Born to Run: An Exclusive Look at RI’s 2022 Governor’s Race

Seth Magaziner, Democrat

Courtesy of candidate or Facebook.

State Treasurer Seth Magaziner, thirty-eight, is another term-limited office-holder seeking the governorship. Magaziner won his first statewide election in 2015, transitioning from a career in investment and finance. Magaziner, son of Ira Magaziner, a policy adviser for President Bill Clinton, was educated at the Milton Academy, Brown University and Yale. Like Gorbea, his tenure has been marked by — in the context of political theater — drama-free accomplishments.

He made his campaign announcement in front of Pawtucket’s Henry J. Winters Elementary, which was demolished to make way for a new school as part of a $250 million school construction bond. Magaziner, as co-chair of the state’s 2017 School Construction Task Force, has supervised $1.4 billion in investments to repair or replace 176 school buildings. He has been a champion of green energy, creating the Efficient Buildings Fund, a financing program within the Rhode Island Instructure Bank to upgrade buildings, and moving state pension funds out of fossil fuel stocks. Magaziner also touts his “Back-to-Basics” investment strategy, which pulled the state’s under-funded pension system from 54.2 percent in 2018 to 60.5 percent in 2021. His office has reported that the funds had outperformed its peers and reached a high of more than $9.5 billion.

“What sets me apart is we have a clear vision for how to build a strong, fair economy for Rhode Island and the track record on issues and jobs to back it up. So, I’m running on a platform of building a twenty-first century economy invested in education, infrastructure and equity,” he says.

Lives In: Providence
Did You Know? After graduation, Magaziner spent two years working for Teach for America at an elementary school in Louisiana.

Luis Daniel Muñoz, Democrat

Courtesy of candidate or Facebook.

Dr. Luis Daniel Muñoz is making his second run for governor. In 2018, Muñoz ran an under-funded and little-noticed campaign as an independent, garnering 1.7 percent of the vote. At thirty-six, he is the youngest candidate and, with an April announcement, he was the first to position himself as a progressive challenger to the Democratic establishment. Born in New York City, Muñoz was raised in the Bronx projects until age seven, when his mother separated from his father, who struggled with addiction. The family moved to Central Falls, where his mother cleaned office buildings to support her four children.

“That was hard for us. We had to raise ourselves,” he says. “I equate the lived struggle with political courage and we need more political courage in this state.”

Muñoz graduated from Rhode Island College, and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. A physician, he works as a health care consultant at the intersection of technology and clinical practice. Muñoz is also a member of the state’s COVID-19 Equity Council, which was formed by Raimondo to ensure the state’s pandemic response addressed the virus’s disparate impact on high-density communities and people of color. In that role, Muñoz has pushed for and helped organize vaccine clinics for those populations.

“My values are progressive.” he says. “Our campaign is focused on programmatic progress that we can feel in our everyday lives: free clinics, an education system that desegregates our very segregated school districts and commerce policies that actually support the minimum wage-earner.”

Lives In: Pawtucket
Did You Know? Muñoz proposes using $40 million of federal American Rescue Plan funds to buy and renovate the Superman building for housing.

David Darlington, Republican

Courtesy of candidate or Facebook.

David Darlington, the sole Republican to announce, has previously run twice for the house and once for state senate.

A Cumberland native, he has lived in North Kingstown for the last twenty-two years and works as CEO of Fletcher Granite in Westford, Massachusetts. In 2001, Governor Lincoln Almond appointed Darlington to fill an unexpired term at the Rhode Island Bridge and Tunnel Authority. Darlington remained there for fourteen years, stepping down as chairman after suffering a heart attack in 2014. His basic platform — strengthening public safety, keeping a tight rein on a burgeoning state budget while maintaining the social safety net — marks him as an old-school Republican moderate. He was molded by the Almond administration, which he served for seven years as director of constituent affairs. He says he learned a lot about the use of executive authority from his boss.

“As a Republican you have to work with the Democratic legislature, and the unions and you have to find a way to make decisions that work for lots of folks. In business, you don’t have to be friends, you just have to work together. Sometimes that’s frustrating, sometimes that’s compromise. So much of politics is about ego and promoting your side.”

For the state’s 99,131 Republican voters, the economy, education and crime will be the major issues, says GOP state party chair Sue Cienki. The leftward tilt of all the Democratic candidates gives Darlington “a bigger runway for our candidate. I certainly think all of the Democratic candidates are leaning very far left. Are they producing policies that actually help the average Rhode Islander? You can promise people things, but we have to make difficult choices if we’re going to survive and get to the other side.”

In 2016 and 2020, President Donald Trump won about 38 percent of the vote, cadging nearly 200,000 votes beyond registered Republicans, which make up 14 percent of the electorate. They will not find a surrogate in Darlington.

“I am not a MAGA candidate,” Darlington says. “It’s going to be an issue I’m going to have to overcome in a Republican primary, because there are many people on the far right of our party who are supporters. That just means I’m going to have to work harder, but I’m not prepared to compromise my support for somebody like Donald Trump to get votes in the primary. I can’t do it.”

Lives In: North Kingstown
Did You Know? Darlington stepped down from a position with the Turnpike and Bridge Authority in 2014 after suffering a heart attack on the air with then-WPRO radio show host Buddy Cianci.