9/13 Primary Preview Part II
Rhode Island (the rest)
For readability’s sake, we’re once again stuck splitting a preview in two. Three states vote today: Delaware, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The first part of our preview, which you can read here, covers Delaware, where progressives are looking to build on a very strong 2020 primary cycle; New Hampshire, where there isn’t much going on; and the races for Rhode Island statewide office and RI-02. This is the second part of our preview, covering the Rhode Island state legislature, where progressives and conservatives are at war in every corner of the state. Polls close at 8 PM ET in Delaware and Rhode Island; New Hampshire does not have a standard poll closing time, but municipalities are prohibited from closing the polls before 7 PM ET.
Similar to our Hawaiʻi preview, our preview of the Rhode Island Legislature will include a lot of districts we might skip elsewhere, because Rhode Island Republicans are hopelessly far from a majority in either chamber of the legislature (Republicans routinely fail to find candidates even in fairly red districts held by Democrats) and because the stakes of intra-Democratic fights are unusually high due to the strong influence of true conservatives in the Rhode Island Democratic Party.
This will be our last primary preview of the 2022 cycle, but you’ll hear from us again to recap results and cover some upcoming November elections, and we’ll also do an Election Day preview.
State Senate
SD-01 (Providence North End)
Maryellen Goodwin (i) vs. Donnie Anderson
We’re starting our legislative primaries off with a bang. Longtime readers will remember Rhode Island’s legislature for being dominated by Democrats who are not just moderate, but conservative in a way you rarely find outside of a few remnants of the past in the Deep South or Appalachia. Longtime readers may also remember how progressives have begun to clean out the gunk in the past few cycles. That brings us to Maryellen Goodwin, who may not be the worst offender of the bunch, but, as Senate Majority Whip, is definitely part of the conservative bloc still running the Senate. She actually did vote for gay marriage, but her opposition to abortion is more representative of whose side she’s on. Unlike some of her conservative brethren, she did wisen up a little after primaries started felling some of the legislature’s worst offenders—she no longer accepts the endorsement of RI Right to Life, something she used to do regularly.
While Goodwin did nominally have challengers in the last two elections, they weren’t particularly serious, and she dispatched with them by 50% margins. That changes this year. Donnie Anderson, a Methodist and UCC minister, is running a campaign fully on the issue of choice. Planned Parenthood and the RI Women’s Caucus, both working hard this year to produce a pro-choice majority, are backing her campaign, even if some of the bigger progressive groups are staying out of this one. Anderson is decidedly the underdog here, even if Goodwin is in danger of becoming, the last conservative standing in Providence, but the salience of abortion this year gives her an opening, as does the addition of Providence College to the district. If she wins, she will not only strike a body blow to Senate leadership, but will become the first trans legislator in the state.
SD-03 (Providence East End)
Sam Zurier (i) vs. Robin Xiong
Last year, a special election was held for this seat, and moderate Sam Zurier emerged victorious, but with a relatively weak 32%-24% over progressive Geena Pham, with a lot of speculation that Bret Jacob, who took 22% and also had some progressive backers, had split the vote. While we had the regularly scheduled election pegged to be a rematch, Pham bowed out, and instead progressives, including Pham, united behind RI Political Co-Op member Robin Xiong.
The RI Political Co-Op, for those unfamiliar, is a unique organization founded before the 2020 elections to pool resources for a large number of progressive candidates running across the state. With district sizes reaching 30,000 at most, many candidates are in an uncomfortable middle ground where the task of running for office is too much to handle by themselves, but where any individual race is too small to warrant many of the big campaign expenses. They've been struggling under internal divisions and an ill-fated decision to tie their operations to the doomed Matt Brown gubernatorial campaign, but they remain the largest progressive slate in the state.
Xiong has to campaign without the benefit of a truly terrible incumbent, like many of her peers who achieved some truly stunning victories in the last few cycles. Zurier has kept his head down this cycle and avoided offending anyone too badly. His bad votes come from areas like municipal employee bargaining, which isn’t likely to move many votes in this wealthier, whiter portion of Providence. Xiong has to hope that he hasn’t ingratiated himself too thoroughly with the district’s residents yet, and that the generally progressive bent of the district holds even when there’s no conservative opponent to serve as a foil.
SD-04 (North Providence)
Dominick Ruggerio (i) vs. Leonardo Cioe Jr. vs. Stephen Tocco
Dominick Ruggerio is The Big One. Dominick J. Ruggerio is the most conservative Democrat to lead a legislative chamber in the US. He’s an NRA favorite, opposed to gay rights, consistently anti-abortion, and just generally reliably on the wrong side of every issue to come before the Senate. And he gets to choose what comes before the Senate. Ruggerio has been in the General Assembly since 1981. Progressives had been trying to chip away at his loyalists instead of going after him directly, until 2020, and it’s a huge shame they waited that long, because they nearly succeeded on their first try. Lenny Cioe, a nurse running for office for the first time in his life (and, fitting for an opponent of a homophobe like Ruggerio, a gay man), nearly toppled the Senate President-for-Life, losing only 54.7-45.3.
