Elijah Hurewitz-Ravitch, Staff Photographer

From an early age, Vincent Mauro Jr. cared about two things in life: the Boston Red Sox and New Haven.

A longtime behind-the-scenes political operator in the Elm City, Mauro, 52, said that love for his hometown was instilled in him from birth.

Mauro went straight into local politics after graduating from Quinnipiac University and — aside from a few years of law school for “different critical thinking” — never left.

“I pretty much have stayed on I-91 my entire life,” he said.

He began his career as a legislative aide to state Sen. Martin Looney and, when Looney was elected as majority leader, served as his special counsel. From 2015 to 2023, he served as the state Senate Democrats’ chief of staff.

But Mauro has never strayed far from New Haven. He served as Ward 8 alder from 2000 to 2004. And in 2014, he was elected to chair New Haven’s Democratic Town Committee, which endorses and helps elect candidates. Since late 2023, he has also worked as a government affairs advisor at the Hartford office of law firm McCarter & English.

Mauro comes from an “old time New Haven Italian family,” according to Chris Mattei, a prominent lawyer whom Mauro advised on his unsuccessful 2018 run for Connecticut Attorney General. 

He grew up around Legion Avenue, which he said was one of the first ethnically diverse areas in the city. Unlike in other communities, Mauro said, “identity politics didn’t really work there.” Mauro said this is where he first learned the value and power of coalition-building.

He sees New Haven as a melting pot without parallel — a place that combines “a blue collar world with an ethnic world with a racially diverse world with an Ivy League world.”

Chairing the Democratic Town Committee is more or less in Mauro’s bloodline. His uncle Arthur Barbieri — who once worked with President Bill Clinton LAW ’73 — ran the local party from 1955 to 1975. Vincent Mauro Sr. took the reins in 1980 and served until his death in a car accident in 1987; Barbieri stepped back in and chaired the party until 1996.

Mauro was just 14 when his father died, and though he explained that “there was a numbness factor to it,” he said he had an unusually strong support network thanks to his father’s deep involvement in New Haven.

“I became my father’s friends’ friend,” Mauro said.

People would often stop him to offer stories about the elder Mauro, and Mauro said he learned more about who his dad was from these anecdotes than he had while he was alive.

As Mauro grew up, a career in politics simply felt natural.

Josh Geballe, Yale’s senior associate provost for entrepreneurship and innovation and who once served as Connecticut’s chief operating officer, wrote in a text message that “Vinnie is a brilliant political strategist who is always thinking several steps ahead.”

Mauro, for his part, said that he likes problem-solving in politics far more than running for office.

“I think we can generally solve most political problems at a kitchen table or at a dining room table before they become problems,” he said. “That, to me, has always been a hallmark of how to keep this city’s politics from blowing up.”

His job, as he put it, is to “play fat guy in the middle.”

Nick Balletto, who has chaired both the New Haven and Connecticut Democratic Parties and who has been friends with Mauro since he was 13, explained that running the local party can be a thankless endeavor.

“No one ever calls to say hello,” he said. “Because usually, first thing when you pick up the phone, somebody’s yelling at you for something, or they want something, or they’re looking for something.”

As a political operator, Mauro is both “very clear-eyed” and “very blunt,” Mattei said.

Mauro himself said that he pulls no punches: “If you want my opinion, understand, I’m going to be honest with you.”

But behind Mauro’s gruff exterior, Balletto said, he has “a big heart.”

“He’s much softer than he wants people to believe he is,” Balletto added.

While Mauro has no children of his own, he loves kids, according to Mattei, who added that “he’s kind of like a little kid on the inside.”

Eddie Camp, a UNITE HERE researcher and a friend of Mauro’s, wrote in a text that his daughter and Mauro have “a running joke about Doritos.”

Over almost six two-year terms running New Haven’s Democratic Party, Mauro said that he is proudest of the city’s stability.

Though it “ebbs and flows like the Long Island Sound” — with “good days,” “bad days” and “okay days” between the city’s government, its unions and Yale — “we have avoided the pitfalls of other places,” Mauro said.

He attributes this steadiness to a long-standing coalition of people who have put their differences — and their personal ambition — aside for the good of New Haven.

“Good jobs, keep the taxes down, lower crime, have better schools — people are invested in that as opposed to, ‘I gotta run for this office,’” he said.

Much of Mauro’s work as the city party chair involves getting more people to vote for local Democratic candidates.

Watching newcomers in their twenties and thirties move into the Elm City’s new apartment buildings, Mauro said he thinks the best way to get them involved in politics is to start with neighborhood and civic organizations.

He also hopes they stick around.

“New Haven is not just a waystation,” Mauro said.

Mauro said he is beginning to think about the best way to enable a smooth transition in the city’s Democratic leadership.

“We’re all heading for that generational change that will inevitably occur down in Washington and Hartford and New Haven,” he said.

For now, though, Mauro is not going anywhere.

Since his earliest memories — handing out campaign literature as a little kid — his motivations have not changed, he said.

“It is and has always been just about the city,” he said. “People say, ‘Where’re you from?’ I never say I’m from Connecticut. I only say I’m from New Haven.”

The Trinity Bar serves 18 “Vin Mauro’s Wings” for 22 dollars.