Rhode Island

Helena Buonanno Foulkes won the governor’s office with 57.7% of the vote. Her nearest rival was an independent, Kenneth Block, at 27.8%. In the U.S. Senate race, Democrat John F. Reed beat Republican Raymond T. McKay by 37.5 points. Democrats won all four of the other statewide offices on the ballot, all of which they held. The closest was lieutenant governor, where Sabina Matos won by 19.0 points; Kimberly Ahern won the attorney general’s race by 33.0 and James A. Diossa the treasurer’s by 30.7. Democrats kept both U.S. House seats: Gabriel Amo won the First District by 41.1 points and Seth Magaziner the Second by 24.1, in a district Harris carried by 6.8.

Kamala Harris carried Rhode Island by 13.9 points in 2024, which puts the Senate result 23.5 points to the left of the presidential one. The Senate race drew 360,406 votes in our count, 101% of the 2022 total and 71% of the 2024 presidential vote. Both parties’ candidates drew fewer votes than their presidential nominees had, and the Republican fell much further. Reed drew 84 votes for every 100 Harris won here; McKay drew 49 for every 100 of Donald Trump’s. The U.S. House vote, the same office in both years, went from D+23.3 to D+31.9.

The whole state lies in the Providence metro area, so the comparison runs county by county. Providence County cast 51% of the state’s vote and moved farther than any other county, 26.2 points, from D+14.4 for president to D+40.6 for Senate.

Kent County shows the size of the move where the parties had been close. Harris carried it by 1.9 points and Reed by 25.5. Washington County went from D+15.0 to D+33.7, and Bristol County moved 20.6 points to D+46.9. None of the state’s five counties changed sides, and none moved toward the Republicans.

Control did not change. Democrats keep the governor’s office, where Foulkes succeeds a Democrat, and both chambers of the General Assembly.^{1, 2} The opposition got smaller. Republicans lost two of their four state Senate seats and two of their 10 House seats, one of them to Allan Fung, a former mayor of Cranston and twice the Republican nominee for governor, who ran as an independent and won a three-way race with 39%, the Boston Globe reported. The House Republican leader said the caucus would not invite Fung to join it. Republicans are left with 10 of the legislature’s 113 seats.¹ On unofficial results Democrats hold 36 of 38 Senate seats and 66 of 75 House seats, more than four-fifths of each chamber.¹

Two of the Democratic wins involved major field operations by Reclaim RI, a left-wing group, and the Working Families Party, Reclaim RI’s co-chair, Daniel Denvir, told the Globe. Nelly Burdette beat Republican Sen. Thomas J. Paolino of Lincoln, 43.4% to 38.9% in a race with two independents, and in House District 49 the House’s lone independent, Jon Brien, lost to Democrat Veronicka Vega, 51.4% to 47.7%. In Senate District 34 Samantha R. Wilcox beat Republican Sen. Elaine J. Morgan, 52.6% to 47.3%.¹ “We might be fewer in numbers, but we are not going to be quieter in our conviction,” said Senate Minority Leader Jessica de la Cruz, whose caucus went from four members to two.¹

The secretary of state, elected by popular vote, is Rhode Island’s chief elections officer. Gregg M. Amore, sworn into office on January 3, 2023, won again this year in our count, and a secretary may serve only two consecutive terms.³ The Judicial Nominating Commission screens applicants for vacancies on every court in the state and sends the governor three to five names for each.⁴

The same voters refused two requests to borrow. A $100 million economic development bond, which included $45 million that opponents said could subsidize data centers, drew 47.7% in favor and failed. So did a $50 million bond to build a State History Center and fund historical preservation grants, at 49.4%. They were the first state bond requests voters turned down since 2006, the Boston Globe reported.² The other three, for higher education, housing and the green economy, passed with yes shares of 60.0%, 61.3% and 67.1% in our count.²

“The people have spoken, and my sense is that people are frustrated with how we’ve been spending money,” Foulkes said, in remarks the Boston Globe published on November 5; she pointed out that the state budget had grown 40 percent in five years. The state’s Life Science Hub, which the economic development bond would have supported, has about $9 million left of an initial $45 million, and its president, Bob Cormier, told the Globe he was fairly optimistic about support in the next budget under Foulkes.²

Providence elected David Morales mayor. The Democrat, a democratic socialist, won more than 80% of the vote against Republican David Talan, Ocean State Media reported. He had beaten Mayor Brett Smiley in the September Democratic primary, and Smiley declined to endorse him. Morales will be the youngest mayor the city has elected, and he has vowed to reintroduce the rent stabilization ordinance Smiley vetoed.⁵ Early in his term he must hire a public safety commissioner and a fire chief and negotiate a firefighters’ contract that expires June 30, the Globe reported.⁶

Republicans held no statewide office or U.S. House seat in Rhode Island, and they won none this year. The narrowest Democratic win statewide was the lieutenant governor’s race, by 19.0 points, and no county voted Republican. What the party kept was in the legislature: two Senate seats and eight House seats after the election, and no Republican gain was reported anywhere.¹

Neither of Rhode Island’s U.S. Senate seats is on the ballot in 2028. The office of secretary of state, the state’s chief elections officer, will be open when it is next on the ballot, because Amore has now won the two consecutive terms the law allows.³ Foulkes takes office with a legislature in which Republicans hold two of 38 Senate seats and eight of 75 House seats.