HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Betsy McCaughey, a Republican former lieutenant governor of New York who switched parties in an unsuccessful 1998 bid to unseat then-Gov. George Pataki, is now running for governor of Connecticut.
McCaughey, 77, currently a conservative host on Newsmax and columnist for the New York Post, filed the official paperwork on Thursday to seek the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, who is running for a third term. She first announced her candidacy on Wednesday evening.
McCaughey (pronounced like McCoy), a resident of the wealthy New York City suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut, said her friends and social media followers urged her to run for governor.
“There’s a desperate hunger in this state for a competent, battle-tested fighter who will turn the state around, who will take on Ned Lamont and the other what I call lunatic lefties up in Hartford," she said during a phone interview with The Associated Press.
The top of her platform includes lowering costs for homeowners in the state, including property taxes and electricity bills. She wants to cap annual property tax increases to 2% and eliminate property taxes for most seniors. She also wants to scuttle a new state law signed by Lamont in November that seeks to increase affordable housing, but has been criticized by Republicans as removing local control of housing development.
Lamont's campaign responded Thursday by referring to a statement by Kevin Donohoe, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association.
“Betsy McCaughey has spent the last years of her career shilling for Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular agenda that is driving up costs for middle-class families," Donohoe said. “The last thing Connecticut families need right now is a Trump mouthpiece as their governor.”
McCaughey, who supports abortion rights, said she agrees with most of the Republican president's policies.
Lamont, 72, who also lives in Greenwich, is a wealthy former cable TV entrepreneur. He is facing a primary challenge from progressive Democratic state Rep. Josh Elliott of Hamden.
Also in the GOP primary race so far are former New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart and Greenwich state Sen. Ryan Fazio.
McCaughey grew up in Connecticut in Milford and Westport. She has a bachelor's degree in history from Vassar College and a doctorate in U.S. constitutional history from Columbia University. She is also the founder and chairman of Reduce Infection Deaths, an educational organization seeking to stop hospital infections.
In the 1990s, Republicans portrayed her as a policy wonk who helped derail President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan with her critique in The New Republic. In 1994, when Pataki was running for New York governor, he picked her as his lieutenant governor running mate. They won, and she served as lieutenant governor from January 1995 to December 1998.
The AP reported in 1998 that her working relationship with Pataki eventually frayed. At Pataki's State of the State address in 1996, she remained standing throughout his speech, prompting some speculation that she was trying to upstage him. She said she merely forgot to sit. She also denied accusations that she harassed her hired household help and used her state police security detail as chauffeurs and valets.
After Pataki dumped her from the 1998 GOP ticket, she switched parties and unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for governor. Then she continued her gubernatorial campaign as the Liberal Party candidate, finishing way behind Pataki, who was reelected, and Democrat Peter Vallone.
This year's race for governor in New York also features a challenge to the sitting governor by the lieutenant governor. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul faces a primary challenge by Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado.
FILE - Betsy McCaughey speaks Jan. 23, 2016, at the New Hampshire Republican Party summit in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A state appeals court is being asked to dismiss felony voter misconduct charges against an Alaska resident born in American Samoa, one of numerous cases that have drawn attention to the complex citizenship status of people born in the U.S. territory.
In arguments Thursday, attorneys for Tupe Smith plan to ask the Alaska Court of Appeals in Anchorage to reverse a lower court's decision that let stand the indictment brought against her. Her supporters say she made an innocent mistake that does not merit charges, but the state contends Smith falsely and deliberately claimed citizenship.
Prosecutors also have brought charges against 10 other people from American Samoa in the small Alaska community of Whittier, including Smith’s husband and her mother-in-law. American Samoa is the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by being born on American soil and instead are considered U.S. nationals. Paths to citizenship exist, such as naturalization, though that process can be expensive and cumbersome.
American Samoans can serve in the military, obtain U.S. passports and vote in elections in American Samoa, but they cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections.
About 25 people gathered on a snowy street outside the courthouse before Thursday's hearing to support Smith. One woman, Fran Seager of Palmer, held a sign that said, “Support our Samoans. They are US nationals.”
Smith's husband, Michael Pese, thanked the American Samoa community in the Anchorage area. “If it wasn’t for you guys, I wouldn’t be strong enough to face this head on,” he said.
State Sen. Forrest Dunbar, a Democrat who attended the rally, said the Alaska Department of Law has limited resources.
“We should be going after people who are genuine criminals, who are violent criminals, or at least have the intent to deceive,” he said. “I do not think it is a good use of our limited state resources to go after these hardworking, taxpaying Alaskans who are not criminals.”
Smith was arrested after winning election to a regional school board in 2023. She said she relied on erroneous information from local election officials when she identified herself as a U.S. citizen on voter registration forms.
In a court filing in 2024, one of her previous attorneys said that when Smith answered questions from the Alaska state trooper who arrested her, she said she was aware that she could not vote in presidential elections but was “unaware of any other restrictions on her ability to vote.”
Smith said she marks herself as a U.S. national on paperwork. But when there was no such option on voter registration forms, she was told by city representatives that it was appropriate to mark U.S. citizen, according to the filing.
Smith “exercised what she believed was her right to vote in a local election. She did so without any intent to mislead or deceive anyone,” her current attorneys said in a filing in September. “Her belief that U.S. nationals may vote in local elections, which was supported by advice from City of Whittier election officials, was simply mistaken.”
The state has said Smith falsely and deliberately claimed citizenship. Prosecutors pointed to the language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022, which explicitly said that if the applicant was not at least 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, “do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.”
The counts Smith was indicted on “did not have anything to do with her belief in her ability to vote in certain elections; rather they concerned the straightforward question of whether or not Smith intentionally and falsely swore she was a United States citizen,” Kayla Doyle, an assistant attorney general, said in court filings last year.
One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, said by email last week that if the appeals court lets stand the indictment, Alaska will be “the only state to our knowledge with such a low bar for felony voter fraud.”
Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska.
Michael Pese and his wife, Tupe Smith, stand outside the Boney Courthouse in Anchorage, Alaska, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, ahead of the Alaska Court of Appeals hearing a challenge to the voter fraud case brought against her by the state. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
Michael Pese, left, his wife, Tupe Smith, and their son Maximus pose for a photo outside the Boney Courthouse in Anchorage, Alaska, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, ahead of the Alaska Court of Appeals hearing a challenge to the voter fraud case brought against her by the state. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
FILE - Tupe Smith poses for a photo outside the school in Whittier, Alaska, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)
