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“It’s been my honor to seek Connecticut’s highest statewide office,’’ Boughton said in a statement released by his campaign committee on NBCConnecticut.com. “However, I now believe it is time to suspend my candidacy and call for party unity behind the endorsed Republican candidate, Tom Foley.”
Boughton began his campaign in January. He first selected former Groton Mayor Heather Bond Somers as his running mate for lieutenant governor. He then won 22 percent of the vote at the Connecticut GOP convention in early May, coming in second behind Foley, a Greenwich businessman and the Republican candidate in the 2010 race for governor.
Somers quit as Boughton’s running mate shortly afterward. Boughton sought to join forces with Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti. Boughton was seeking to qualify for $1.4 million in public funding for the primary with the help of Lauretti.
Boughton’s exit leaves Foley and Fairfield’s John McKinney, the state Senate's minority leader, as the top candidates in the August primary.
The winner of the primary will face Gov. Dannel Malloy in the November election.
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