Rhode Island
12 News/Emerson Poll: Foulkes leads McKee by double-digits in RI gov primary
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Helena Foulkes has opened up a 20-point lead over incumbent Dan McKee in the Democratic primary for governor, with just three months left before the first ballots are cast, an exclusive 12 News/Emerson College poll released Tuesday shows.
The survey of 565 likely Democratic primary voters finds Foulkes at 40% and McKee at 20%, with 37% undecided and 3% saying they support someone else. The 12 News/Emerson poll is the third survey in the last two months showing McKee down by double-digits.
“The race for governor hasn’t moved in six months,” 12 News political analyst Joe Fleming said. “Helena Foulkes is still holding a commanding lead. McKee has done nothing that’s moved the needle to close that gap. And he’s running out of time very quickly.”
McKee — who is seeking to extend his tenure as governor to 10 years — is viewed unfavorably by 60% of all voters and favorably by only 21%. McKee’s numbers are better but still negative among likely primary voters, 50% of whom view him unfavorably. Among registered Democrats only, McKee’s unfavorable rating is 43%.
A key challenge for McKee: he is underwater by 14 points among undecided primary voters, with 26% viewing him favorably, 26% viewing him neutrally, and 40% viewing him unfavorably.
“If you’re being viewed unfavorably by the undecided voters, how are you going to get their votes?” Fleming said. “He’s had the last five or six months as the governor who’s out there all the time to try to move the numbers — the numbers have never moved.”
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Foulkes, a former CVS executive who placed a close second to McKee after a late surge in the 2022 primary, remains less of a known quantity to voters despite her lead in the primary. Her numbers among all voters are slightly negative, with 27% viewing her favorably and 29% viewing her unfavorably, but over 40% of voters either view her neutrally or have never heard of her.
Unlike McKee, however, Foulkes is viewed positively by likely primary voters, at 35% favorable and 23% unfavorable, though even among that group 42% express no opinion about her. Her numbers are similar among registered Democrats.
Fleming noted Foulkes has a significant financial advantage to reach voters who haven’t formed an opinion yet, with $3.6 million in cash on hand compared with McKee’s $1.4 million. “She can spend it over the next three and a half months,” he said.
Less than three hours before release of the 12 News/Emerson poll, the McKee campaign announced that it had conducted its own survey last week. But the campaign didn’t reveal whether McKee was behind or ahead, and the governor told 12 News on Tuesday, “I don’t have those numbers.”
McKee’s campaign poll tested a variety of attacks on Foulkes, and his campaign released a memo arguing that the attacks would shift some voters against her. The Foulkes campaign did not immediately respond.
The 12 News/Emerson poll was conducted May 14-16 and surveyed 1,000 likely Rhode Island voters using text-to-web and online panel interviews. The overall credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error, is plus or minus 3 percentage points, rising to 4.1 points for the Democratic primary subset.
McKee, Foulkes both lead November election
Yet the 12 News/Emerson poll also shows that if McKee finds a way to turn around his campaign and defeat Foulkes in the primary, he is in position to win another four years as governor.
Among all 1,000 likely voters surveyed, McKee leads a hypothetical November election matchup with 33%, against 22% each for the Republican nominee and independent Ken Block, while 17% are undecided and 6% are supporting someone else.
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Foulkes fares even better in the general election matchup, with 39% support, followed by the Republican nominee at 21% and Block at 19%, with 18% undecided. Two Republicans, Aaron Guckian and Elaine Pelino, are vying for the GOP nomination.
Block, a Barrington businessman who ran for governor as a third-party candidate in 2010 and a Republican candidate in 2014, pulls votes from across the political spectrum. In a race against McKee, Block wins 16% of Republicans, 14% of Democrats and 30% of independents.
“Ken Block is going to divide Republican votes,” Fleming said. “So if he’s dividing the Republican vote, it’s going to be very difficult for a Republican or an independent to win the race over whoever the Democratic nominee is.”
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Block is better known than Guckian, who was the 2022 GOP nominee for lieutenant governor. Among all voters, Block is viewed favorably by 19% and unfavorably by 23%, with the rest neutral or unfamiliar. Guckian is viewed favorably by 10% and unfavorably by 15%, but nearly half of voters have never heard of him.
