9/10 Primary Preview
Delaware, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island
Delaware
Governor
Bethany Hall-Long vs. Matt Meyer vs. Collin O’Mara
Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long and New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer are locked in an unusually bitter and negative race to succeed term-limited Gov. John Carney. We’re more suspicious of Hall-Long, who represents a continuation of Carney’s corporate administration. Hall-Long was his LG, is endorsed by Carney, and has the support of the state Democratic Party, making her the status quo choice in a state that definitely doesn’t need any more status quo. She’s also pretty clearly corrupt, or at least an ethics nightmare. Hall-Long hid over $300,000 of self-funding over the course of 8 years, only to call it “unintentional” when someone noticed. We simply do not believe her, even if her campaign performed an audit and found there was “no wrongdoing”.
New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer embodies another common, slightly concerning archetype in Delaware politics. Instead of party insiders, Meyer is relying on money. He laps the field in fundraising: $1.6 million to the $917K O’Mara has pulled in and the $217K Hall-Long has scraped together after the scandals. He’s bought himself dominance on the airwaves, and ingratiated himself with newspaper editorial departments, who universally seem to have endorsed him. Meyer has leaned into Hall-Long’s campaign finance issues, and she, in term, is bringing up the lax attitude his office has had towards sexual harassment.
The progressive choice, supported by the Working Families Party, is National Wildlife Federation CEO and former Delaware Natural Resources Secretary Collin O’Mara. O’Mara presents himself as a quiet wonk, but he’s going bold on policy: universal pre-k and childcare, major increases in housing production paired with rent control, and the implementation of aggressive environmental standards to make Delaware a net-zero emissions state. He has, unfortunately, been left behind in the vicious back-and-forth between Hall-Long and Meyer.
Lt. Governor
Sherry Dorsey Walker vs. Kyle Evans Gay vs. Debbie Harrington
Well this is odd. We’re not sure how to react, really. It’s a statewide primary in Delaware, and both candidates seem pretty good. We say both, because Army veteran Debbie Harrington is clearly the odd woman out, with nearly all the endorsements and money going elsewhere. State Rep. Sherry Dorsey Walker didn’t quite come up through the progressive infrastructure that has turned over state leadership in the last few cycle, but, in office, she hasn’t voted that differently from those gate-storming progressives. Many of them, in fact, have endorsed her, including state Reps. Madinah Wilson-Anton and Larry Lambert. State Sen. Kyle Evans Gay is more of a modern liberal Delaware Democrat, still accepting of the corporate Delaware Way, but on the right side of most issues. She’s endorsed by the Democratic Party and every labor union in the state, an advantage that’s only bolstered by her field-leading fundraising and barrage of TV ads.
Insurance Commissioner
Trinidad Navarro (i) vs. Kayode Abegunde
Kayode Abegunde managed to crack 35% of the vote against incumbent Trinidad Navarro in 2020 despite a nonexistent budget and gadfly vibes, so this race is worth watching to see whether Navarro has stepped up his game at all in the past four years.
HD-02 (Wilmington)
Stephanie Bolden (i) vs. James Taylor
James Taylor managed a respectable 38% of the vote against state Rep. Stephanie Bolden, an opponent of marijuana decriminalization with a shaky voting record, in 2022 with little money and no organizational support. However, he has even less money this time than he did in 2022, and is once again going it alone. Expect Bolden to win another term.
HD-03 (Wilmington)
Branden Fletcher Dominguez vs. Josue Ortega
HD-03 had the potential to be an exciting progressive pickup. Then Branden Fletcher Dominguez, the candidate backed by the local DSA and WFP chapters, dropped out with just days to go, leaving Josue Ortega to win by default.
