Dannel Malloy

Dannel Patrick Malloy (born July 21, 1955) is an American politician, who served as the 88th governor of Connecticut from 2011 to 2019.

Malloy began his career as an assistant district attorney in New York in 1980 before moving back to Stamford and entering private practice.

After passing the bar exam, Malloy served as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn, New York from 1980 to 1984.

During his tenure as a prosecutor, Malloy tried 23 felony cases, four of them homicides, and won 22 convictions.

He served on the Stamford Board of Finance from 1983 to 1994.

He served on the Stamford board of finance from 1984 to 1994 before being elected Mayor of Stamford.

He was subsequently a partner in the Stamford law firm of Abate and Fox from 1984 to 1995.

He served four terms as mayor from December 1995 to December 2009.

In 1995, he ran successfully for Mayor of Stamford, defeating two-term Republican incumbent Stanley Esposito.

At the same time, voters approved a measure to extend the Mayor's term of office from two years to four, effective at the next election.

He was re-elected in 1997, 2001 and 2005.

Malloy made crime reduction a priority during his tenure as mayor; Stamford saw a dramatic decrease in homicides under his administration.

In 2004, Malloy was the first candidate to announce his bid for the Democratic Party nomination for Governor of Connecticut.

Malloy ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Connecticut in 2006, losing the Democratic primary to John DeStefano, Jr., the Mayor of New Haven, who was defeated in the general election by Republican Governor Jodi Rell.

In a major upset in Malloy's favor, he received the convention endorsement of the Democratic Party on May 20, 2006, by one vote.

Malloy lost in the primary election however against New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. on August 8, 2006.

Budgeting and districting of the various fire departments throughout the city has been unstable since 2007, due to an extended legal conflict between the volunteer departments and the Malloy administration, which sought to consolidate the fire departments against the advice and wishes of the volunteer fire departments.

On February 3, 2009, Malloy officially filed paperwork with Connecticut's State Elections Enforcement Commission to form a gubernatorial exploratory committee, and subsequently announced that he did not intend to seek re-election as Mayor of Stamford.

He ran again in 2010 and comfortably won the primary, defeating Ned Lamont, the 2006 U.S. Senate nominee, by 57% of the vote to 43%.

Rell did not run for reelection, and Malloy faced former United States Ambassador to Ireland Thomas C. Foley in the general election, defeating him by fewer than 6,500 votes.

Malloy wrote a blog known as "The Blog That Works", since deleted, until mid-January 2010.

On March 9, 2010, Malloy filed the required paperwork to officially run for governor.

Malloy received the Democratic Party's endorsement for governor on May 22, 2010, in a 68–32 vote over 2006 Democratic senatorial candidate Ned Lamont.

Connecticut's Democratic Party rules allow any candidate who received more than 15% of the vote at its nominating convention to challenge the endorsed candidate for the nomination in a primary, and Lamont announced that he would challenge Malloy in the gubernatorial primary.

Malloy was sworn in on January 5, 2011.

Stamford is currently ranked as the 9th safest city in the United States and 3rd safest in the Northeast region and for the past six years has ranked in the top 11 safest cities with populations of 100,000 or more, according to the FBI.

He was reelected in a rematch with Foley in 2014, increasing his margin of victory to over 28,000 votes.

, he had a 21% job approval rating and a 71% disapproval rating, making him the second least popular and third most disliked governor in the United States, after Mary Fallin of Oklahoma.

A member of the Democratic Party, he chaired the Democratic Governors Association from 2016 to 2017.

On April 13, 2017, Malloy announced he would not seek reelection in 2018.

On July 1, 2019, he began his tenure as the Chancellor of the University of Maine System.

Born in Stamford, Connecticut, Malloy attended Boston College for both undergraduate and law degrees.

He was succeeded in office by Democrat Ned Lamont on January 9, 2019.

Dannel Patrick Malloy was born and raised in Stamford, Connecticut, the seventh of seven sons and youngest of the eight children of Agnes Veronica (née Egan), a nurse, and William Francis Malloy.

He is of Irish descent and was raised as a Catholic.

As a child, Malloy had learning disabilities and difficulties with motor coordination.

He did not learn to tie his shoes until the fifth grade.

Malloy eventually was diagnosed with dyslexia and learned the skills necessary to succeed academically.

He does not write or type, and rarely reads from notes in public, but developed an extraordinarily useful memory.

He graduated magna cum laude from Boston College, where he met his wife Cathy, and later earned his J.D. degree from Boston College Law School.