U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy today kicked off his Senate campaign’s jobs tour with visits to Manchester and Stamford.
I caught up with Murphy at the latter stop – Total Image Beauty and Barber.
Most of the news coming out of Murphy’s 5th Congressional District in the past few weeks has involved state House Speaker Chris Donovan’s, D-Meriden, campaign to succeed Murphy.
Robert Braddock, Donovan’s campaign finance director, was arrested for alleged fundraising hanky panky.
Donovan has said he was unaware of what others in his campaign were up to and will remain in the race. He canned Braddock, a deputy finance director and his campaign manager and is also conducting an internal review.
Donovan is being challenged in August’s primary by two other candidates – Elizabeth Esty and Dan Roberti.
Murphy’s been quiet about the Donovan matter so I asked him about it today.
“I have three good friends running for the U.S. House so I haven’t made an endorsement in that race,” he said. “I think Speaker Donovan has taken the right steps to address this issue. I think I’m as eager as he is to see the results of the internal audit of his campaign.”
Murphy added, “I’ve spoken to the Speaker and I’ve told him I think he’s taking the proper steps right now and I think all of us that run for office are always concerned that someone is going to go out and do something without our knowledge or input. I hope that that’s the case here. I trust Chris that this doesn’t go any farther than the people in his campaign that he’s let go.”
While some have questioned whether Donovan should remain in the race, Murphy said he trusts the voters.
“The voters are going to have all the information before them when they come to the polls in August and it ultimately should be up to them,” Murphy said.