Mark Lauretti speaks during a debate between five of the six republican candidates for Governor of Connecticut at the Sheraton in Stamford, Conn., on April 30, 2014.
Republican Mark Lauretti’s candidacy for lieutenant governor — a marriage of convenience between the Shelton mayor and Danbury counterpart Mark Boughton that lasted just four weeks — flatlined Tuesday.
The secretary of the state’s office ruled Lauretti ineligible for the Aug. 12 GOP primary for the state’s second-highest office.
Lauretti, who tried to petition his way onto the ballot by collecting signatures from registered Republicans, fell short of the mark of 8,190 names by 1,467 names, according to a letter Tuesday from Secretary of the State Denise Merrill.
“Time ran out on us,” Lauretti told Hearst Connecticut Media Tuesday. “I’m obviously disappointed, but I’m satisfied with the effort.”
Lauretti’s disqualification comes six days after Boughton, sensing that Lauretti’s petition drive would fall short, dropped out of the race for governor.
Lauretti started the election cycle as a candidate for governor, but did not win the support of enough delegates to automatically secure a spot on the GOP primary ballot.
The mayor of Shelton since 1991, Lauretti did raise more than $100,000 before the state Republican convention, keeping him in the conversation as a potential candidate for lieutenant governor.
“I think I got people’s attention,” Lauretti said. “I think that’s important the first time out of the box.”
Boughton drafted Lauretti to the ticket in late May after his original running mate, former Groton Mayor Heather Bond Somers, decided to run for lieutenant governor on her own.
Lauretti said the mayoral tandem lost 10 days in the transition process, giving them only 18 days to come up with the signatures, which he characterized as a yeoman’s task.
Without merging fundraising accounts with either Lauretti or Somers, Boughton would have been unable to qualify for $1.4 million in public funding for his primary campaign for governor.
Lauretti left the door wide open to future forays into the statewide political arena, saying that some of his opponents have been running for four to five years when he spent less than six months as a candidate for governor and then lieutenant governor.
“If people aren’t interested in someone who has a consistent ability to perform and get results, then forget it,” Lauretti said of his mayoral tenure.