Hearst CT poll: Rate Rick Torres’ chances

Rick Torres, the GOP nominee for mayor of Bridgeport in 2003, knows as well as anyone that being elected mayor of the Park City as a Republican at this point would be a little like being elected president of the Yankee Stadium Bleacher Creatures as a Red Sox fan.

Democrats are going on 20 straight years in mayor’s office, the most recent GOP mayor having left office when Mary Moran lost the 1991 election to Joe Ganim.

Yet Torres, who lost the 2003 race to Democrat John Fabrizi, is back for another shot.

As the Post’s Keila Torres Ocasio writes, Torres accepted the GOP’s nomination on Tuesday, vowing to lift residents who he said are being “restrained by government.”

“Our city is loaded with individuals that have been restrained by government,” Torres said in a 10 minute speech in which he received several rounds of applause from the 35 RTC members in attendance. “The reality is that many of our neighbors, particularly African-Americans, Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics, have been held down by the bait of government aid. Now they can’t lift their heads up without government help.”

Torres figures to enter the general election as a clear underdog regardless of who Democrats chose in their primary, which is shaping up to be a highly entertaining race between Mayor Bill Finch and a group of challengers led by Bridgeport Bluefish co-founder Mary Jane Foster.

But how big of an underdog is Torres?

We’re curious to hear what readers think Torres needs — be it a flawlessly run campaign, chaos on the Democratic side, a three-way race in which Democrats are divided between two candidates — to make this thing competitive, and whether he should be considered a viable contender, or merely a guy playing the role of Alan Schlesinger in the 2006 U.S. Senate race.

Vote in the poll below and send us a tweet or leave a comment to rate Torres’ chances:


Ben Doody