Incumbents fall in Rhode Island primaries: 3 takeaways

It was a bad night to be an incumbent in Rhode Island on Wednesday, with the governor and the mayor of the state’s largest city losing their Democratic primaries.

Former CVS executive Helena Foulkes defeated Democratic Gov. Dan McKee while Providence Mayor Brett Smiley lost to democratic socialist state Rep. David Morales.

Though McKee’s primary focused more on voter dissatisfaction over his handling of the closure and reconstruction of a major bridge in the Ocean State, Wednesday’s results underscore the anti-establishment energy surging in contests across the country this cycle.

Sen. Jack Reed easily won the Democratic nomination for a sixth term in the upper chamber.

That leaves Delaware as the lone state left to hold its primaries next week before all eyes turn toward the general election this fall.

Here are three takeaways from Wednesday’s primaries in Rhode Island:

Sitting governor loses primary for first time since 2018

McKee is the first governor to lose a primary in recent memory.

The last time was in 2018, when former Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer, who had ascended to the governor’s mansion when former Gov. Sam Brownback (R) resigned to join the Trump administration as an ambassador in 2018, lost his bid for a full term that year.

Former Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D), meanwhile, is the last elected incumbent to unsuccessfully seek his party nomination. He lost in 2014.

Foulkes defeated the incumbent by 25 percentage points as of 9 p.m. EDT Wednesday, with 84 percent of the vote recorded.

Mckee’s loss isn’t particularly surprising, however. Foulkes held a 15-point lead over McKee in the latest Emerson College polling.

McKee and Foulkes first faced off against each other in 2022, with the governor edging out his opponent by just shy of 3 percentage points in the primary. On the campaign trail, the incumbent aought to attack Foulkes over her role at CVS amid the opioid crisis.

Testament to the fact that all politics is local, the Rhode Island governor’s downfall centered in large part on the state’s slow pace fixing a key piece of infrastructure.

McKee had drawn the ire of Rhode Islanders over the closure of the westbound Washington Bridge for years. The bridge, which connects Providence to East Providence, has been closed since 2023 and isn’t expected to be completed until November 2028.

Demolition of the bridge finished in December — which McKee’s administration points out was ahead of schedule — after the state closed the throughway due to structural issues three years prior.

“I know there is a lot of frustration, and I accept it,” McKee told The New York Times in a recent interview. “But in the end, people are going to realize we did the right thing.”

Still, the closure of the westbound bridge added lengthier commutes for residents and created an economic toll on key industries like the hospitality sector.

“We’re not just talking about the Washington Bridge, we’re talking about a culture here where a few guys at the top know what’s going on, and the rest of us are in the dark,” Foulkes said during a gubernatorial debate against McKee last month, according to the Rhode Island Current.

Democratic socialists notch win in Providence

Rhode Island state Rep. David Morales defeated Smiley in Wednesday’s primary, marking another win for the Democratic Party’s left flank this primary cycle.

As of 9 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Morales led Smiley by 6 points in the vote returns.

Democratic socialists have dominated conversation this primary season — and the surging energy on the far-left shows no signs of waning. Several democratic socialists are on track to win House elections in November, while two notched the Democratic nomination for Senate in Florida and Oklahoma.

Morales’s victory over Smiley adds another socialist to the mayoral ranks across the country. Morales is expected to easily win his general election in the blue state.

Both Seattle and New York City are led by democratic socialists, Katie Wilson and Zohran Mamdani, respectively.

Meanwhile, democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George in Washington, D.C. is on the fast track to succeed outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser in November. Nithya Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is challenging Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass too.