Late on Oct. 20, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont’s campaign manager and Connecticut’s then-candidate for the 28th State Senate District, Rob Blanchard, was pulled over by police in Newtown, according to WTNH.
Blanchard received a traffic ticket after he drove through an active construction zone on South Main Street and failed to obey the police officer’s signal to cross into the opposite lane. His vehicle reentered a closed lane and drove into a construction hole, damaging one of his front tires, according to Yahoo! News.
Blanchard claimed he had been blinded by the construction lights, which prevented him from being able to see the police officer’s signal or the traffic pattern. No injuries were reported.
The ticket triggered a political dispute at a Stamford campaign rally on Oct. 31, when a Connecticut Centinal reporter recorded Lamont and questioned him about Blanchard’s infraction.
Connecticut Centinal is a conservative news and opinion website which was founded in 2021, according to WFSB.
The video showed Lamont asking, “what is this about,” before swatting the phone away when Lamont saw he was being recorded. This prompted the reporter to accuse him of assault in the video.
When asked to comment about the video, Lamont told WFSB that he thinks his Republican competitor for the election, Sen. Ryan Fazio, was getting desperate and that maybe someone was trying to stir up trouble at the event. He said that he was just celebrating Halloween and he wished Fazio were doing the same thing.
Lamont’s campaign team defended him by saying that the reporter invaded Lamont’s personal space and neither the phone nor the reporter had been touched, according to WFSB.
According to WFSB and Yahoo! News, Fazio’s campaign team had condemned Lamont and said that the incident was shameful and a misdemeanor under Connecticut law.
Fazio’s campaign spokeswoman, Hannah Lemek, said Lamont was getting too comfortable in office after serving two terms as governor.
“Ned Lamont has become so arrogant after nearly a decade in office that he feels comfortable committing a crime on camera. The free press plays a vital role in defending our democracy, and physically intimidating reporters for asking questions is a bully tactic that has no place in Connecticut. We expect the media to bring the same level of scrutiny and reporting to this incident that they would to any other serious controversy in this race. Governor Lamont clearly believes he is above accountability and doesn’t have to answer to the people of Connecticut. His actions speak for themselves,” Lemek said in a statement.
Lamont’s campaign later responded to the accusations from Fazio’s campaign.
“For the last several months, political provocateurs have shown up to disrupt the Governor’s events, both official and campaign. While presenting themselves as journalists, these individuals have been seen supporting Republicans…It’s no surprise that Ryan Fazio, whose campaign has failed to gain traction with voters, is now desperately trying to manufacture any sign of life by deploying these faux journalists to harass the Governor, get uncomfortably close to him, and shove cameras in his face. Taking a page out of Trump’s playbook, Fazio is trying to turn nothing into something in a last-ditch effort to generate attention for his struggling campaign. Connecticut voters haven’t bought the act for the past year, and they aren’t buying it now,” Lamont’s campaign said in a response statement.
Lamont’s team also found a witness that is a Lamont supporter, Lauren Meyer, who provided testimony to WFSB.
Meyer said that the reporter from Connecticut Centinal had been too close to the governor and caught him off guard. She said Lamont had moved his hand in the direction of the camera but never slapped her phone or made physical contact with the reporter.
Fazio told WFSB that it looked like the governor had smacked her phone because he was asked a question he didn’t want to hear. Fazio believes that it’s not the kind of leadership that people in Connecticut want to see. He told WFSB that Lamont should take accountability and apologize.
The controversy, which happened less than a week before election day, would not stop Lamont from being elected for a third term as governor on Tuesday.