We won the debate. It was not close.

On Tuesday night, we got the one thing this campaign has been asking for all year: a chance to stand next to Lamont on the same stage and let voters compare for themselves.

Here is what happened. When News 8 asked viewers who won the debate, a majority said this campaign did, 53 percent to 47 percent.

Against a billionaire governor with 99 percent name recognition, running for a third term, that result is instructive.

It also explains why there will only be one debate. WFSB offered to host one. Lamont declined without explanation. Indivisible organized another, hosted at Quinnipiac University and moderated by Connecticut Public. Lamont’s team said no to that one too. They know that every time voters see us side by side, voters move toward this campaign. So the plan for the final three weeks is the same one national Democrats used with Biden: keep the candidate out of sight and hope nobody pays attention. That is not what a strong leader does.

Consider what happened after the debate ended. The on-air commentary was handed to two Republicans and a lobbyist paid $50,000 a year by Eversource, who spent the segment trashing this campaign. That is who lined up to tell Democratic primary voters what to think. Franklin Roosevelt said it nearly a century ago, and it still holds: judge me by the enemies I have made.

The latest campaign finance filings tell the rest of the story. Over the past three months, Lamont wrote his own campaign checks totaling more than $3,000,000, on top of the inherited, generational banking wealth he has poured into four campaigns for office. His payroll went from roughly 20 people in April to 73 by the end of June. And his campaign already had a manager and a chairman when he brought back Daniel Morrocco, his 2022 campaign manager, as a senior advisor for the final month of the race. Four years ago, Morrocco was paid $22,000 a month. Political operatives have a name for stacking a new boss on top of the team you already have: layering. It is what organizations do when things are falling apart internally, and money is the only tool left.

Lamont loves to say Connecticut cannot solve problems by throwing money at them. He says Bridgeport does not need librarians, as if librarians were some indulgence no town in Connecticut can afford. And today, not a single Bridgeport public school has a librarian, after budget cuts the district blames in part on inadequate state funding. Meanwhile, in Greenwich, the schools have librarians and the power lines run underground, because the town pays for what its residents need. And when his own campaign is in trouble, he throws money at the problem without a second thought: more staff, more ads, more consultants. Money works. Lamont knows money works. He simply does not believe the rest of the state deserves what Greenwich has.

So when he calls this campaign’s ideas too expensive, remember who is talking: a billionaire paying less than 8 percent of his income in state and local taxes, roughly half the rate working families pay. Affordable housing. Fully funded public schools. Electric rates that do not punish you for heating your home. In the wealthiest state in the wealthiest country in history, these are not extravagances. Why do we allow Connecticut to be the land of small ideas?

Momentum is clearly on our side. Our last all-hands call drew hundreds of volunteers from every corner of the state. Lamont's drew 15 people, including his own staff. And this week, voters on the r/Connecticut forum were asked two questions about this primary: who do you want to win, and who do you think will win. On who they think will win, most picked Lamont. On who they want to win, 187 people chose this campaign. Twelve chose Lamont.

That gap is the whole race. People assume everyone around them is with the frontrunner, then discover their neighbors want the same change they do. Democrats across Connecticut are waking up to the fact that they have an option, and an option they can be excited about.

Look at what our volunteers are doing. Many of them expect a Lamont win, and they are out knocking doors, making calls, and telling family and friends about this campaign anyway, because they want a different outcome. That excitement is what decides an August primary. Nobody turns out to vote for a candidate they feel nothing for, in a race they assume that candidate has already won. Lamont’s campaign is built on that assumption. Ours is built on proving it wrong, and proving it wrong only happens if you come out and help.

The public polls you may have seen will not capture any of that. They are over a month old, taken before we put a single dollar of the $3,750,000 public grant to work, and built on turnout models that, by our read, assume voters under 30 will deliver only about 5 percent of the vote. The people who powered Zohran Mamdani past a Lamont-endorsed Andrew Cuomo last year would beg to differ.

Here is what to do with the time we have. Forward this email to everyone you know in Connecticut. Talk about this race at dinner, at work, at the beach. Absentee ballots are available right now through your town clerk. Early voting begins Monday, August 3. Primary day is Tuesday, August 11.

We can win this, and we do not have a moment to waste.

Sleeves up.

Josh