Chip Toth was working at General Electric when he found himself across the table from Bob Stefanowski. The two men both worked at GE, but in different divisions, competing for the same customers.
“It can actually lead to some very tense conversations,” Toth said.
Toth's division wanted this customer's business, and so did Stefanowski's division. Toth remembered Stefanowksi’s approach to the meeting.
"Bob was, you know, thoughtful about it,” Toth said. “He wasn't overly aggressive, you know, he thought it belonged in the division he was part of, and he made his case very thoughtfully."
Toth said he's not sure what the outcome was, but it likely ended up in Stefanowski’s division, “without any hard feelings."
Stefanowski eventually became Toth’s boss. Toth said he was always easy to get along with. People who have met him on the campaign trail -- like Jeff Weiss, chairman of the New Haven Republican Town Committee -- generally say the same thing.
“Bob, he’s a very personable, very genuine guy,” said Weiss, who himself made headlines in 2016 for filming a group of teenagers steal a Donald Trump lawn sign. “He’s very sincere. I believe he’s the guy that does the right thing even when nobody’s looking.”
There's another side to Bob Stefanowski that sets him apart from other candidates -- how he deals with journalists.
Political reporter Neil Vigdor of The Hartford Courant is among those who have called into question Stefanowski’s accessibility.
"Stefanowski has limited his exposure,” Vigdor said on Connecticut Public Radio’s Where We Live. “He does give interviews, but there are certain media outlets that he's bypassing."
He recently bypassed Connecticut Public Radio while appearing earlier in the day on a conservative talk radio show. Stefanowski had been scheduled to appear on Where We Live, but canceled just two days before the air date. In a statement, Stefanowski noted that he's done a lot of radio interviews.
“Taking into account the substantial amount of time we have spent on radio so far in this campaign, we have decided to prioritize getting Bob on the road,” the statement read.
That same morning he appeared on a conservative radio show, and the host mentioned he had Stefanowski lawn signs for listeners.
When asked about his lack of accessibility to journalists at a recent campaign event, Stefanowski denied it.
“I honestly don’t know where that’s coming from,” Stefanowski said. “I did five debates, I’ve done a ton of interviews, we’re publishing our schedule, we’re gonna be out on the road the next two weeks, we’ve told you exactly where we’re gonna be.”
Connecticut Public Radio reached out to about a dozen former colleagues, friends, and neighbors of Stefanowski, seeking stories that showed his character. Some declined to comment. Most never responded -- including five people whose names were given to the station by the campaign.
When asked about this at a campaign event, Stefanowski walked away without acknowledging the question. Instead, Pat Trueman, his campaign manager, stepped in and suggested that he could be interviewed.
Other news outlets have struggled to get Stefanowski to sit down and dig into issues. Christine Stuart has been covering state politics for over a decade for CTNewsJunkie.com.
"It is frustrating for me, personally, to not be able to have access to a candidate,” Stuart said on Connecticut Public Radio's The Wheelhouse. “You know, I was given one opportunity for an interview and that’s been about it."
Mark Pazniokas covers state government for The Connecticut Mirror. He pointed out that it’s tradition for the governor to have an open door with the press, during good times and bad. That raises questions should Stefanowski win in November.
“Governors of Connecticut tend to be accessible to at least the capital press corps, whether they go out and about is a whole other thing,” Pazniokas said. “So if Bob Stefanowski is elected governor, that’s a major question, as to how he interacts.”
The Courant’s Vigdor said that Stefanowski's strategy to avoid being asked tough questions worked for him in the primaries, so he seems to be sticking to it.
"It is definitely a departure from the traditional campaigns that we've seen in Connecticut,” Vigdor said.
That departure could be what’s resonating with some people. It worked for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Recent polls show Stefanowski is within striking distance to shift power back to the GOP for the first time in eight years.
Stefanowski faces Democrat Ned Lamont, Libertarian Rod Hanscomb, as well as Oz Griebel and Mark Stewart Greenstein, who each created their own party to support their candidacies.
