Machine Politics and Re-election Fatigue

• In Event: Cities and Local Media: Setting the Urban Policy Agenda

Abstract

MACHINE POLITICS AND RE-ELECTION FATIGUE:
Multiple Municipal Races in Political Machine Bridgeport, Connecticut

Jonathan L. Wharton, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Political Science and Urban Affairs
Southern Connecticut State University

ABSTRACT

Following last year’s local primary election and weeks before the general mayoral election, video evidence featured a Democratic Party vice chair placing dozens of absentee ballots in a Bridgeport voting drop box. This was not the first time absentee ballots were narrowly used to win elections in Connecticut’s largest city, but 2023’s mayoral race required a primary and general re-election on January 23 and February 27 (2024) due to a state Superior Court order. Since the decision, much national and international media attention (from New York Times to BBC) as well as Elon Musk’s tweet centered on absentee ballot misuse in Bridgeport.

Former mayoral aide John Gomes won the machine poll count but lost the city’s Democratic Party primary by 251 absentee ballots, as Mayor Joe Ganim won the September and November general election. Elected over several terms (1991-2003) as Bridgeport’s mayor, Ganim faced 16 federal counts and seven years in prison for bribery, extortion and racketeering in 2003. He remained widely popular after serving his prison sentence and won re-election in 2014. Bridgeport’s local Democratic Party committee or Democratic Town Committee (DTC) has maintained political machine tactics (city contracts and jobs for donors and supporters) to secure Ganim’s incumbency and preventing party competition. These machine-led strategies insured an entrenched party machine under Mayor Ganim and longtime party Chairman Mario Testa. As a result, voter turnout has remained anemic at 20 to 25-percent turnout in primary and general municipal elections for decades.

With 2024’s re-elections, Bridgeport residents experienced voter fatigue following 2023’s races. Voter turnout not only lessened over several elections, residents’ distrust in municipal governance further eroded because of political leaders’ tactics. This paper presents the impact of longstanding political machines (Grimshaw, Biles) leading to political sub-machines (Gosnell) and political disengagement (Thomspson). Considering Bridgeport’s recent multiple elections then, this research hypothesizes that court ordered re-elections hardly yield to reform oriented politics (Burns) and incorporation politics (Marshall, Browning, Tabb) to counter machine politics in a majority-minority city.

KEYWORDS
mayors, elections, urban politics, political machine, corruption

Author

• Jonathan L. Wharton, Southern Connecticut State University