Ruggerio’s people flipped the fuck out over that one. First order of business for protecting their man was giving him a better district. While redistricting was mostly status quo in Rhode Island, SD-04 underwent drastic changes. The old version of the district was roughly evenly split between Providence and North Providence, two cities with very different politics. In Providence, Cioe beat Ruggerio by a resounding 61%-39% margin, but Ruggerio won in North Providence by a similar 62-38% margin. The 9% total tally is a product of Providence having much lower turnout rates than North Providence. The redraw yanked out over ⅔ of the Providence portion, leaving just 4,403 residents of the city in SD-04 - under ⅓ of the original total. In exchange, it took on nearly 10,000 more residents of North Providence. In particular, Providence College was drawn out of the district, a clear sign Ruggerio knows who his base is and isn’t.
Cioe soldiered onward, and now we’re here, at the rematch. The Providence Journal refers to this race as “Ruggerio in a fight for his political life”, and we have to agree. Ruggerio is out hitting the stump, and attempting to draft business interests into an all-out war against the Co-op (of which Cioe is a member). His campaign is dropping the hammer, spending-wise, flooding the gates with tens of thousands of dollars of ads. Cioe is doing what he’s always done—running a grassroots campaign targeting Ruggerio over his social conservatism and lack of support for working people in the state. It’s an extremely negative campaign, and while that should be expected given the stakes and the differences between the two candidates, there is a third who’s hoping to harness voter dissatisfaction with that negativity. Stephen Tocco is the former Town Council President of Smithfield (not in the district) and a more conservative choice than either Cioe or Ruggerio. In fact, his last run for office was as an independent, and he’s the candidate that RI Right to Life is backing here, not Ruggerio. He absolutely will not win, but if he could soak up even a few of the conservative voters who are new to the district and aren’t familiar with Ruggerio yet, he could be a huge help.
SD-05 (West-Central Providence)
Sam Bell (i) vs. David Salvatore
Sam Bell is one of the few progressives who succeeded in 2018, knocking out an incumbent conservative and immediately becoming a leading voice of the Rhode Island left. They tried in 2020 to avenge that loss, but Bell turned back a Providence City Councilmember 72%-28%. The conservatives are trying that move again, tapping Councilmember David Salvatore, who moonlights as a lobbyist for realtors. Salvatore may be outspending Bell, and, because he’s the establishment choice, has organized labor support, but his prospects look as dim as his predecessor’s.
SD-06 (South-Central Providence)
Tiara Mack (i) vs. Joseph Almeida
Tiara Mack unseating Harold Metts by a wide 60%-40% margin was one of the clearest signs of a progressive wave in 2020. As with Bell, an attempt to claw back her seat by the establishment was inevitable. The man they scrounged up is Joseph Almeida, state representative from 1999-2011 and 2013-2019. Almedia is an odd choice, to say the least. He was constantly on rocky reelection ground, though he only actually lost his primary once (2010), and was arrested for misappropriation of campaign funds in 2015. Mack would have an easy time this cycle if it weren’t for that TikTok. Mostly forgotten now, it was one of the slurry of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it right wing freakouts this summer: Tiara Mack, on her personal TikTok account, posted a video of herself in a bikini, twerking. Conservatives threw a fit, she stood by the video, and the world moved on, mostly. Media still has a tendency to mention that incident whenever she comes up, and Almeida said that she was an insult to women at-large, but the incident itself probably won’t sway too many voters; rather, the notoriety it’s caused has given the establishment hope, and led them to focus on giving their cop/criminal candidate outside support that he otherwise wouldn’t have had.
SD-07 (Providence West End)
Frank Ciccone III (i) vs. Arthur Flanders III
Frank Ciccone is yet another conservative old-timer clogging up the works in the Senate. Honestly there are so many of these that they just blend together at some point. Maybe you’re not feeling that just yet, but wait until we get into the House races—there are so many old white guys who realistically should not be Democrats, and for the same reasons. Ciccone is particularly bad, though: he has an A rating from the NRA, accepted the RI Right to Life endorsement, and, of course, opposes gay rights. On top of all of that, he’s one of Ruggerio’s closest allies. Outside of Ruggerio, taking this guy down is the biggest prize in the Senate. He had very close calls in 2014 and 2016 when facing a Hispanic challenger in this plurality-Hispanic district, but crushed a no-name challenger in 2018, and progressives didn’t even try in 2020.
