Bobby Valentine Says Decades-Old Photo with Trump Killed His Chances of Winning Stamford, CT Mayor’s Race

After hinting at voter fraud a few weeks ago, Bobby Valentine now claims dirty politics and a photo with Donald Trump played a role in losing Stamford, CT’s mayoral race earlier this month.

The former Major League Baseball manager ran as an unaffiliated candidate but was defeated by Democratic State Rep. Caroline Simmons in his attempt to become the mayor of Stamford.

“I’m glad that I was the candidate and I’m also glad that I’m not the mayor because it’s really a tough job,” Valentine said Tuesday morning with WFAN’s Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti. “I got four years of my life back when the votes came in.”

Valentine noted that former president George W. Bush “sent a nice check and a nice note” to help his campaign. Bush co-owned the Texas Rangers during part of Valentine’s tenure as the club’s manager in the early ‘90s.

While Valentine was grateful for one former president’s assistance, he was less appreciative of being connected with another – Donald Trump.

“We had a photo taken together in 2000 for the World Series and so the last day of the campaign all around the neighborhoods, a picture of Donald and Bobby with the quote ‘only poor people and dumb people pay taxes,’” Valentine told Boomer and Gio.

The circulating photo with Trump on Election Day appeared to be one final attempt at knocking Valentine out of the race. “That really helped with the minority vote in my town,” Valentine said sarcastically.

While Valentine claims he ran a clean campaign, he said the election was “not totally honest,” stating facts were ignored and lawn signs were stolen. This was not the first time Valentine cited examples of dirty politics entering the Stamford, CT mayoral race. Shortly after the election, Valentine hinted at voter fraud.

“It makes my stomach turn to think that in our city, that they’re actually telling me now, ‘Oh, someone voted in person and they forgot they voted absentee,’” Valentine said before conceding defeat on Election Day.

Watch above via CBS Sports Network