Most voters on the fence in AG primary
The 12 News/Emerson poll also tested the Democratic primary for attorney general, which is an open contest since incumbent Peter Neronha is term-limited.
The race is wide open.
The survey shows former R.I. Cannabis Control Commission chair Kim Ahern and Warwick state Rep. Joe Solomon Jr. tied at 9% each, trailed slightly by former Neronha policy chief Keith Hoffmann and Barrington state Rep. Jason Knight, both of whom are at 5%. But almost three out of four voters — 72% — are undecided.
Fleming said all the candidates need to continue raising money to get their message out to voters.
“What could help in this election is the Democratic Party endorsement,” Fleming said. “A lot of times an endorsement doesn’t mean that much, but right here you have four candidates running, and none of them are well known at all. If you have the party endorsement, that might pick you up 4% or 5% of the vote.”
More results from the poll will be released tonight on 12 News at 10 and 11 p.m.
Ted Nesi (tnesi@wpri.com) is a Target 12 investigative reporter and 12 News politics/business editor. He co-hosts Newsmakers and writes Nesi’s Notes on Saturdays. Connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, Bluesky and LinkedIn.
Tim White (twhite@wpri.com) is Target 12 managing editor and chief investigative reporter and host of Newsmakers for 12 News. Connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter and Bluesky.
Alexandra Leslie contributed to this report.
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — The Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra on Monday announced the schedule and theme for its Summer Pops program, an annual series of free outdoor concerts featuring well-known songs performed in a classical style.
This year’s show, “Outstanding Overtures,” features beloved introductory tunes from theater, film and classical music.
“There’s something magical about an overture,” said David Beauchesne, executive director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra & Music School. “It sets the stage, stirs the imagination, and invites you into a story.”
The program includes overtures ranging from “William Tell” and “The Marriage of Figaro” to “Phantom of the Opera,” “West Side Story,” “Mary Poppins,” and “Wicked.”
“Experiencing these masterpieces performed by a full symphony orchestra in a relaxed, outdoor setting is something truly special,” Beauchesne said. “And best of all, it’s completely free.”
R.I. Philharmonic’s 2026 “Outstanding Overtures” Schedule
Narragansett
Friday, July 10, at 8 p.m. (rain date: Saturday, July 11, at 8 p.m.)
North Beach Clubhouse, 77 Boston Neck Road
Providence
Wednesday, Aug. 5, at 7 p.m. (rain date: Thursday, Aug. 6, at 7 p.m.)
Roger Williams Park Temple to Music, F C Greene Memorial Boulevard
Newport
Sunday, Aug. 9, at 7 p.m.
Rosecliff Mansion, 548 Bellevue Avenue
Bristol
Saturday, Sept. 5, at 7 p.m.
Independence Park, Thames Street
For more information and the full program, click here.
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The Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra announced their 2026 Summer Pops schedule.
All concerts are free and open to the public. No tickets are required.
The Summer Pops series will be held in:
- Narragansett at the North Beach Clubhouse on July 10 at 8 p.m.
- Providence at the Roger Williams Park Temple to Music on Aug. 5 at 7 p.m.
- Newport at the Rosecliff Mansion on Aug. 9 at 7 p.m.
- Bristol at Independence Park on Sept. 5 at 7 p.m.
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The program will feature overtures to “West Side Story,” “Wicked” and “The Marriage of Figaro and William Tell.”
Whitehouse climate speeches over the decades
Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has been speaking out about climate change for decades
On Aug. 7, 2025, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse gave his 300th “Time to Wake Up” speech about the dangers of climate change.
“It’s hard, given our peril, not to feel a bitter sense of failure about where we are,” he said.
Since then, he’s given at least seven more of these speeches. This session alone, he’s sponsored more than 30 bills on environmental protection. And he warns about the dangers of climate change almost every day on his social media channels.
Climate change has long been a priority of the left. But lately, Whitehouse seems like the only Democrat remaining who’s still trying.
“The Democrats have been running away from this issue,” said J. Timmons Roberts, a professor of environmental studies at Brown University.
He’s not sure why they’re backing away. Maybe they are preoccupied with other issues, he said, such as the Iran war and immigrants’ rights. Or maybe they think that Democrats should stop talking about climate – a group Whitehouse calls “climate hushers.”
