A CT man continues lifelong battle against political odds

John Gomes never gives up.

For his entire lifetime, the Bridgeport mayoral candidate has been battling the odds, and he is not changing now.

Gomes arrived in the United States at the age of 9 without his parents and could not speak English. He settled in a tough neighborhood in Bridgeport, a hardscrabble city surrounded by wealth in one of the richest states in the nation. He overcame multiple stumbling blocks and eventually graduated from college, opening a family food business and eventually holding high-level positions in city government.

Today, Gomes speaks five languages and is running to become Bridgeport’s next mayor.

But the stumbling blocks have continued. Gomes lost the Democratic primary on Sept. 12 to incumbent Joe Ganim, prompting a Superior Court judge to order a new primary after the Gomes campaign filed a civil lawsuit that charged that Ganim supporters were caught on video stuffing the ballot boxes. Ganim then won the general election in which Gomes ran as an independent candidate, but the new primary is expected to be held in mid-December. If Gomes wins the second primary, then voters would head to the polls yet again for a second general election — for a total of four elections.

The Gomes supporters thought they had the lead in the general election, but a flood of absentee ballots helped Ganim pull ahead and win again. Undeterred, Gomes vows to press on.

“This is not over,” Gomes said to his stunned supporters on election night.

“That’s really all I can say. It’s not over. I urge the state of Connecticut, I urge the governor, I urge the Secretary of the State to now come out more than ever and speak against the injustice, the oppression that is being imposed on the people of Bridgeport,” he said. “We cannot continue to say we live in America. We live in a system of democracy. … We, the people of Bridgeport, believe that we continue to be betrayed. It’s not over. I’m proud to say the fight is not over.”

About a mile away, Ganim declared victory as his supporters celebrated after midnight. He blasted Gomes, a former close political ally who was fired by Ganim in July 2022 after it became public that Gomes might run against the mayor.

“The Gomes people and his crew have been beaten twice now. In sports terms, we call them two-time losers,” Ganim said at his election celebration. “Respect the voters of the city of Bridgeport. Withdraw these claims. They’ve now lost their legitimacy.”

Despite being a convicted felon who served seven years in federal prison on corruption charges, Ganim, now 64, remains popular in his hometown. Going door to door on the campaign trail, he personally knows a huge number of local voters and is charismatic in one-on-one conversations. His popularity allowed him to make a political comeback after being found guilty of 16 felonies, including bribery, extortion, racketeering, and conspiracy, stemming from kickback schemes when he was mayor.

After leaving prison, Ganim staged a comeback and defeated then-Mayor Bill Finch in a Democratic primary in September 2015. He has served as mayor ever since.

The Ganim-Gomes clash is multilayered and personal in a divided city where politics is so complicated and splintered by numerous factions and allegiances that insiders compare it to Beirut.

History in Bridgeport

Overcoming struggles is the theme of Gomes’s life.

He came to Bridgeport from Cape Verde, a small island country off the coast of Africa where the main language is Portuguese. He moved to a hard-working neighborhood known as The Hollow, which has been welcoming poor immigrants for the past two centuries. First, it was the Irish. In recent decades, the newcomers have come from Cape Verde in Africa, Portugal, and Brazil, among others.

“He grew up in poverty in Bridgeport in The Hollow and couldn’t speak a word of English,” said Tony Santos, a longtime friend. “He’s been there. He truly, truly knows where he comes from. He grew up with no mom and dad in the United States. They had nothing — a kid who came from the West Coast of Africa.”

Santos served as president of the Cape Verdean social club on Linen Avenue, the centerpiece of Cape Verdean life in the neighborhood. Major parties are held there, including the Gomes gathering on election night.

Gomes himself served as president of the social club, which led to problems for him when he was arrested in 2009 after police said the crowd was too large at the club at about 2 a.m. during a Halloween party. At the time, Gomes said that he felt he was set up.

Gomes was charged with interfering with an officer, breach of peace and reckless endangerment, and he was fired by then-Mayor Bill Finch after not cooperating in the police investigation. The police said the club’s liquor permit had not been properly stamped at city hall, and a health department inspection permit had not been posted in the kitchen.

The charges were eventually dropped in court after Gomes applied for accelerated rehabilitation that is offered by prosecutors for first-time offenders for minor crimes.

Back at the social club, president Francisco Santos said he has known Gomes since childhood and worked on his behalf for the election as the neighborhood rallied around the candidate.

“We’re a tight-knit community,” Santos said.

With success and well-paying jobs, Gomes could have moved out of the city long ago.

