After a week of petitioning, four candidates for New Haven mayor collected the required 2,406 signatures to stay in the race and make it onto the Sept. 10 ballot.
Henry Fernandez, Hillhouse High School principal Kermit Carolina, city alderman Justin Elicker and State Sen. Toni Harp, the Democratic party nominee, are all still in the running.
Harp was endorsed by the Democratic party on July 23. In theory, the endorsement should have exempted her from the petition, but one day later, the party missed a key deadline, failing to submit the results in time.
Harp was required to petition alongside her three opponents.
As it turns out, she had nothing to worry about.
“I think it bodes well for us in the overall election,” said Harp, “and we’re going to keep knocking on doors and making our case to the people of New Haven.”
All four candidates received the necessary signatures, with Elicker collecting around 4,700, Harp collecting 5,500, Carolina collecting 4,000 and Fernandez collecting more than 6,000.
“Sometimes you have to sit down and enjoy the little victories,” Carolina said, “and this is a little victory in the sense that we were able to collect the signatures we needed.”
The candidates will face off at the polls next month.
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