This year they are trying, thanks to Arthur Flanders. Flanders, like Lenny Cioe, is a a gay man running against an noxious homophobe, and not pulling any punches about that fact. Unlike Ruggerio, redistricting did not do Ciccone any favors—in fact, the way that Ruggerio added so much of North Providence to his district was by taking Ciccone’s part of it, leaving Ciccone with a district that’s almost all Providence. That gives Flanders an opening, but only if he can make any use of it. Mostly, progressives have found candidates that reflect the demographic profile of the districts they’re running in, and running a white guy in a now-majority Hispanic district is a risk. The good news for Flanders is that the district retained Rhode Island College in the redraw, a large potential base of voters if he can turn them out.
SD-11 (Portsmouth)
Matthew Chappell vs. Linda Ujifusa
Portsmouth Town Council Member and 2016 Bernie Sanders DNC Delegate Linda Ujifusa is the rare progressive not affiliated with either the Co-Op or DSA. Instead, she has the Portsmouth establishment. No, really. Her opponent, prosecutor Matthew Chappell, is leaning in hard on being a fourth-generation Rhode Islander while running against a Japanese woman in an overwhelmingly white town, a very obvious and desperate tactic. Still, on paper, Chappell shouldn’t need to be desperate. He has the support of outgoing Sen. James Seveney, labor unions, and even Planned Parenthood, for reasons that aren’t clear to us.
SD-14 (East Providence)
Valarie Lawson (i) vs. Megan Duckworth
Moving outside of Providence, we’ve reached territory where the conventional wisdom says that voters should be harder gets for progressives, but in this case—the heavily Democratic inner suburbs of Providence—only slightly. Valarie Lawson, first elected in 2018, has had an okay-ish voting record? Her problem is much more about inter-caucus loyalties, specifically loyalties to Ruggerio, which is evident by her being in Senate leadership. Lawson is the kind of politician who’s going to stick by the establishment while it’s in power, but isn’t going to pose a problem if Ruggerio and his cronies are ever deposed, making her something of a lower-priority target. That’s evident in how progressives have approached this race. Her opponent, Megan Duckworth is, like most progressive candidates, a Co-Op member, but unlike in higher profile contests, hasn’t received the help of RI Women’s Caucus or the Working Families Party (who have actually endorsed Lawson).
SD-18 (East Providence and Pawtucket)
Robert Britto vs. Gregory Greco
Cynthia Mendes utterly vaporized incumbent Sen. William Conley in 2020, but instead of sticking around for another term, she’s off running for LG. The district is obviously progressive friendly (maybe even more so than it was in 2020—it’s half in Pawtucket now), and progressives are really hoping that, regardless of whether she wins or not, that campaign doesn’t set them back in the Senate, since, naturally, the establishment sees this as an opportunity to retake something they lost. They landed quite a candidate too: East Providence City Council President Robert Britto. Britto, of course, has the party endorsement, and that of labor, and another big factor could be Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien’s endorsement—with both candidates being from East Providence, Grebien’s endorsement of Britto could go a long way. Britto has to be happy that big outside groups are putting up an operation for him, because he’s not really doing much.
The real shoe-leather campaigner in this race is special education teacher Gregory Greco, who is a member of the Co-Op, though his support extends far beyond one group. Working Families Party, Sunrise, and Sierra Club are supporting his run, and he carries Mendes’s endorsement as well. This is one of the state’s top races, and the establishment has gone all in on attacking Greco for his Co-Op affiliation, sending out what might be the most blatantly red-baiting spate of mailers in the state.
SD-25 (Johnston)
Frank Lombardo III (i) vs. Christopher Maselli
This one’s more funny than anything else. The incumbent is Frank Lombardo, an undistinguished conservative, and the challenger is Christopher Maselli, who used to represent this district until he pleaded guilty to 8 counts of bank fraud in 2010. Did we mention this is all happening in a district Trump won by 9% but has no GOP candidate?
SD-29 (Central Warwick)
Michael Carreiro vs. Jennifer Rourke
Jennifer Rourke, a co-founder and co-chair of the Co-op, has run for this seat twice before, losing by 31 points in 2018 and 16 points in 2020. However, unlike many other progressive repeat candidates, Rourke is in a race very different from her previous two. In 2018 and 2020, Rourke was challenging state Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey, a social and fiscal conservative who marshaled all his connections to bury Rourke in an avalanche of campaign spending. McCaffrey unexpectedly chose to hang it up this year, and the local Democratic machine found their candidate in Michael Carreiro, the president of the Warwick firefighters’ union, who seemed, at first glance, to be a solid candidate to hold the seat for the machine, if not as strong a candidate as McCaffrey. Then the press and Rourke started doing the basic vetting of Carreiro that the machine apparently never bothered with, and Carreiro appeared more and more like a disastrous candidate of epic proportions.
