Breakfast with Sheldon Whitehouse
You wouldn’t know it by watching him work the crowd waiting for a breakfast table in Newport, but Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island’s junior senator who is facing re-election this year, says he’s uncomfortable in the public spotlight. “In the world of people in politics, way shyer than average,” is how he described himself over breakfast […]
Laufton Ascencao on how progressives can win campaigns
He may not have the Democratic Party’s endorsement, but Laufton Ascencao, running for state representative in District 68 (Bristol, Warren), knows exactly how to win races despite tall odds. He told me one of his first political litmus tests was during his time in Pittsburgh in 2013. There, while doing college organizing for the Obama […]
Incumbent Democrats face two-front campaigns
Politics makes for strange bedfellows, observed Charles Dudley Warner in 1850, and it seems true enough this campaign season in Rhode Island as the highest-profile incumbent Democrats are each taking fire from not only Republicans, but also the progressive left. Sometimes even on the same issues. Governor Raimondo Governor Gina Raimondo faces the most-obvious two-front […]
Raimondo’s pension cuts benefited hedge funds more than RI, says Brown
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Matt Brown attacked pension cuts for state employees dating back to Governor Raimondo’s previous role as state treasurer at a town-hall style “Restore Our Pensions” event at the WaterFire Arts Center in Providence on Monday evening. The event came mere hours after WPRI published polling results showing Brown lagging behind in name […]
Matt Brown calls for “Medicare for All”
Democratic candidate for Governor Matt Brown announced last Friday that he supports a “Medicare for All” plan for Rhode Island, which will both counter Gov. Raimondo’s Medicaid cuts and “save Rhode Island money every year,” he said in a press release. “If people lose a job, they lose their health care. Small businesses pay so […]
Spicer claims Cohen doesn’t have info against Trump during sparse book-signing
I had time to ask Sean Spicer, the former press secretary under President Trump for six months last year, exactly one question during his book signing at a Middletown Barnes and Noble on Friday. I asked: “This week, reports were released saying that Michael Cohen testifies that Donald Trump knew about a meeting of campaign […]
Raimondo says her incentives spur job growth; EPI isn’t so sure
Governor Raimondo’s support for corporate incentives have become a contentious frontline in the race for governor. Both Democratic candidate Matt Brown and Republican candidate Allan Fung have attacked her commerce incentive programs (such as the Rebuild Rhode Island Tax Credit) according to a report in the Providence Journal on Tuesday. The article shows Gov. Raimondo […]
Providence DSA co-chair on electoral strategy and the movement’s rising star
After what might be considered a 35-year slow burn for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the past year—and especially the last month—has seen the DSA’s flame burn fast and bright. The group gained almost 17,000 dues-paying members in the first 10 months of the Trump presidency. In New York City, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken […]
Pat Fontes wants a world without war, so she’s challenging Sheldon Whitehouse
Pat Fontes, a stalwart of the local antiwar movement, used to support Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “I did not vote for Obama but I voted for Sheldon Whitehouse,” she told me in a recent interview. Now the 81-year-old peace activist is making her first-ever run for elected office by challenging Rhode Island’s junior senator in this […]
Candidates for Ward 1 and Ward 12 square off
In one of the first opportunities for both city council incumbents and their challengers to be grilled by the public this campaign season, candidates from Ward 1 and Ward 12 (encompassing Downtown, Smith Hill, and Fox Point, among other neighborhoods) met at the Pavilion at Grace Episcopal Church in Providence this Tuesday during a Q&A […]
Progressive activists seek Providence City Council seats
The uproar in Rhode Island’s Democratic Party might also be seen in Providence City Council campaigns this summer as several new, progressive candidates are running races far to the left of longtime incumbents—often with the claim that the establishment has been largely absent from their constituents’ neighborhoods. Kat Kerwin Few are more pointed with this […]
Matt Brown and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are both Justice Democrats
Matt Brown, Democratic candidate for governor of Rhode Island, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, overnight political superstar from the Bronx, have a lot in common. They both want America to make a major investment in renewable energy. They both think $15 an hour is a fairer minimum wage. They both believe in Medicare For All. And neither […]
RI Democratic Party doesn’t want to endorse Trump voter after all
The Rhode Island Democratic Party wants to take back two of four controversial legislative endorsements that lit a fire under the local progressive movement and drew the attention of national media. If successful, Michael Earnheart, a Trump voter challenging incumbent Rep. Moira Walsh, and Greg Accairdo, a former Johnston state Senator who has twice been arrested […]
‘Real’ Democrats call for McNamara to step down as party chair
A group called Rhode Island Democrats for a Real Democratic Party released a petition Tuesday calling for the revocation of two endorsements and the resignation of Democratic State Committee chair Rep. Joseph McNamara after several progressive female candidates were passed over for party endorsements. “We are outraged and appalled that the Rhode Island Democratic Party […]
Flanders spams public sector employees seeking campaign cash
When Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Flanders was the state-appointed receiver for cash-strapped Central Falls in 2012, the affluent East Greenwich resident infamously offered municipal employees a haircut or a beheading in balancing the city’s budget. As such, public sector workers probably won’t prove to be a major source of support for Flanders, a small […]
RI Dem Party doesn’t endorse three progressive female legislators
Being a progressive woman may be beneficial at the ballot box in the 2018 election but it doesn’t seem to help with respect to endorsements from the Rhode Island Democratic Party. Three female legislators learned this the hard way when the state Party endorsed their more-conservative primary opponents. Reps. Moira Walsh and Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, both […]
Bob Flanders doesn’t think community college is college
Republican Bob Flanders had some nice things to say about Bobby Nardolillo yesterday, his now-former opponent in the GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat who dropped out of the race yesterday. “He is a dedicated public servant with a bright future,” Flanders said of Nardolillo in a tweeted statement. Before Nardolillo dropped out, Flanders […]
Justice Gaines announces her run for Providence City Council
At one of the coziest campaign kickoffs in recent memory, Justice Ameer Gaines announced her bid for Providence City Council for Ward 1, encompassing the Fox Point, Wayland, and Downtown neighborhoods. A well-regarded local activist, Gaines promises to be one of the most progressive candidates running for a municipal seat in the city. She has […]
Stage set for progressives to take over Rhode Island
As the deadline to run for elected office came and went Wednesday afternoon, there are more than a few political newcomers—many young, and many centered around social justice—that could constitute the makings of a progressive wave in Rhode Island. Governor Most notable might be the governor’s race, where Matt Brown promises to give incumbent Governor […]
RI Dems endorse incumbents in fractious state convention
Last night’s RI Democratic State committee meeting offered no surprises in the outcome — incumbent Governor Raimondo and Lt. Gov. McKee received expected endorsements — but the process of getting there provided moments of conflict that illuminated tensions within the Party. The convention of the more than 100 members of the state committee — city […]
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