AJ in the Morning.”
Perhaps the most notable part of Lamont’s list – and the one that prompted the most questions of candor among Connecticut politicos – was the inclusion of the Latin rap superstar Bad Bunny. The 31-year-old rapper is inarguably one of the most popular musicians in the world, beloved by scores of fans and set for a historic Super Bowl halftime performance next year.
But is the governor a bona fide Bad Bunny fan, or is he just pandering? Lamont insiders swear he’s the real thing.
The skeptics borrow a line from the man himself.
Sorry, yo no confío, yo no confío.
What about the rest of the ‘26 field?
The three people seeking to unseat Lamont next year each provided year-end lists that appear authentic.
Josh Elliott, the progressive state representative challenging Lamont for the Democratic nomination, sent the Tip Sheet the actual link to his Spotify Wrapped. Elliott’s top artists were: Vampire Weekend, Charlie Puth, Tame Impala, Finneas, and Gavin DeGraw.
Ryan Fazio, the Republican state senator vying for the GOP nomination, also sent his list – which revealed that the native Greenwichite is an Apple Music user.
Fazio’s top artists were: Swift, ABBA, Toby Keith, Alan Jackson, and, in the sole instance of overlap between the Tip Sheet’s author and the gubernatorial candidates, Caamp.
Erin Stewart, the former New Britain mayor who is locked in a showdown with Fazio to be the GOP’s nominee, had a list that is heavily skewed by the fact that she has two young children who use her phone to play music. Her Amazon Music recap of top artists was led by Huntrix, the moniker of the group that performed much of the soundtrack for “KPop Demon Hunters.”
Personally, Stewart is a devotee of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a fan of Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z, and Wu-Tang Clan.
The political and personal insights that can be gleaned from the year-end playlists of the three challengers to the incumbent governor are plentiful.
Fazio’s affection for country music represents a tie with the GOP’s conservative base, while Stewart’s taste shows more of mainstream cultural grounding in the millennial generation.
All three of Lamont’s challengers are millennials.
Elliott’s Spotify Wrapped reveals a fluency with an alternative rock sensibility that remains popular not just with his fellow millennials, but also with members of Gen Z experiencing a bit of nostalgia for an era most that generation missed by a few years. The Hamden native’s top song was Modest Mouse’s 2004 single “Float On” and his fifth most listened to song was the more recent tune “Are You Bored Yet” by the alt rock band Wallows and the soft rocker Clairo.
Perhaps Lamont can seize onto the inclusion of Clairo on Elliott’s Spotify Wrapped and try to paint his sole Democratic challenger as a performative male…
Why does any of this matter?
The late conservative media giant Andrew Breitbart famously popularized the idea that politics is downstream from culture. In today’s world, political culture and pop culture have become increasingly indistinguishable. Where Breitbart once saw a river, one might say America has come to find itself in a stillwater, with elements of two worlds once separated by long-eroded norms now sitting together in one brackish mixture.
Evidence of this merger can be found everywhere, from a sitting governor who (maybe) fudged his Spotify Wrapped to the use of chart-topping songs as rhetorical ammunition in the nation’s white-hot debate over immigration enforcement.
Just last week, the Trump White House engaged in an animated exchange with the pop star Sabrina Carpenter over the use of one of Carpenter’s songs in a promotional video for ICE.
Carpenter called the administration’s video “evil and disgusting” and characterized the Trump deportation campaign as “inhumane.”
A deputy White House press secretary responded with a statement that lifted more lyrics from the singer. The whole saga garnered hundreds of millions of impressions online and a write up in the New York Times with a surreal headline that further reflects the confluence of pop culture and politics.
“Neither Franklin the Turtle Nor Sabrina Carpenter Wants to Appear in Trump Posts,” the Times headline reads.
Carpenter, one of 2025’s most successful musicians, didn’t make it on the year-end lists of any of Connecticut’s gubernatorial candidates.
Maybe next year…
That’s all for this week! We’ll be back next week with another edition of the Tip Sheet!
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