The shadows are already growing longer in the governor’s race — and it’s not even fall.
A second shadow group — a super PAC aligned with the Republican Governors Association — has thrust itself into the bellwether race between Democratic incumbent Dannel P. Malloy and GOP challenger Tom Foley.
Grow Connecticut Inc. is behind a $193,000 television ad buy targeting Malloy, according to an Aug. 14 filing with the state Elections Enforcement Commission.
Bankrolling the group to the tune of $250,000 is the RGA, as well as former diplomat and Foley confidant Craig Stapleton, who gave $25,000 to the super PAC and has family ties to the Bushes.
Stapleton, who owns a stake in the St. Louis Cardinals and is from Greenwich, served as U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic and France under President George W. Bush. Foley served as ambassador to Ireland, also under Bush.
Grow Connecticut still has $82,000 in the bank, according to its filing, which listed Elizabeth Kurantowicz, the former chief of staff for the Connecticut GOP and a key Republican fundraiser, as the group’s treasurer.
The emergence of the anti-Malloy super PAC comes two days after Foley’s victory in the GOP primary and less than three weeks after the formation of a rival shadow group known Connecticut Forward and aligned with the Democratic Governors Association.
Connecticut Forward has spent close to $100,000 on polling and political consulting since its inception.
Both Malloy and Foley are bound by spending limits prescribed by Connecticut’s so-called clean elections program, which furnished them each with $6.5 million in taxpayer funding for the duration of the race.
Critics of the program say that there few checks in place to prevent outside shadow groups from saturating Connecticut with money and undermining spending caps for candidates.