HD-10 (Northern border)
Stephen Jankovic vs. Melanie Ross Levin vs. Dennis E. Williams
State Office of Women's Advancement and Advocacy Director Melanie Ross Levin makes a lot of sense for this district: general liberal, probably quite corporate, but not entirely beholden to the state party insiders. A clear sign of that is how heavily incumbent state Rep. Sean Matthews, is going to bat for Ross Levin. Matthews is no leftist, but has always been willing to buck state house leadership. The fact that she’s supported by The Sierra Club and Stonewall PAC, two liberal-but-not-confrontational groups, but not the WFP, says a lot about how she’ll operate in office. Her opponent is former state Rep. Dennis Williams, who held this seat until Matthews defeated him in a primary in 2014. Comeback bids to regain his old seat in 2016 and for State Auditor in 2018 (where he didn’t even win HD-10) were massive flops, and apparently he thinks this time will go differently. Williams was a moderate-at-best legislator whose absence has not been felt. One of his last votes in office was opposing a minor 1-year buffer zone for ex-legislators before they could become lobbyists. We’re quite confident Ross Levin would be better.
Stephen Jankovic is a ghost candidate. He might be a pro-Trump chiropractor, or he might not, but we know he won’t win.
HD-14 (Rehoboth Beach)
Kathy McGuiness vs. Marty Rendon vs. Claire Snyder-Hall
You’ve gotta be kidding. Kathy McGuiness is back? It seemed as if the onetime state auditor, who had been elected to serve as Delaware’s top government watchdog, was done for good after a disastrous 2022. That year, she was tried on felony corruption charges for giving her daughter a state job and steering a state contract to a favored campaign consultant, convicted of two misdemeanor corruption charges, soundly defeated in the Democratic primary for reelection, and forced to resign lest the governor remove her from office. Since then, one of her misdemeanor convictions has been vacated by the state Supreme Court (while the other was affirmed), and that’s apparently enough to justify a comeback attempt. You don’t even need to ask her—the outgoing incumbent in this seat, former state House Speaker Peter Schwartzkopf, thinks so too. A pair of local Democrats are counting on Rehoboth voters to disagree.
Former professor Claire Snyder-Hall has run for office before, losing in a landslide to popular Republican state Sen. Ernie Lopez in the 2014 GOP wave. (The GOP is no longer particularly competitive in Rehoboth, as the town has lurched left just like many other resort towns in the Trump years.) After her 2014 loss, Snyder-Hall spent nearly a decade with the good-government group Common Cause Delaware before deciding to run for Schwartzkopf’s open seat. She has the Delaware State Education Association and the statewide AFSCME Council 81 in her corner, as well as prominent state progressives like state Rep. Eric Morrison and former state Rep. John Kowalko. (Her platform includes a Delaware Green Amendment and an openness to state-level single-payer.) She’s raised and spent less than either of her opponents, but she’s got enough money to seriously compete with them.
Retired congressional staffer and UNICEF executive Marty Rendon rounds out the field. His fundraising is better than Snyder-Hall’s and comparable to McGuiness’s; policy-wise, he’s the candidate for voters who want a boilerplate liberal but are turned off by McGuiness’s sordid past.
HD-15 (Central New Castle County)
Valerie Longhurst (i) vs. Kamela Smith
Valerie Longhurst took over as Speaker from Peter Schwartzkopf after the last election. Schwartzkopf was fairly conservative in his own right, and Longhurst is every bit as bad. You know how Tim Walz likes to talk about how he brought free school meals to Minnesota public schools? Longhurst took a bill that would’ve done that for Delaware and means-tested it beyond recognition. When Democratic Gov. John Carney vetoed the legislature’s first attempt at marijuana legalization, Longhurst was one of a handful of Democrats who didn’t vote to override his veto. When her caucus really demands something, she’ll give in, but Longhurst is not the type of leader to push progressive policy on her own initiative. Healthcare worker Kamela Smith is hoping that Delaware voters want a more progressive leader. Backed by the Working Families Party, Smith wants to bring transparency to the often-opaque state government of America’s leading corporate tax haven, feed kids in school, cap rent increases, and expand voting rights to allow for more mail-in voting. WFP has dropped a significant amount of money into this district on Smith’s behalf, and it’s clear this is a priority race for Delaware progressives. If Smith wins, and the Speaker goes down, it’ll send an unmistakable message to other Delaware Democrats: get with the program or get voted out.
