Trailing 20 points in race for governor, Ryan Fazio makes jobs pitch
A new Quinnipiac University poll gives Gov. Ned Lamont a 58%-38% lead over Republican challenger Ryan Fazio.
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Facing a 20-point deficit in the race for governor with less than a week before Early Voting begins, Republican Ryan Fazio rolled out a plan on Wednesday to get workers into the 86,000 open positions in Connecticut.
NEW POLL: LAMONT "HEADED TO A VERY COMFORTABLE VICTORY"
Fazio’s announcement came as a new Quinnipiac University Poll gave Lamont a 58%-38% lead. Only 3% of voters were undecided, but three in 10 respondents said they do not know enough about Fazio to form an opinion of him.
"Ned Lamont looks headed to a very comfortable victory,” said poll director Doug Schwartz. “This is the biggest lead a candidate for governor in Connecticut has had in two decades since Jodi Rell led John DeStefano by 24 points.”
Fazio insisted he isn’t worried.
“The only poll that matters is on Election Day,” he told reporters. “We have three weeks to fight this campaign to the very end and make our case to voters for change.”
JOBS PLAN
Before the poll came out, Fazio visited Lincoln Technical Institute in Shelton to roll out a four-point plan for filling manufacturing and skilled trade jobs.
The goal is to reach workers like Acim Hazlewood, one of 500 future electricians studying at Lincoln Tech.
“Came from a family – from a father – he’s been a journeyman for pretty much all my entire life,” he said. “I feel much easier if you have a trade or something under your belt.”
The centerpiece of Fazio’s plan is letting companies hire more apprentices, where students get on-the-job training in exchange for lower pay.
“The governor has been nowhere on this,” Fazio told reporters. “The employers are asking to create more apprenticeships and they’re standing in the way of opportunity for people.”
Labor unions raised alarm bells about the proposal.
“There’s definitely concerns about workers being exploited. The cap is where it should be because you need apprentices to come in and not just be used to churn out cheap labor,” said Connecticut AFL-CIO president Ed Hawthorne. “The contractors that are standing with Sen. Fazio simply want cheap labor that is not going to move on to become a full journeyman and make that full rate.”
Fazio also pledged bigger tax breaks for manufacturers who expand, as well as eliminating professional license fees across the board, which he estimated would cost $100 million.
“They shouldn’t be paying hundreds of dollars just for the right to work,” he said.
LAMONT PUSHES BACK
Gov. Ned Lamont already cut license fees, but only on certain professions. He also approved debt-free community college, plus created a new Career Pathways Commission and Connecticut AI Academy to train students for jobs in artificial intelligence.
“It’s interesting how certain policies are already happening, but are being proposed by the other side,” said state Rep. Kara Rochelle (D-Ansonia), whom the Lamont campaign brought to the press conference. “We have things like Career Connect, which has shoveled thousands of workers into job training programs and gotten them to good-paying jobs.”
Despite those efforts, Connecticut’s 5.1% unemployment rate in August was the highest in the Northeast, and nearly 1% above the national rate.
