BRANFORD – The Branford Democrat Party has filed its slate for the 2023 municipal elections without a candidate for first selectman, indicating incumbent Republican first selectman Jamie Cosgrove will likely run unopposed.
The party also did not nominate anyone to run for town clerk, leaving Republican incumbent Lisa Arpin to also run unopposed.
Kurt Schwanfelder, who lost the town treasurer race last election to Deborah Conklin, is running again for the seat. Schwanfelder lost his race for the seat in 2021 after leveling a series of unsubstantiated attacks on first selectman Jamie Cosgrove that were shown to lack any evidence. Voters responded by removing him from office.
Both parties are running 3 candidates for open Board of Education seats. For the 2 year term, the Democrats are running current RTM member Ram Shrestha against incumbent Republican Laura Troidle, and a combined 4 candidates are running for 6 year terms: Democrats Shawn Tiernan and Judy Barron, and Republicans Adam Greenberg and Kevin Reiss.
Ray Dunbar, who currently serves as the lone Democrat on the 3-member Board of Selectmen, was nominated once again.
Cosgrove running unopposed does not mean that there are not real issues at stake, however. The top seats in an election being unopposed often leads to lower turnout, and in the past, that can lead to the majority party losing seats on the RTM, the towns legislature. Cosgrove was unopposed in 2019, and the result was the Republicans losing 2 seats on the RTM as the base did not feel a need to turn out to the polls. But with some major projects likely to come before the town soon after the election, such as new fields, Cosgrove holding the Republican majority on the RTM can be crucial to getting projects passed in a timely manner, as in the past Democrats have tried to derail some projects, like the Community House, which they fought, or delay others, such as Walsh School, where Democrats tried to delay key votes on the project.