Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski is running to slash Connecticut taxes and bring Trumponomics to his state. Amazingly, Stefanowski has pulled even with his tax-and-spend Democratic opponent, Ned Lamont, even though the state generally votes left. Here’s the reason: Connecticut is a tax hell, with one of the country’s highest state and local burdens.

Meanwhile, the nation is watching to see whether a fiscal reformer like Stefanowski can sell Trump’s tax-cutting approach to voters who are sick and tired of being overtaxed — but disdain Trump.

Critics call Stefanowski’s proposal to phase out the state income tax “hare-brained” and “laughable.” They’re wrong. Taxes are no laughing matter. Connecticut had the nation’s fastest growing economy until it imposed an income tax in 1991 and subsequently hiked it four times. Now Connecticut ranks dead last in income growth, according to a Pew survey of the last decade.

Businesses like Aetna, Alexion Pharmaceuticals and General Electric have moved out, and the values of homes — a family’s major investment — have plummeted. They’re down 24 percent in Fairfield County since 2007.

Stefanowski wants to do for Connecticut what Trump is already doing nationwide — using tax relief to create growth. Reducing state income taxes will boost economic activity and likely generate more tax revenue, not less. That’s already happening on a federal level, where Uncle Sam is pulling in more revenue since Trump’s tax cuts went into effect.

Lamont wants to change the topic to gun control, health insurance and Trump’s personal style. But Stefanowski insists the race is a referendum on one issue: taxes.

If Stefanowski wins, it would be a revolution. Connecticut has supported Democratic presidential candidates for a quarter century and gave Hillary Clinton a comfortable margin in 2016. But the state’s dire situation is making voters rethink their political allegiances, at least locally.

Two years ago, voters began electing more Republicans to the state legislature, giving them half the seats in the upper house and paring the Democratic majority in the lower house. Polls show there’s an even chance that on Election Day, tax-weary voters will turn the entire state government — both houses of the legislature and the governor’s seat — Republican. It’s their only hope to restore the value of their homes and bring back lost jobs.

On the other hand, a victory for Lamont would mean years of decline ahead, as more businesses pull out. At an Oct. 10 policy dinner at the Belle Haven Club in Greenwich, a director of United Technologies, Harold McGraw, said the company is discussing leaving the state if Lamont is elected. That would put 18,000 jobs at risk.

McGraw later downplayed the comment, but didn’t deny it. He said an official pronouncement “should definitely come from the company,” not him.

Truth is, a Lamont victory will likely mean tax hikes, not tax relief. Lamont says tax cuts aren’t possible, because they’d force unacceptable cuts in public spending.

Lamont should look at Florida, where many Connecticut residents flee when they’re fed up with high taxes. Florida spends far less per capita than Connecticut — only half as much in fiscal 2017 — yet Florida is hardly a backwater lacking amenities. Florida’s roads are ranked in better condition than Connecticut’s. Admittedly, Connecticut has excellent K-12 public schools, but Florida’s public-university system gets far better grades than Connecticut’s.

So will Stefanowski launch a Connecticut tax rebellion that can be duplicated in other blue states? It’s certainly time. Under the new federal tax rules, residents of high-tax states like Connecticut and New York can no longer deduct much of their state and local levies, making the pain worse.

The election hinges on whether voters focus on their economic self-interest, or fall for Lamont’s efforts to tar Stefanowski as a Trump double.

Stefanowski himself draws a clear line on Trump: “On the social side, I’ve got three daughters, I don’t like the rhetoric, I don’t like the tone . . . but I’m not going to sit here and tell you his economic policy hasn’t worked because it has, and we could use some of that in Connecticut.”

Betsy McCaughey is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research.