HD-27 (Central New Castle County)
Eric Morrison (i) vs. Margie López Waite
State Rep. Eric Morrison has ruffled some feathers since his initial 2020 election, when he unseated a socially conservative Democrat as part of a wave of progressive primary victories across the state. Some unions and moderate Democratic leaders went all-in for Morrison’s 2022 primary challenger—only for Morrison to win 2 to 1. While the Chamber of Commerce is back for another round, the energy behind charter school leader Margie López Waite feels subdued, and Morrison seems like a solid favorite.
HD-29 (Dover suburbs)
William Bush (i) vs. Monica Shockley Porter
State Rep. William Bush was handed this seat in 2018 without a primary. Since that stroke of good fortune, he’s quietly established himself as one of the more conservative, more “Delaware Way”-ish members of the House Democratic caucus, most memorably by being a lonely—and decisive—vote against marijuana legalization even after Pete Schwartzkopf had caved and backed legalization. PhD candidate and social services worker Monica Shockley Porter, much like Kamela Smith in the 15th district, is hoping Delaware voters will choose a different way forward. Shockley Porter, like Smith, is backed by the Working Families Party, which has made ousting Bush a priority (and spent accordingly.) Bush is counting on the old Delaware Way to carry him to another term, while Shockley Porter is relying on her progressive allies and a personal network built in Delaware’s nonprofit world. As far as policy goes, Shockley Porter prioritizes issues including voting rights expansion, universal pre-K, and paid family and medical leave.
New Castle County Executive
Karen Hartley-Nagle vs. Marcus Henry
Karen Hartley-Nagle is almost an accidental officeholder. She won her first election as President of the New Castle County Council in 2016 with a 48% plurality, then managed to win a second term with a much weaker 40% plurality. Why such an underperformance? It might have something to do with the harassment lawsuit she got from a former aide, who alleged that the council president subjected her to a neverending torrent of verbal abuse and insensitive comments. That harassment lawsuit cost the county well over $100,000, and permanently soured relations between Hartley-Nagle and…well, basically everyone else in the often-clubby world of Delaware politics. The county council even asked for Hartley-Nagle to resign in 2018. (She declined.) Hartley-Nagle was able to survive 2020 despite all that, but in 2024 she can’t rely on a split field—she actually has to win a majority. And nobody wants that.
County government staffer Marcus Henry has called in just about every high-profile endorsement you can think of, from U.S. Sen. Chris Coons on down. He’s also swamped Hartley-Nagle with cash—hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending, answered by maybe a tenth of that amount from Hartley-Nagle’s side. Hartley-Nagle may be the two-term countywide elected facing a political neophyte, but she seems like the underdog here.
New Hampshire
Executive Council District 2 (Concord and Western NH)
Karen Liot Hill vs. Michael Liberty
Executive Councilors in New Hampshire are in a weird space where they have minimal policy input in government, but are often candidates for higher office, so they have to be heavily scrutinized for positions, just not for the office they’re currently running for. Both Lebanon Councilmember Karen Liot Hill and businessman Michael Liberty may be promising similar general Democratic principles, but we feel more comfortable with the idea of Liot Hill running for something more important. She may be a Biden dead-ender with multiple DUIs, but Liberty’s political contribution history shows him supporting mostly moderate Republicans and Andrew Yang, until he started regularly giving to Democrats last year.