The first doozy came from Carreiro’s Facebook page, where both Rourke’s team and the Boston Globe found a photograph Carreiro posted of himself wearing blackface at a party in 2009. (Carreiro belatedly apologized after the report came out.) Also in his Facebook history were posts indicating a fondness for Tucker Carlson (including a 2017 photo of Carreiro posing with Carlson) and a Facebook page called “support officer Darren Wilson”—Wilson being the Ferguson, MO police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in 2014. So…the guy the local Democratic machine had recruited to run against a Black woman turned out to be a pretty obvious racist, which is probably not how he wanted to be introduced to voters. Then Carreiro’s estranged wife went to the press claiming that Carreiro does not live in Warwick with her, but in North Providence with his parents; she further alleged that her signature was forged on her estranged husband’s nomination papers. Complaints were filed by both a local resident and Rourke’s campaign, but both were dismissed by the Warwick Board of Canvassers in early August for being filed too close to the election. Carreiro’s problems made him too toxic for local Democrats to give him the party endorsement even against Rourke, whose Co-op allies knocked out quite a few conservative establishment Democrats in 2020 (though the party still didn’t endorse Rourke, because being progressive is apparently just as much of a deal-breaker as blackface and alleged forgery.)
While Carreiro has been struggling, Rourke’s campaign has been chugging along, raising and spending even more than it did in 2020 thanks to a loyal base of grassroots support (which only grew when, shortly before Carreiro entered the race, Rourke went viral on social media and made national headlines after a Republican Providence cop who was also running for SD-29 at the time punched Rourke in the face as she attempted to defuse a conflict with counterprotesters at a protest against the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs.)
SD-30 (Southern Warwick)
Jeanine Calkin (i) vs. Mark McKenney
In 2016, progressive Jeanine Calkin, the founder of Rhode Island for Bernie, unseated a conservative Democratic state senator. In every primary since, Calkin, who co-chairs the Co-op with Rourke, has faced conservative establishment Democrat Mark McKenney—losing renomination 54-46 in 2018 and taking her seat back in 2020 by beating McKenney 55-45. There’s nothing to indicate the third Calkin-McKenney race won’t be just as competitive as the first two, but the fact that this race has already happened twice before leaves us without much to say.
SD-31 (Northern and western Warwick)
Matthew LaMountain vs. Harrison Tuttle
Harrison Tuttle is one of the most impressive candidates running for office in Rhode Island this year. A Black Lives Matter organizer fresh out of college, Tuttle joined BLM RI PAC and, before long, became their communications director. He’s now running for Senate in some tough territory, but he might be able to make it work— outgoing state Sen. Kendra Anderson won this seat for the Co-op in 2020, and she’s vocally backing Tuttle to succeed her. Still, Warwick is not known for being friendly to progressives, and attorney Matthew LaMountain, a bland politician-looking type straight from central casting, is a tough opponent. LaMountain easily corralled the establishment, including labor behind him, and, partially thanks to self-funding, has been blasting out ads, while Tuttle can’t say the same.
SD-32 (Barrington)
Susannah Holloway vs. Pamela Lauria
This is one of the only Senate races in the state that's not a furious ideological clash for the heart and soul of the Rhode Island Democratic Party. It's kind of refreshing, actually. Instead, there's one candidate—Barrington Housing Board Trustee Pamela Laurie—that the progressives and local party establishment agree on, while the other candidate—lawyer Susannah Holloway—is just a normal Democrat off doing her own thing.
SD-38 (Southwestern coast)
Sharon Ahern vs. Victoria Gu vs. Michael Niemeyer
This is a bit of an oddity—this seat isn’t held by just any Republican, but by the top Republican in the entire state Senate. But Dennis Algiere is retiring, and this seat is fairly blue—Hillary Clinton won it by five points, and Joe Biden won it by a whopping fifteen. This seat could be competitive in November, and to some extent probably will be, but Democrats should be solid favorites.
Progressives have two candidates to choose from here, oddly enough. Michael Niemeyer is the Co-op’s candidate, and he’s raising and spending respectable amounts of money, but every other progressive group that’s involved in this race is backing Victoria Gu instead. Gu, a former tech worker who chairs the municipal Climate Resiliency Commission in her home of Charlestown, and Niemeyer, a nonprofit worker, are both fine candidates running on good platforms who appear certain to join the Senate’s progressive bloc if elected, which leads us to think groups other than the Co-op have all simply decided Gu is likelier to beat the moderate candidate here, Westerly Town Council President Sharon Ahern, than Niemeyer is. Ahern has the party endorsement, but unlike a lot of party-endorsed candidates, she’s mostly self-funding in the home stretch. Also unlike a lot of party-endorsed candidates, she’s opposed by organized labor—Gu has the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, the NEA, the SEIU, and AFSCME all behind her, and all of those unions seldom break with the state party.
