The former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland will announce his second run for governor Tuesday in a city that delayed the official vote tally in 2010 when it failed to order enough ballots, and then spent days counting them by hand.
Republican Tom Foley, who lost to Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy by 6,404 votes in 2010 will announce his second bid for governor at 11 a.m. at the Burroughs Community Center in Bridgeport.
Foley, who runs a private equity firm in Greenwich, has never really stopped running for governor since his defeat in 2010. In addition to creating a non-profit think-tank after losing in 2010, Foley started making the rounds to newspaper editorial boards last November.
Earlier this year, he appeared on several Sunday news programs and visited the state Capitol to lobby for legislation he argued would eliminate conflicts of interests in the part-time legislature. The later move didn’t go well for Foley, who seemed to offend members of his own party with his remarks at a March public hearing on the legislation.
In 2010, Foley spent more than $10 million of his own money on the campaign, while his Republican opponent — former Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele — used the public campaign finance system along with Malloy.
Shortly after news broke that Foley would be making his candidacy official Tuesday, state Democratic Party’s Executive Director Jonathan Harris was anxious to remind reporters of all the political mudslinging from the 2010 campaign, including an ad featuring former employees of a Georgia textile mill run by Foley’s company from 1985 to 1996.
“Mr. Foley has a lot of questions to answer. Did he really think taking these people’s jobs away and ruining their retirement security was the right thing to do, and the right way to make millions of dollars?” Harris asked in an emailed statement.
Foley has disputed the series of events and allegations he did anything to harm the people who worked for the Bibb Co.
As recently as June, Foley was the frontrunner in the 2014 race for governor with data showing that he would beat Malloy by three percentage points in the Quinnipiac University poll.
The only other candidates to announce their intention to run for governor thus far are state Sen. John McKinney and West Hartford resident Joe Visconti. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton and Sen. Toni Boucher of Wilton also are exploring possible gubernatorial campaigns.
Malloy hasn’t announced his re-election bid, but there’s no indication that he’s not going to run.
So far, all the candidates except for Foley will be using the Citizens’ Election Program, which means they will need to raise $250,000 in small donations to qualify for $1.25 million for the primary and then $6 million for the general election.