SD-15 (Concord)
Angela Brennan vs. Rebecca McWilliams vs. Tara Reardon
This election is between three competent, qualified women, but don’t tell that to real estate lawyer and former state Rep. Tara Reardon, who claims to have joined the race because the current candidates, state Reps. Angela Brennan and Rebecca McWilliams, lack the necessary experience. However, it’s Reardon who might be the riskiest bet for voters. A new state law forces legislators to recuse themselves in matters of financial conflicts of interest, and Reardon is married to one of the state’s top lobbyists. Though she claims it would be irrelevant, she’s facing attacks that she would have to sit out on some of the chamber’s biggest votes, a charge the state ethics committee is currently deliberating on. McWilliams, whose campaign has focused on her extensive legislative record and support of residential upzoning, comes across as the quiet, wonky type to Brennan’s more activist posture, but the differences between the two seem more personality than policy, even if McWilliams has more of it. Reardon is the standout candidate here, and not in a good way.
SD-20 (Manchester)
Patrick Long vs. Sean Parr
Patrick Long, who serves in both the state house and the Manchester Board of Alders, is supported by a considerable number of his colleagues in both bodies in his effort to become a state senator. He’s obviously a respected politician, but he’s also a longtime opponent of marijuana legalization who voted to ban refugees from being settled in the city. School Board member Sean Parr may be the underdog, but nothing in his record suggests breaking from the party in such a big way.
Rhode Island
In the last few cycles, we watched as a fledgling organized left began coordinating an effort to defeat the dominating conservative faction of the legislature. Those efforts made some progress, but a disappointing 2022 cycle and factional infighting led to everyone but the state’s Working Families Party chapter either packing up shop or exiting electoral work. It’s a real shame, and it reduces each election to an isolated incident instead of a battle in a larger war between left and right.
SD-04 (North Providence)
Dominick Ruggerio (i) vs. Leonardo Cioe Jr.
Dominick Ruggerio, who we’ve previously referred to as “the most conservative Democrat to lead a legislative chamber in the US” is the second most powerful politician in Rhode Island, outside of the governor, and that goes a long way to demonstrating how fucked up Rhode Island politics are. Ruggerio is consistently opposed to gay rights, abortion rights, gun control, and balancing the budget through anything but austerity. A member of the senate since 1985, Ruggerio received his first real challenge in 2020 from Lenny Cioe, a gay nurse running as part of the progressive movement. After a close call—Cioe lost only 55%-45%—Democrats significantly altered the district in redistricting, cutting out almost all of Providence, which had favored Cioe, resulting in a district almost entirely contained within the suburb of North Providence. Cioe ran again in 2022, and lost by a worse 59%-35%, with the remaining 6% going to an even more conservative candidate running to protest Ruggerio allowing an abortion rights bill to make it to the floor. Cioe is back again, and focusing on a specific bill Ruggerio pushed this session, which opened the floodgates for online gambling in the state.
SD-14 (East Providence)
Valarie Lawson (i) vs. Brian Coogan
Valarie Lawson is a normal enough Democratic state senator. Brian Coogan is a former state rep recommended by Rhode Island Right to Life who’s perhaps best known for his ties to Nicholas Alahverdian, the American sex offender who faked his death and adopted a persona as a British man named Arthur Knight in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid a rape charge in Utah and an FBI fraud investigation in Rhode Island. (Alahverdian managed Coogan’s last campaign in 2016. Coogan later helped British media identify Knight as Alahverdian and by all accounts played no role in Alahverdian’s many misdeeds.) The Alahverdian connection is just a weird footnote, really; the deciding factor for us is the Right to Life recommendation.
