Karen Lin

It’s official: All three Ward 1 alder hopefuls will appear on the Democratic primary ballot in September. 

To qualify, the candidates had to submit a petition with at least 43 signatures to the Democratic Registrar of Voters by Wednesday at 4 p.m. Three Yale undergraduates — Rhea McTiernan Huge ’27, Elias Theodore ’27 and Norah Laughter ’26 — have announced and maintained campaigns to represent Ward 1 on New Haven’s Board of Alders. Each told the News they successfully petitioned to qualify for the Democratic primary.

Last month, the Ward 1 Democratic committee did not formally endorse a candidate, instead opting to require all hopefuls to qualify for the primary via petitioning. To successfully petition their ways onto the Democratic primary ballot, Ward 1 alder candidates needed to obtain the signatures of at least 43 registered Democrats in the downtown district — a figure that equals five percent of all registered Democrats in the ward. 

Ward 1, which has been represented in the Board of Alders by a Yale undergraduate for decades, encompasses eight of Yale’s 14 residential colleges and all of Old Campus, where most first year undergraduates reside. The district also encompasses about half of the New Haven Green. 

“I was mostly standing outside of apartment buildings and busy intersections downtown, trying to talk to anyone walking by,” Theodore said in an interview with the News about his effort to obtain signatures. “I wanted to hear their perspectives on things and hear what they are hoping for from a local representative.”

In the process of obtaining signatures, Theodore said the most common concerns he heard were about homelessness, how city money is spent and how downtown New Haven can best serve all who interact with it. The conversations Theodore had with prospective constituents were an “affirmation” of the issues he is prioritizing in his campaign, he told the News.

Meanwhile, McTiernan Huge went through the list of registered voters in Ward 1 and found ways to connect with them in person, including by knocking on doors and introducing herself to people on the street. 

Like Theodore, McTiernan Huge told the News that she appreciated the process of collecting signatures as a “community-based activity” and said it helped her to better understand the concerns and priorities of Ward 1 voters. 

“It was obviously stressful at moments, but I really enjoyed it because I got a better sense of what this ward would require of me,” she told the News. “I liked getting to talk to all these people and finding them and reaching out to them.”

Both Theodore and McTiernan Huge said that around half of their signatures came from students, with the others coming from permanent Ward 1 residents. 

In a statement to the News, Tenzin Jorden ’26, the Ward 22 Democratic committee co-chair and a supporter of Laughter, said that Laughter had collected 48 signatures on July 28 before speaking at the affordable housing rally in Scantlebury Park the following day. 

“Her speech at the rally reflected her years of student organizing commitment and laid out her priorities of race and class justice, both reasons why I helped collect signatures for her candidacy,” Jorden wrote to the News.

The primary election is scheduled for Sept. 9, and early voting is set for Sept. 2 to Sept. 7.