State House
HD-02 (Downtown Providence)
Christopher Blazejewski (i) vs. Savannah DaCruz
Christopher Blazejewski is one of the few pre-2016 elected officials in Rhode Island to not suck. From a purely floor votes-based analysis, he’s probably one of the best in the chamber. So why is he getting a Co-Op challenger? Partly it’s because of his district that stretches through a lot of progressive territory near Brown University—there's just such a high ceiling here that there’s no reason not to go big. But it’s also because he’s in tight with leadership, and leadership needs to be flushed out. Savannah DaCruz, who works at Dorcas International to help immigrants and refugees, also has the support of the RI Democratic Women’s Caucus, though not the Working Families Party, which is backing Blazejewski.
HD-05 (Providence North End)
Anthony DeSimone vs. Diana Garlington vs. Torlo Kormasa Amos vs. Raphael Olawale Okelola
Solid progressive Marcia Ranglin-Vassell is retiring after only 3 terms, leaving an open Providence district behind her. Anthony DeSimone is the brother of former House Majority Leader John DeSimone, an conservative who Ranglin-Vassell unseated in 2016. Anthony is being backed by his brother’s old network, including various industry groups, a couple building trades unions, former speaker Nick Mattiello, and current Senate President Dominick Ruggerio. But, in a sign of the waning influence of that faction in Providence politics, he couldn’t snag the party endorsement (in fact, nobody could) or all of the big unions. The conservatives remain unified around him, however, and in a four-way race he could still win. Ranglin-Vassell’s candidate is Torlo Kormasa “Kor” Amos, a nonprofit worker who supports the same progressive policies Ranglin-Vassell does. Also in the mix are Raphael Olawale Okelola, a community activist who sits on the African Leadership Council and who is involved in Democratic politics, and gun violence prevention activist Diana Garlington.
HD-06 (Providence and North Providence)
Raymond Hull (i) vs. Damián Lima
Raymond Hull is yet another conservative incumbent somehow holding down a district in Providence. While most of his colleagues wouldn’t accept a RI Right to Life endorsement, he's quite happy to, since he has a perfect voting record against choice. Unsurprisingly, he was one of the holdouts on gay marriage, as most anti-choicers were. His day job? Cop. Hull’s first challenger ever, somehow, is Damián Lima, a trans immigrant and public health worker who has made a lot of progressive groups, including Planned Parenthood, very excited. Hull is not taking the threat seriously, barely even touching his massive war chest despite the salience of abortion and the growing Hispanic population in his district.
HD-09 (Central Providence)
Anastasia Williams (i) vs. Lonnie Mangum vs. Enrique Sanchez
The left’s biggest prospect in today’s election might be Enrique Sanchez, a teacher and the political coordinator of Black Lives Matter Rhode Island. Sanchez’s campaign is backed by the DSA, one of only two non-incumbent endorsements in the legislature, as well as by state Sens. Sam Bell and Tiara Mack, who have overlapping districts. The incumbent he’s facing is Anastasia Williams, who has battled progressives twice before, winning by 7% in 2016 and 35% in 2018, the latter of which evidently convinced her she was set, because she didn’t realize she should be attempting to nuke her opponent until way later than you would expect (though once she did, things got ugly). Maybe it’s the 30 years she spent in the chamber that's made her cocky, but she is quite clearly vulnerable—her district has grown very progressive, and, just as importantly, it’s gotten more Hispanic. Like Sanchez, that challenger in 2016 who nearly beat her was Hispanic, and clearly did better among Hispanic voters. She’s not ignoring the challenge as much as some on this list are, and she is a very strong campaigner with a deep personal brand, but Sanchez has an opening here, and the Providence DSA does not issue paper endorsements—he’s had help.
The initial version of this item incorrectly described Sanchez as DSA’s only non-incumbent endorsed candidate for state legislature; HD-62 candidate Kinverly Dicupe is also DSA-endorsed, as our item in that race says.
HD-11 (Providence South End)
Grace Diaz (i) vs. Laura Perez
Is it fair to call Laura Perez a perennial candidate? Probably, considering this is her 8th consecutive challenge to Grace Diaz. Is it fair to call her an unserious candidate? Probably not, because she got 31% and 27% in those last two challenges—that’s better than your friendly local bigfoot enthusiast who runs for president to warn of the dangers of water fluoridation. But is she going to win? Almost certainly not. Yes, Diaz somehow managed to lose the party endorsement to Perez this year, but after what is functionally a 15-year-long campaign, opinions are kind of set. It still would be cool though, Perez is a strong progressive.
HD-14 (Northeast Cranston)
Charlene Lima (i) vs. Giona Picheco
Charlene Lima is the deputy House speaker and one of the most conservative members of the legislature. She’s managed to avoid a primary challenge until now, but she’s always been a particularly obvious target—as an example of what we’re dealing with here, Lima’s own website uses misleading right-wing framing to brag that she opposed modernizing sex education in Rhode Island public schools. Navy veteran Giona Picheco is the candidate looking to take Lima out, and she’s backed by progressive groups (other than the Co-op, which is staying out of this race.) Some unions, including the SEIU, are also backing Picheco, a sign that she’s a credible threat to Lima. Picheco would make history as the first openly transgender Rhode Island state legislator.