SD-20 (Cumberland and Woonsocket)
Denis Collins vs. Marian Juskuv vs. Brian Thompson
One of the state’s most consistently conservative regions for Democrats provides us with an appropriately infuriating legislative contest. The party selection here is Woonsocket City Councilmember Brian Thompson, who seems in line with the local political zeitgeist well enough that he won’t even support an assault weapons ban when directly asked and advertises that he’s supported by anti-abortion local state Rep. Stephen Casey. History teacher and Cumberland School Committee member Denis Collins is running as what in the rest of the country would be considered a normal, party-line Democrat, but here qualifies him to be the liberal candidate. Marian Justuv appears to be a local crank running to stop communism,
SD-28 (Cranston)
Darrell Brown vs. Melissa Carden vs. John Croke Jr. vs. Bernice Morris vs. Lammis Vargas
This contest at least has a clear progressive choice: nonprofit director Bernice Morris, who’s running on a housing-first platform, but is willing to go against the moderate grain of the state not just for rent control (4% annually, as she always emphasizes), but for universal pre-K and a tax on properties worth more than $1 million. It couldn't be a stronger contrast to the party-endorsed candidate, Cranston city councilmember Lammis Vargas, who bills herself as an education candidate, but doesn’t have much to say about what she wants to actually do with it. Rounding out the field is gun control advocate Melissa Carden running as the gun control candidate, Conservation Law Foundation VP Darrèll Brown running as the environmental candidate, and veteran John Croke Jr, who is running as the generic candidate.
SD-37 (South Kingstown)
Susan Sosnowski (i) vs. Anita Jacobson
Susan Sosnowski has faced URI professor Anita Jacobson before, but not in a primary. Jacobson ran as an independent for this seat in 2022, winning an impressive 13% of the vote against Sosnowski and the Republican nominee. Sosnowski, a liberal veteran of the legislature, has plenty of money and endorsements from a who’s-who of Rhode Island liberal politicians and interest groups, and she should coast to reelection. However, Jacobson’s evident skill as an independent candidate could allow her to do better with primary voters than her minimal budget and low-tech campaign would otherwise indicate.
HD-09 (Providence)
Enrique Sanchez (i) vs. Santos Javier vs. Anastacia Williams
Enrique Sanchez enraged the conservative Rhode Island political old guard when he defeated 30-year incumbent Anastacia Williams by a 54%-39% margin last cycle. The socialist state house rep has, in office, found no favor with house leadership, and the feeling is mutual. Sanchez has had a target on his back for two years, and the result is a Williams comeback bid, which you’d think would be an opportunity for her to not get caught sleeping this time around, but she’s barely engaging with local media. Complicating the rematch is Santos Javier, a landlord/real estate agent who is being suspiciously evasive about his policy stances or why he’s running. That evasion makes sense when you look at who’s working on his campaign: Republican mayoral candidate Dave Talan.
HD-11 (Providence)
Grace Diaz (i) vs. Tania Quezada
Grace Diaz has been frustratingly resilient despite her conservative politics, surviving primary after primary by comfortable margins. Maybe that was just because she faced the same challenger in every primary since 2012—but that changed this year, with perennial candidate Laura Perez staying out. In her place is Tania Quezada, a member of Mayor Brett Smiley’s transition team who doesn’t appear to be running a campaign.
HD-14 (Cranston)
Charlene Lima (i) vs. Giona Picheco
Conservative Democrat Charlene Lima defeated progressive challenger Giona Picheco by nearly 20 points in 2022, which is a tough place for Picheco to start from. However, in 2022, independents may have been drawn to pull Democratic primary ballots because of the competitive gubernatorial primary—this year, at least in Cranston, the action is on the GOP side, with a very heated mayoral primary between some of the city’s most high-profile politicians. Additionally, if Lima’s campaign finance disclosures are accurate, she’s more or less ignoring Picheco this time around, something she didn’t do in 2022. Picheco has also managed to win over a major union in her second go at Lima—the Rhode Island SEIU State Council, which also backs politicians like Dominick Ruggerio and Grace Diaz, is backing Picheco.
