Whitnum to primary Himes

Lee Whitnum, the scrappy dark-horse Democratic candidate from Greenwich, has turned in the required signatures to get on the ballot for a 4th Congressional District primary against Jim Himes, according to a local registrar of voters.

(Candidate Lee Whitnum with an unidentified youthful-beyond-belief blogger at the annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner; photo by Connecticut Bob)

From the Greenwich Time:

Battling near-triple-digit temperatures and car problems, a Greenwich woman scrambled Tuesday to file petitions by a 4 p.m. deadline for forcing an August primary against Democrat Jim Himes, the party-endorsed candidate in 4th District congressional race.

Lee Whitnum, 47, a substitute teacher who has written novels, was optimistic about her chances of qualifying for the contest.

"We've got the signatures," Whitnum said when reached on her cell phone.

Whitnum said she was too busy to talk further because she was delivering her petitions to election officials across the district, which includes 17 municipalities in Fairfield County and a sliver of New Haven County.

To force an August 12 primary against Himes, who was endorsed at the party's nominating convention last month and also lives in Greenwich, Whitnum needs to get signatures from 2,459 or 2 percent of the registered Democrats in the district. The winner would take on longtime Republican incumbent Christopher Shays in the November general election.

"Looks like the young lady is ready to go," said Alice Fortunato, the Democratic registrar of voters in Stamford, where a volunteer dropped off a petition with 300 names.

Election officials in the different municipalities have seven days to certify that the petition's signers are registered Democrats in their respective city or town. The names will get forwarded to the Secretary of the State's office after the certification.