HD-16 (Central Cranston)
Brandon Potter (i) vs. Natalya DelSanto
Brandon Potter knocked out a Right to Life-backed conservative incumbent in 2020 as a Co-op candidate. While he’s since split with the Co-op, his voting record has been progressive and other progressive groups still like him; he’s absolutely worth keeping in the legislature. Small business owner Natalya DelSanto, his opponent, is running an explicitly right-wing campaign (she’s even NRA-endorsed, and the NRA has soured on many of its favorite Rhode Island Democrats lately), and she’s going it almost alone—organized labor and the state party are both behind Potter. Even in Rhode Island, where right-wingers can and frequently do get elected as Democrats, they generally need party and/or labor support to get through primaries, and DelSanto doesn’t have it. She does have Charlene Lima, at least tacitly; Lima holds a comical grudge against her Cranston colleague, Brandon Potter, for being a progressive and allegedly recruiting Picheco to run against her. Lima even took out newspaper ads looking for a challenger to Potter. (No word on whether those newspaper ads are what got DelSanto into the race.)
HD-19 (Warwick and Cranston)
Joseph McNamara (i) vs. Stuart Wilson
Joseph McNamara, a moderate (but not quite conservative) Democrat from Cranston, made it 26 years without a primary challenger, until he faced off against Stuart Wilson in 2020. McNamara won by an easy 62% to 38% over the more progressive Wilson. This is a rematch, and there’s just nothing to indicate it should go much better for Wilson this time, sadly.
HD-21 (Northern Warwick)
Camille Vella-Wilkinson (i) vs. Capri Catanzaro
It’s genuinely confounding how Camille Vella-Wilkinson has made it this far. Normally, being anti-choice (and Right to Life-endorsed), pro-gun (and NRA-endorsed), and anti-marijuana, all in a single legislative session, would at least earn you a single challenger. But no, after getting elected in 2016, this conservaDem was unchallenged not only in 2018, but in 2020 as well. Finally, someone’s willing to go to bat for basic Democratic values: Capri Catanzaro, who managed Jeanine Calkin’s campaign in 2016 and 2018. Catanzaro is a Co-Op candidate, but she’s running more with the support of her old boss’s network of groups who were active in trying to de-conservative-ify Rhode Island pre-2020, like the Working Families Party, the RI Democratic Women’s Caucus, and Planned Parenthood. Despite her opponent’s beyond-dismal record on social issues, Catanzaro has been focused more on economic areas Vella-Wilkinson has fallen short in, such as not raising the corporate minimum tax. Though this is a light-ish blue (Biden+12, Clinton+1), suburban district, this election is rightfully recognized as one of the most competitive and impactful of the year.
HD-22 (Eastern Warwick)
Joseph Solomon Jr. (i) vs. Zakary Pereira
We don’t normally talk about districts that are going to be competitive in the general election, and this Trump ‘16, Biden ‘20 district will absolutely be competitive. But Rhode Island has such an overwhelming Democratic majority, and control of the caucus is so important to choosing the Speaker, and thus what gets to the floor, that it’s worth it to roll the dice on some purple seats. That’s especially true in the case of Joseph Solomon, the anti-abortion scion of a large but faltering political dynasty. As in a dozen other similar contests, he has a Co-Op challenger, Zakary Pereira, a gay MBA student. Pereira may be even more cash-strapped than your typical Co-Op candidate, but he is running against an anti-choice opponent, so he can’t be counted out entirely.
HD-23 (Central Warwick)
Joseph Shekarchi (i) vs. Jacqueline Anderson
Control of the House fell into Joe Shekarchi’s lap after arch-conservative Nicholas Mattiello was finally taken down in 2020. Shekarchi is cut from the same cloth—a much better cut, to be clear, but the same cloth nonetheless—and there was no way progressives weren’t going to challenge him this year. As with their challenge to the Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio, progressives are running a nurse: Jacqueline Anderson. Shekarchi has all the benefits of running for reelection as a Speaker, with none of Mattiello’s worst weaknesses, which means Anderson has the daunting task of defeating his wall of money without specific votes or a long record of obstructionism to point to.
HD-31 (North Kingstown and Exeter)
Julie Casimiro (i) vs. Melissa Devine
By now when we bring up an incumbent, you’re probably just asking “so what’s wrong with this one”. Julie Casimiro voted against the big gun control bill, and even if she didn’t, she’s still in leadership, and they all need to be shown the door anyway. Casimiro’s boring even by Rhode Island House standards, so let’s cut straight to her opponent. Melissa Devine, Chief Financial Officer for Pawtucket Public Schools, is a more well-connected candidate than progressives usually land, probably because she isn’t all that much of a progessive. Still, she’s made sure to put gun control at the center of her campaign, and would be an improvement over Casimiro for that reason alone.