HD-16 (Cranston)
Brandon Potter (i) vs. Joseph Graziano
Brandon Potter ousted a conservative Democrat in 2020 and has generally stuck to the progressive side of Rhode Island politics while in office. That’s what’s fueling Joe Graziano’s challenge, funded by the conservative side of Cranston Democratic politics (donors include Charlene Lima and Christopher Millea, the conservative Potter unseated in 2020.) That and…gambling? Rhode Island legalized online gambling earlier this year over the opposition of a mostly progressive minority of lawmakers. Potter was one of the holdouts, and he’s been unafraid to blame Dominick Ruggerio—the Senate sponsor of the legalization bill—for his primary this year.
HD-37 (Westerly)
Samuel Azzinaro (i) vs. Jonathan Daly-LaBelle
Samuel Azzinaro may be best known for introducing a Moms for Liberty-style book ban in the legislature last year; needless to say, he deserves to lose. Unfortunately, he’s taking his challenge from local activist Jonathan Daly-LaBelle quite seriously, lessening the chances of an upset.
HD-51 (Cumberland and Woonsocket)
Robert Phillips (i) vs. Garrett Mancieri
Conservative state Rep. Robert Phillips originally planned to vacate this seat and run for Woonsocket mayor, backing Woonsocket City Councilor Garrett Mancieri to replace him. Then Phillips reassessed his priorities and his chances, and opted to run for reelection instead. Mancieri, who had been backed by state House leadership prior to Phillips’s abrupt reversal, wasn’t ready to step aside for Phillips and quickly announced he’d stay in the race. Mancieri is unlikely to be good—he was backed by state House leadership, and Phillips himself was an early donor—but it’s unlikely he can manage to be worse than Phillips, a social and fiscal conservative endorsed by RI Right to Life.
HD-57 (Central Falls and Cumberland)
Brandon Voas (i) vs. Phoenix Witt
State Rep. Brandon Voas won two years ago by exploiting divides in the Cumberland Democratic Party and promising to be a normal Democrat, unseating a pro-gun, anti-abortion incumbent. In office, he's kept his promise to be a normal Democrat, cozying up to state House leadership (now socially liberal, in contrast to pre-2021 leadership) and amassing an establishment-friendly liberal voting record. However, he hasn’t been a vocal progressive like many successful primary challengers in Rhode Island, and Gen Z student Phoenix Witt is running to give voters a progressive alternative. Witt cites social housing as a priority and takes particular issue with Voas’s vote to double the state’s campaign contribution limits—a vote which divided legislative Democrats almost evenly. Witt has her work cut out for her, with Voas holding a more than 4-to-1 financial advantage and likely having the support of conservative Democrats who backed his opponent last time.
HD-58 (Pawtucket)
Cherie Cruz (i) vs. Elizabeth Moreira
Mayor Don Grebien is a polarizing figure in Pawtucket politics. He has allies representing most of the city in the state Senate, but several of its state reps are progressives who’ve clashed with him, especially Cherie Cruz and her HD-59 neighbor Jennifer Stewart. Cruz, a member of the state House’s progressive bloc, won a plurality in 2022 in an open seat, and now she faces a Grebien administration official, Elizabeth Moreira. Moreira, who oversaw the city’s COVID response under Grebien, would shift power back to the center if she won (though, to her credit, she has managed to piss off Right to Life enough for the group to issue an anti-endorsement of both her and Cruz.) Both Cruz and Moreira seem to be working hard to win votes, but Cruz appears to have the more professional operation based on her campaign finance filings; combined with incumbency, that’s enough for us to see her as favored.
HD-64 (East Providence and Pawtucket)
Jenni Furtado vs. Ashley Pereira
The surprise retirement of state Rep. Brianna Henries in May leaves East Providence School Committee Chair Jenni Furtado as the only serious candidate for HD-64. Furtado had been challenging Henries, a progressive, in the Democratic primary prior to her surprise retirement. Ashley Pereira is a perennial candidate recommended by RI Right to Life who lost to Henries 55-45 in 2022. Maybe Pereira can do better against someone who’s not an incumbent, but voters motivated by opposition to Henries’s progressivism now have Furtado as an acceptable alternative to vote for.