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

Who will be the next Governor of Rhode Island?

What to Watch For: Follow the Money

For the crowded Democratic field, the primary is going to be a division problem: How to slice the pie of voters and donors? Theoretically, 17 percent of the primary vote could equal a win. But the size of each candidate’s wedge is likely to vary considerably. That is already true of their financial resources. More money is pouring into politics than ever before. According to FollowtheMoney.org, in the 2018 election cycle, donations to state candidates and ballot measures topped $6.1 billion. In Rhode Island, Raimondo spent $5 million in her re-election campaign — double Allan Fung’s $2.47 million in expenditures.

“This race is going to be expensive — and highly competitive,” the Globe’s Ed Fitzpatrick adds. “The top three already have millions of dollars between them.”

In November, the candidates released their third quarter campaign finance reports. Magaziner was flush with a $1.5 million fund balance, about twice McKee’s $800,682 and Gorbea’s $749,284. Brown reported a $59,984 fund balance, but has $207,000 in unpaid loans going back to his 2018 run. Muñoz posted a $5,600 fund balance. (Neither Foulkes nor Darlington was a candidate in the third quarter.)

“Predicting things at this stage is impossible,” says Providence College political scientist Adam Myers. “It’s entirely possible that McKee’s performance in pandemic-related stuff will be very much on people’s minds, but it’s also possible the pandemic will be over by then. It’s very hard to say what the situation with the economy will be. On the one hand, it was improving dramatically until the Delta variant. When this round is over, it might go gangbusters. There’s the issue of inflation. All of these things will affect the general mood.”

Myers can say with better certainty that by September, “there will be a lot of ads on the airwaves, and many people will be sick of these candidates by the time this primary is over.”

Voters on the Rise

Progressives, a rising political power bloc, are here canvassing for state Senate candidate Geena Pham. By the calendar, it’s fall, but the trees are still in full leaf as volunteers take a mid-day break, scarfing burritos from the food truck. In three weeks, East Side voters will choose a replacement for Senator Gayle Goldin, who moved to a U.S. Department of Labor position.

This event was organized by the Rhode Island Political Co-op. State Senator Cynthia Mendes stops by to offer encouragement before the afternoon round of door-knocking.

Her speech rouses the crowd, but they did not sweep Pham into the State Senate. She lost to former City Councilor Sam Zurier. The important takeaway, says Mendes, is how well Pham did against Goldin’s preferred successor, Hilary Levey Friedman. “She got barely half of Geena’s votes,” she says. “There’s an important message there: The establishment doesn’t have anything compelling to offer the people of Rhode Island and they know it.”

Between 2016, with the election of Providence State Representative Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, and the 2020 general election, the progressive caucus has grown to about twenty-five members of the General Assembly. “A lot of people will be fighting for the same group of voters,” says Steven Ahlquist, who covers progressive politics for the UpriseRI website. “If a candidate wants to win in a statewide race, they can no longer ignore progressives. A large part of the Democratic Party has moved to the left: on climate change, on voting rights, on women’s rights. McKee who may be the most centrist or right-wing candidate among the Democrats; he’s even moving left. He was celebrating a bill to reclassify drugs as misdemeanors. This is a long-time progressive issue.”

Latinos are another voting bloc with influence. “In 2022, the Latino electorate will be larger than it has ever been, and it will be a factor in more different communities in Rhode Island than it has ever been. And, the 7 to 10 percent of primary voters who will be Latino could provide the margin of victory for the winning gubernatorial candidate in the Democratic primary,” says PC’s Affigne.

COVID will be a key issue. The Latino community was hammered by the pandemic with a disproportionately high case rate compared to other groups and corresponding economic effects — joblessness, foreclosure and evictions.

“By most indicators, Latinos have fared more poorly than any other group in Rhode Island, so candidates can expect to get an earful,” he says.

The rapid ascent of Latina politicians over the last decade — Gorbea, State Senator Ana Quezada, Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos and others — is one of the most remarkable features of contemporary state politics, says Brown University political scientist Wendy Schiller.

“They understand the power of community organizing” and retail politics, she says. “These are very important skills in a small state where you have a growing Latino population and more successful cohorts as the generations go by. Housing, the economy and small businesses: These are the things that matter to the people they know the best. A whole generation of Latina politicians has figured out if you get your voters out — especially in the primary — you win.”