HD-32 (North Kingstown)
Robert Craven (i) vs. Danielle Walsh
Robert Craven is the rare state rep. who hasn’t just not faced a primary in years, but has never even had one until now. (North Kingstown was a lot swinger a decade ago, when Craven was first elected, than it is now.) Craven lacks any of the blatant reactionary social tendencies that got some of his colleagues taken down; he’s more of your run-of-the-mill suburban business goon. Normally that wouldn’t suggest vulnerability, but since he’s literally never had a primary, one was worth a try just to see how he’d handle it. Overall, he’s handled it fine, campaign-wise, and hasn’t given any openings to Danielle Walsh, an educator and Development Director for Black Lives Matter Rhode Island PAC, who is running as part of the Co-Op. This is the kind of seat and incumbent that might flip if there’s a massive progressive wave cresting in the state, but, short of that, there’s just not enough raw material for most challengers to work with.
HD-49 (Western Woonsocket)
Glenn Dusablon vs. Alexander Kithes
Alex Kithes was a progressive member of the Woonsocket City Council; now he’s running for an open state House seat with the Co-op’s backing, running a tag-team campaign with HD-51 candidate and fellow Co-op endorsee Marlene Guay, who’s seeking one of Woonsocket’s two other state House seats. His opponent, union official Glenn Dusablon, is the moderate candidate here, and he’s allegedly taken the campaign in an ugly direction with homophobic attacks on Kithes, who is gay.
HD-51 (Eastern Woonsocket)
Robert Phillips (i) vs. Marlene Guay
State Rep. Robert Phillips is another especially conservative state representative. Like DelSanto and Vella-Wilkinson, he’s endorsed by the NRA, has an A rating, and is unofficially slating up with Republican Woonsocket City Councilor Valerie Gonzalez. Marlene Guay, who ran for Woonsocket City Council in 2020, is the progressive here, and neither she nor Phillips is spending much money at all—Guay has actually outspent Phillips in recent months, but each has spent less than $5,000. This is a swing seat—Biden only won it by five points—but Republicans failed to field a candidate here; the primary is the ballgame.
HD-55 (Eastern North Providence)
Arthur Corvese (i) vs. Clara Hardy
We’re back to playing the classics. Arthur Corvese checks all the boxes: House leadership, Right to Life endorsee, marijuana legalization opponent, gay rights denier, and NRA stooge. He even opposed the recent minimum wage hike. Corvese is exactly the kind of long-in-the-tooth incumbent (24 years and counting) who hasn’t faced a primary challenger in forever (since 2006) and assumes he can coast indefinitely as a conservative based on the strength of the establishment in North Providence, even as his district rapidly grows and diversifies, going from 82% white to 67% white in the last decade. He’s one of the biggest targets in the House. Social worker Clara Hardy, a Co-Op candidate, has attracted the support of nearly every progressive group in the state, including WFP, Sierra Club, and RI Women’s Caucus. Thanks to the widespread animosity toward Corvese from progressives and even many standard liberals within the party, Hardy has done unusually well for herself for a Co-Op candidate. Unlike more than a few incumbents we’ve already covered, Corvese is terrified. Outside of Speaker Joe Shekarchi, no one else has spent more in a House race than he has, fundraising like crazy to send round after round of mailers. The election has become ugly as well as expensive, like most races with a Co-Op candidate has, thanks to the over-the-top negative ads sent out by right-wing and establishment groups to keep them from getting a foothold. It’s anyone’s guess who wins this race; it’s expected to be close, and a bellwether for how progressives are faring generally.
HD-57 (Cumberland and Central Falls)
James McLaughlin (i) vs. Brandon Voas
This election feels like it could be happening anywhere in the state: an elderly conservative Democrat is facing a much younger, more progressive opponent criticizing the incumbent for opposing abortion rights and gun control. But where in most of the state the challenger would be backed by the Co-Op and facing down establishment resources, here the waters are a lot muddier. For one, Brandon Voas isn’t a member of the Co-Op. For another, he has the party endorsement, in what appears to be revenge from a Cumberland party boss angry that James McLaughlin had cost him the mayorship. This could mean that Voas is also in tight with the Cumberland establishment, but even if the worst-case scenario is true and Voas is just a local crony, he’s a local crony who will vote the right way on big issues, in stark contrast to McLaughlin, who can be trusted to vote the wrong way on them. All of them.