“He didn’t have to stay here,” said Johnel Hall, 47, a lifelong city resident who has known Gomes for 20 years. “He could have moved way past Bridgeport. He had the funds and the means. He believes in Bridgeport. He did well in a poor education system. We can say Bridgeport education isn’t the greatest.”

Echoing his campaign theme in an advertisement, Gomes says, “Simply stated, I believe in Bridgeport, and I am Bridgeport.”

Fired by past two mayors 

Serving in high-level, non-union positions, Gomes, 52, has been fired by the past two mayors in New England’s fifth-largest city.

After backing Finch in the 2007 mayor’s race, Gomes started working in city hall as deputy chief administrative officer who oversaw Finch’s new CitiStat program that scrutinized departments and tried to increase productivity. That job ended after the dispute in 2009 at the social club.

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After the firing, Gomes decided to challenge Finch for mayor in 2011 but eventually dropped out and supported another candidate as Finch won a Democratic primary.

In 2015, Ganim had been released from prison and worked on a comeback with support from Gomes and others. While many claim credit after the fact for a political victory, Gomes’s friends say he played a huge role in backing Ganim.

“Without him, Joe Ganim would not have been able to win eight years ago,” Tony Santos said. “John worked around the clock to help Ganim win. That’s the truth.”

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Now back in favor, Gomes was rewarded by Ganim with the position of acting chief administrative officer who oversaw departments with more than 2,000 city employees under him. Gomes gained the nickname of “the hatchet man” after enacting layoffs to close a large budget deficit, but he said he did not like the moniker. He was criticized by opponents for making quick decisions and being quick-tempered, but his supporters always backed him.

Today, Gomes says he has the city’s best interests at heart, just like when he worked for Ganim.

“Because I live in Bridgeport,” Gomes said. “I feel the consequences of what’s going on. I am that small business owner, that father, that resident, that taxpayer. I don’t live in another city. I don’t come here just for a paycheck like many in his top administration and leave here and don’t come back on the nights or on the weekends. And that’s the problem.”

Election night

On election night, the atmosphere at the Cape Verdean social club had been raucous after Gomes told the large crowd that he had pulled ahead on the polling machines by 564 votes. Loud music reverberated throughout the crowded club, and Gomes conducted multiple interviews for television reporters as the celebration continued.

But then, in a stunning turnaround, Gomes gathered the crowd together again and suddenly announced that he had lost by 173 votes to Ganim because of a flood of absentee ballots. The word spread quickly, and the atmosphere changed as the somber realization hit the Gomes supporters.

With most reporters gone from the room, a Gomes supporter paced back and forth, loudly shouting expletives and repeatedly asking when operatives in Bridgeport were going to be arrested for campaign violations. Other supporters had similar frustrations in the early morning hours.

Only hours earlier, supporters of Gomes had gathered around him on a small stage – jumping up and down as they chanted his name.

“We have seen for the last two weeks, the spotlight has been unfortunately on Bridgeport,” Gomes told the crowd. “We need to eradicate the corruption, the illegal tactics, the voter suppression, the civil rights violations. … Let people outside these walls know that this fight is far from being over.”

National attention

The unusual nature of the Bridgeport race has captured national attention and has been mentioned on Fox News and Forbes.com, among others. A satellite truck from WABC-TV in New York City was parked outside the Gomes party on election night.

After posting a link to a story about the new primary, former President Donald J. Trump said, “This is just a ‘tiny’ part of what’s happening in our country with voting. It’s all a giant scam! Congratulations to those that caught these criminals in action, and for having the courage to pursue it.”

Billionaire Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter and renamed it as X, mentioned Bridgeport to more than 160 million of his followers worldwide.

“That this happened here is beyond reasonable doubt,” Musk said in a tweet. “The only question is how common it is.”

The American Dream 

Standing in the social club on election night, Gomes showed that he had not strayed far from the neighborhood by pointing outside to Lafayette Park, which is known locally as Nanny Goat Park.

“As a young boy, I played right in that park across the street,” Gomes told The Courant. “Went to the school around the corner. I was raised by three women from Cape Verde, some back home and some here. I was fortunate due to the Reagan amnesty law that he passed. I was able to get my green card. Then from there, I obtained my citizenship. I went to UConn and obtained my degrees, both undergrad and master’s. I went to work in corporate America, and came back to Bridgeport and established a small business. Then I had the fortune to work in city government, which led me to where I am today.”

Gomes said he had been simply trying to get to the United States.

“You come in search of that American Dream. That’s what you do,” Gomes said. “I left all my parents and everybody back home. You just come. Innocently, you come, and here we are.”

Christopher Keating can be reached at [email protected]