This group includes Matthew Huber, a professor of geography at Syracuse University, who argued in an opinion piece for The New York Times that climate change fuels polarization and that Democrats should stop talking about it in order to win back the working class.
But Whitehouse has taken to social media to address this line of thinking, saying in posts that it’s wrong “about pretty much everything.”
In a recent interview for Political Scene, he said it’s worth it to keep trying because the risks are so high. And he thinks that, politically, it’s actually “a winning issue that my party has just gotten wrong and overlooked.”
Do people care about climate change?
Addressing climate change under the Trump administration is “brutal,” Roberts said.
“It’s hard to know where to start,” Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director with the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said. “They’ve pretty much torn up federal agencies. Attacked budgets and staffing and expertise. They’ve undermined climate science. They’re spreading propaganda and lies about climate science. They’re boosting the fossil fuel industry, attacking clean energy. It’s just from every possible angle.”
Yet around the country, Democrats have been backing away from talking about climate change. Many rising Democratic stars, such as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, speak more about affordability than climate action. And Roberts thinks that even historically climate-friendly politicians, such as Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, who he said has been “legendary” in the climate fight, have lately been quiet on the issue.
Their silence seems to correlate with polls showing that climate ranks low, or falling, on people’s priority lists. Regular Pew Research Center surveys consistently find that climate is near the bottom of people’s priority lists. An April poll from the center found that support for the United States prioritizing renewable energy development over fossil fuels has declined from 79% to 57% in the last six years – and it even declined among Democrats. And a compilation of YouGov polls show that 4.5% of Americans currently rank climate change and the environment as the most important issue for them, down from a high of 16.6% in December 2021.
Roberts said that people do care about the issues – the 2025 Rhode Island Life Index survey found that 62% of Rhode Islanders say that climate change is a serious problem in their community. But it’s not always at the top of people’s priority lists because things like the economy and crime can take precedence in voters’ minds.
Climate hushers, Whitehouse argues on social media, fall into the problem of “poll-chasing,” where they ask what voters think and parrot that back instead of leading on an issue. Instead, he and Roberts said, politicians themselves can raise the salience of climate change.
“Democrats can drive this public opinion if they choose to,” Roberts said. “These issues don’t just happen by themselves. There’s a whole theory on what drives public opinion, and there’s some great research on environmental sociology that says that it comes from party elites. That the opinion on climate change doesn’t just happen by itself; it’s really what are the politicians talking about that drives public opinion.”
Plus, Whitehouse suggested in the interview that when people connect the dots between climate change and their lives, the issue skyrockets in priority to them. He mentioned a poll he often cites that found 92% of voters in Texas are worried about home insurance, a higher amount than were worried about health care, and that 66% of Texas voters connected their home insurance concern to climate-driven extreme weather.
Why is Whitehouse still trying?
Climate change, along with what he sees as political corruption from fossil fuel companies funding legislators, is Whitehouse’s top policy issue because of its urgency and how it’s intertwined with everything else.
“It’s already in your increased grocery prices. It’s already in your increased electricity prices. It’s already in your increased home and auto insurance prices. So if you want to deal with those big cost increases, you’ve got to face the facts about what fossil fuel emissions do,” Whitehouse told Political Scene. “We’re in kind of a gradual stage of this economic distress, but there’s every prediction that this goes really bad all at once.”
It’s not that climate change is more important than issues such as wars or rights, but that it’s the context in which everything is happening, said Cleetus, of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“Yes, there are many pressing challenges, geopolitical challenges, that are making news headlines,” Cleetus said. “Climate change is not stopping for the politics. It’s here. It’s the background condition that’s exacerbating a lot of the acute challenges people are already facing.”
And it’s not some abstract, future problem either, Whitehouse said. While states such as Florida and Texas may be seeing the brunt of the home insurance crisis, Rhode Island won’t be far behind. He’s afraid of another insurance meltdown in the state, like the Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corp. collapse in 1991.
Whitehouse argues that voters are ahead of politicians on this issue. And Roberts is optimistic that lawmakers will come around, too, especially if the midterms don’t go Trump’s way.
“I think the pendulum is about to swing back, and people, I mean this, people do care about this issue over the long haul,” Roberts said. “We need people like Sheldon Whitehouse who are continuing to talk about it.”
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