A rowdy crowd early in the night turned silent and disappointed as Incumbent Hamden mayor Lauren Garrett won re-election over Republican Crystal Dailey.
“I’m really happy with what we were able to accomplish,” Dailey said.
Dailey’s supporters loudly cheered as she was announced a winner of districts one and eight, the first two districts to be announced on Tuesday night.
However, those were the only two districts Dailey would win, as Garrett went on to sweep the remaining seven districts en route to re-election.
The Republican candidate’s party mainly consisted of members of the Republican Town Committee along with her family and friends. One of those RTC members, 25-year-old Andrew Tammaro, won a bid for Hamden’s Board of Education. Tammaro, a lifelong resident of Hamden, returned home after college and soon found himself getting involved in the local government.
“I’ve seen it change in a lot of ways… seeing how my own town was handling some things that affected me as a college student or a college graduate, trying to buy a house or God forbid starting a family here, is something that I’ve found borderline untenable,” Tammaro said. “When you couple that with growing concerns about public safety and the steady increase in tax rates…There’s a lot of concerns out there and I think there needs to be people out there that can take those concerns and make it into an action and that’s where I found Crystal was really that person.”
Many of the other supporters at Dailey’s party, including Dailey herself, echoed Tammaro’s sentiment that change is needed.
“I was really sad to hear stories of people, hundreds of people, when I knocked on doors that could not afford to live in their homes,” Dailey said. “Rents are too high, Inflation’s at an all-time high, crime is high, there’s a low morale with our police department and overall there’s a low morale because there’s a lot of divisiveness between parties.”
Although the election numbers were similar to the numbers in 2021, many of the party members were pleased with the results.
“What I’m seeing is an empowering message that people want change,” Kathy Hoyt said. “People are done with the nonsense in Hamden. I’m seeing close numbers and I’m seeing a woman that has spoken for transparency in Hamden and a woman that has spoken for us. We’re done. We’ve had it. We’ve become unified in our desire to enact change.”
Now, the Republican party will turn its attention to 2025. While it’s currently unclear if Dailey will run for mayor again, the Republican party will have another opportunity to unseat Garrett and elect the first Republican in Hamden in over 20 years.
4 replies on “A look at Crystal Dailey’s election night gathering”
If Garrett will roll back the mill rate 2.5 to say 4 points in the next 2 years and get crime at the Plaza under control she could win by 2000 votes. Her protagonists on Facebook were of no use to Dailey. Dailey threw in with the wrong Facebook crowd.
Mike Devine:
those are strange false words coming from a man who has not lived in Hamden for over 50 yrs. Also strange since you run the illegal Official Mayor Lauren Garrett Surrogate site, approved by the Mayor and her chief of staff, Sean Grace. A shameful site that only posts absurd “Giphys” and trashes and bashes any Hamden citizen that is wise to you and your gang and posts the truth about the damaging effects of the Garrett Administration.
Duh….where are my comments? Obviously, Quinnipiac does NOT belive in Free Speech!
Good Article reflecting our night two weeks ago on election night. Thank you to HQNN throughout this entire process and giving Crystal an opportunity to use your platform to get her message out and her plans for Hamden. We live here and see firsthand what happens in Hamden from the inside and outside and can say that the town has voted the same way for over 24 years. People can say all the if’s, could’ve and should’ve all they want but they have no clue what goes on here especially when they’re biased towards one party. My opinion for this town is that change will happen only when things get even worse than they are now. The Democrats do a good job sticking together and representing their party throughout the town and will do anything necessary to win. We conservatives stepped up this cycle, but it just wasn’t enough to open the eyes of those stuck on tradition. Hopefully in the near future the outcome could be different but one thing we cannot control is people’s decisions.