Now Mr. Malloy heads into the general election confronting another wealthy businessman, Thomas C. Foley, who spent his own millions to win the Republican nomination for governor.
Across the ideological spectrum, establishment political parties in France are deeply concerned about the European elections, confronting what they view as the potential for another round of record low turnout combined with swelling support for populism.
Both parties in the wake of the election are confronted by a crisis of identity.
As he has moved into the general election and confronted the need to compete for Latino voters, his campaign has tried to finesse the issue by saying that the focus of his outreach to Hispanics would be on jobs and the economy, and his initial response to Mr. Obama's decision on Friday was to focus less on its substance than its unilateral nature.
Just last month, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, activists reacting to a brazen move to indefinitely postpone presidential elections were confronted with a government willing to shut down the entire country's internet and phone services to prevent groups from organising.
At bottom, the general election will confront New Jersey voters with a stark choice.
He could not have guessed that the demand for Arab democracy would instead become one of his presidency's greatest foreign policy challenges, forcing whoever wins the November election to confront tough trade offs between American values and interests.
As the promises of the recent election campaign confront the realities of running a country, Barack Obama has been forced to rethink his position on key issues of national security, among them, the fate of the US detention centre at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
"At some stage, we're going to have to pivot out of this leadership election and confront the realities of the country, which could be quite a salutary experience for us".
A Grexit could happen if Syriza, the left-wing opposition party led by Alexis Tsipras, which is currently ahead in the polls, wins the election and confronts Greece's creditors with demands they find incompatible with Greece staying in the monetary union.