HD-58 (Northwest Pawtucket)
Matt Carvalho vs. Cherie Cruz vs. Maribel Echeverry-McLaughlin vs. George Hovarth
This election is a frantic 4-way scramble where any candidate could conceivably win. On the left end, there’s Cherie Cruz, a worker at the RI Dept. of Health and activist with the ACLU, who is supported by the WFP. Moving just to her right is Matt Carvalho, a 22-year-old generic liberal by the look of his social media, who has raised very little money. Moving further right is the party endorsed establishment candidate, Maribel Echeverry-McLaughlin, who is the presumptive favorite given the resource advantage that comes with being the party choice, and the need for only a plurality in this race. Furthest right is George Hovarth, lawyer and self-professed moderate running in his own words, “backing the police”, and who was recommended by RI Right to Life.
HD-59 (Central Pawtucket)
Jean Barros (i) vs. Jennifer Stewart
Jean Barros is another House member whose votes are not the problem. In his eight years in the House, he hasn't opposed a single major bill on the floor. No, the problem with Barros is that he's in House leadership, and thus complicit at the very best in how the place has been run. Pawtucket may not quite be Providence in terms of growing voter hostility to the state's conservative establishment, but progressives have experienced rapid growth there in the last few cycles, which is where Jennifer Stewart comes in. Stewart is a teacher and Co-Op member who admittedly has one of the tougher races this year, but she's an energetic and personable candidate who's been putting in the work.
HD-62 (Eatern Pawtucket)
Mary Messier (i) vs. Kinverly Dicupe
Mary Messier is probably the most surprising name to see on this list. She's been pretty progressive on the issues and was even one of the dissenters to allowing Mattiello to stay Speaker after the 2018 elections, a gutsy move, and honestly one that was a little uncharacteristic for the normally conflict-averse representative. Case in point: after the 2020 elections she joined Joe Shekarchi's leadership team. That should earn her a challenge on principle, but the full context makes that challenge unlikely to actually succeed. However…her district is a rapidly diversifying, working-class neighborhood. If going along to get along is going to have repercussions anywhere in the city, it would be here. Kinverly Dicupe emphatically does not go along to get along. She's a DSA-endorsed candidate running an explicitly left-wing campaign against the status quo in Rhode Island as much as Messier in particular. Dicupe is a founder of Reclaim Rhode Island, an advocacy group which has done a lot of work pressuring the government on progressive legislation, and memorably used her one debate appearance with Messier to pressure her on many of those same issues, upon which Messier's various "not so much"es and "not so soon"s really underscored the differences between them. Dicupe and the DSA are kind of on their own with this one. Conventional wisdom has Messier winning big, but these are uncharted waters.
HD-64 (East Providence and Pawtucket)
Brianna Henries (i) vs. Ashley Pereira
While there are more than a few examples in the Senate, that House isn't the site of many challenges from the right; in fact, this is probably only one. We say probably because we know Brianna Henries is a progressive, but we have no idea what Ashley Pereira’s deal is. She has no online presence, has largely self-funded, and doesn’t appear to have given any media interviews. Regardless of her angle, that’s not a recipe for success as a candidate.
HD-65 (Southern East Providence)
Matthew Dawson vs. San Shoppell
The final open seat of the night is a clear head-to-head contest between progressives and the state party establishment. Again. Activist San Shoppell is supported by the RI Political Co-Op, RI Women's Caucus, and RI WFP, while prosecutor Matthew Dawson has organized labor and the party endorsement. Unlike most House races, this one has stayed relatively low key and local.
Local
Providence Mayor
Gonzalo Cuervo vs. Nirva LaFortune vs. Brett Smiley
Far and away the favorite in this race is Gina Raimondo’s former chief of staff, Brett Smiley. Smiley has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for this race, far outstripping his competition. He elbowed out the other establishment candidates, landing himself the party endorsement. And he’s very, very well-connected within state politics. Too well-connected, as some illegal campaign contributions he’s accepted show. If progressives have any hope of avoiding years of Providence being run by Raimondo-world, that hope is Gonzalo Cuervo, a former staffer to Nellie Gorbea. Cuervo is running a surprisingly progressive campaign, with some great ideas like rent control that are still controversial within the city. Cuervo’s path to victory comes from combining the Hispanic and progressive voting blocs, and it just may work. While Smiley locked down the state establishment, this is a city race, and many Providence politicians aren’t so keen on him—including current mayor Jorge Elorza, who endorsed Cuervo. Also in the race is City Councilor Nirva LaFortune, who sits ideologically between the two, and has a lot of support from the Black community, but whose campaign has gotten crowded out by the Smiley-Cuervo contest.
Providence City Council
Progressives are also trying to make gains on the Providence City Council, but the body is too large, and the districts too small, to list every race here. Some highlights to look out for are Bernie delegate Corey Jones running in District 3, activist Justin Roias in District 4, DSA endorsees Miguel Sanchez and Jackie Goldman in Districts 5 and 6, respectively, and Co-Op member Andrew Poyant in District 14.