Merrill Gay, Eileen Ruiz and April Lewis Win Democratic Primary

The slate of Ruiz, Lewis and Gay were elected to represent Democratic voters on the Democratic Party’s Town Committee.

Democratic voters chose Eileen Ruiz, April Lewis and Board of Education Vice President Merrill Gay (D) to represent voters in the current 9th Voting District for a two year term.

Five Democrats had contested for three seats from the district in the March 1, 2022 Democratic Party primary.

Gay reportedly received 45 votes, Lewis and Ruiz received 37 each and Ald. Angela Segarra (D-2) and Chong Segarra received 2 votes each.

The election probably represents the last time that the current 9th Voting District, which is mostly in the East Side, will be used in an election, since the city is in the process of redistricting Council and voting districts after the decennial census.

Segarra and Gay both hold governmental seats on the City Council and Board of Education, respectively, but the Democratic Party Town Committee they ran for is not a government office. Rather, party town committees’ purpose is make endorsements in party nominations and elect local party leaders.

The New Britain Democratic Party uses an “open primary” format for its party committee selection, which means that all candidates for the committee must collect signatures from five percent of Democratic Party voters in each of their voting districts in order to qualify for a seat on the committee. If more people in a particular voting district qualify than there are seats, then the Democratic voters decide, in a primary election, who will take the seats. That is what happened today in the 9th voting district.

The New Britain Republican Party uses a different process in which its party holds a “caucus”, a meeting in which any Republican voter who attends can vote to endorse candidates for Republican Town Committee, who become their Town Committee unless challenged in the primary.

Under their party rules, the New Britain Democrats do not have hold an endorsement caucus.

A similar primary was held two years ago, when Democrats had a Town Committee primary in the city’s 11th voting district.