To find the most compelling Rhode Island General Assembly elections this year, follow Interstate 295.

The House and Senate races in large chunks of the state may be barely contested, but there’s a swath of competitive campaigns in Providence’s western suburbs that roughly trace the path of the highway. Start in Warwick (including some West Warwick) and head north to Cranston (cut through on Route 37 to save some time) up into Johnston and finally Smithfield.

These communities feature moderate to right-of-center electorates and a number of incumbent-free seats opened up by retirements plus one primary upset.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris will probably claim all four of Rhode Island’s Electoral College votes, but whether voter enthusiasm favors her or Republican Donald Trump will have a knock-on effect for down-ballot races often decided by a few hundred, or as little as a few dozen, votes.

Of the 113 seats in the General Assembly, 43 are contested on Nov. 5.

Could Republicans gain a foothold in the General Assembly?

The results of those will not shift the House or Senate out of Democratic control, due to the party’s overwhelming majorities.

Republicans are hoping turnout for Trump will help to grow their nine-member House caucus and five-member Senate caucus.

But three GOP House incumbents are not running for reelection, making it likely that Republicans will have to flip a seat or two just to maintain the current head count.

Of course, not all of the close races this year touch I-295.

The House District 39 rematch between Democrat Megan Cotter and Republican Justin Price is taking place in the western woodlands of Exeter, Richmond and Hopkinton.

In Pawtucket, Lori Urso is the favorite and Democratic nominee to replace Sen. Sandra Cano, but being placed on the ballot by allies of Mayor Donald Grebien rubbed some the wrong way. She faces independent Cathyann Palocsik in Senate District 8.

Here are 10 races to watch on Tuesday.

Johnston

Kelsey Coletta (D) vs. Richard Fascia (R) in House District 42

Coletta was the only candidate to oust a General Assembly incumbent in the September primary but she faces a tough battle against Fascia in this fairly conservative district, which narrowly favored Trump in the 2020 presidential race. (It includes a slice of northern Cranston.)

Fascia is a former Providence police sergeant who has served on the Johnston Zoning Board and says his opposition to a 55,000-panel solar farm was “perhaps my proudest moment.”

The top issue on his website is “repealing legislation that has taken all oversight away from local zoning boards.”

Coletta is the daughter of Tiverton Rep. John Edwards and is backed by the progressive Working Families Party and several labor unions, including the Service Employees International Union.

She has not received much help from the town Democratic machine led by Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr., who leans further right.

Policing issues have been central in the race, particularly after Coletta received an early endorsement from the International Brotherhood of Police Officers.

When it was pulled back Fascia argued in a door hanger it was because of her support for safe injection sites.

Coletta noted that the union, now neutral, is still not endorsing Fascia despite him being a former police officer.

Deborah Fellela (D) vs. Nick Grasso (R) in House 43

This neighboring district just to the north is even more Republican-leaning, which could put it in play if there is a big night for Trump.

Fellela, who has been in the House since 2007, is on the conservative side of the Democratic caucus and pro-life.

She beat Grasso by 180 votes two years ago.

Andrew Dimitri (D) vs. Karin Gorman (R) in Senate District 25

The death of former Sen. Frank Lombardo opened this seat, and Dimitri, a lawyer, won a hard-fought three-way primary to get the Democratic nomination.

Gorman is vice president of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement (RIILE), “an organization that helps raise the awareness of the general public and public officials about the financial and social impact of illegal aliens on our state.”

Cranston

Jennifer Caputi (R) vs. Todd Patalano (D) in Senate District 26

Criminal justice policy was a flashpoint in the legislature last session, particularly around the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, and several candidates in key 2024 races come from policing backgrounds.

Patalano is second in command of the Cranston Police Department, a position he has held since 2014, when the department, riven by factional infighting and a ticketing scandal, was briefly taken over by the Rhode Island State Police and the previous leadership regime forced out.

Patalano, who spent nearly two years on paid leave on accusations from the old chief that he’d doctored civilian complaints statistics, later sued the city for mistreatment and won a $300,000 settlement, plus the promotion.

The Senate 26 seat is open due to the retirement of Sen. Frank Lombardi, who contributed to Patalano’s campaign along with Senate President Dominick Ruggerio. Patalano attended a gathering in Ruggerio’s office the week before the election held to show support for his leadership.

Caputi is a lawyer and newcomer to politics.

“I will be a strong conservative voice against progressive policies and one-party control. I proudly support small businesses, law enforcement, the pro-life movement, and the Second Amendment, reflecting the majority of voters in my district,” Caputi wrote in an email.

Maria Bucci (D) vs. Christopher Paplauskas (R) in House District 15

For many State House watchers, this district in Oaklawn and western Cranston will long be connected to former Democratic speaker Nicholas Mattiello and his travails holding a seat in GOP territory.

Of course, the dam broke in 2020 when Mattiello fell to Rep. Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung in a year when 46% of the House 15 electorate voted for Biden.

After Fenton-Fung ran unsuccessfully for Cranston mayor, the seat is back up for grabs.

Republican Paplauskas is the Ward 5 city councilman and hoping that turnout for fellow Republican Ken Hopkins, whom he backed in the primary against Fenton-Fung in the mayoral primary, will spill over into the House race.

Bucci ran for mayor herself four years ago and lost to Hopkins by eight points. In 2021 she was elected chair of the Cranston Democratic City Committee and earlier this year was involved in the controversial replacement of a Democratic council member.

West Warwick and Coventry

Jeffrey Fisher (R) vs. Vincent Marzullo (I) vs. Earl Read III (D) in House District 26

Longtime Republican Rep. Patricia Morgan’s bid for the U.S. Senate against Sheldon Whitehouse has created an opening in this boomerang-shaped district split between West Warwick, Coventry and a small chunk of western Warwick.

Despite being held by the GOP for years, the district was narrowly carried by Biden in 2020, making this a potential Democratic opportunity. Former House speaker and now uber lobbyist William Murphy represented the district for years.

Democrat Read is a former Warwick police officer who lives in Coventry.

But independent Marzullo, who has run for the seat twice before and is perhaps best known for volunteer work at Hasbro Children’s Hospital entertaining children as the “Monopoly Man,” is the only candidate endorsed by a gubernatorial candidate.

Former CVS executive Helena Foulkes, who is expected to run again for governor in 2026, was shown smiling beside the mustachioed Marzullo “encouraging you to consider my good friend, Vin Marzullo, as your next RI State Rep,” in a post from Marzullo’s social media. “For more than 50 years, Vin has worked tirelessly in federal/state government with integrity.”

Republican Fisher is from West Warwick, the largest part of the district, and running for office for the first time. He admitted to reckless driving in a 2012 crash on Interstate 495 in Massachusetts while driving a dump truck for National Grid.

Warwick

James McElroy (D) vs. Marie Hopkins (R) in House 21

Republican Hopkins is taking a second crack at winning this House seat in the shadow of Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport, and the Airport Road Trump Store location that was a popular site for rallies four years ago.

In 2022, Hopkins looked like one of the GOP’s best prospects for flipping a non-open House seat, but incumbent Democratic Rep. Camille Vella-Wilkinson pulled out a 38-vote squeaker.

Vella-Wilkinson decided not to run again, and Hopkins, a nurse whose yard signs feature a stethoscope shaped into a heart, hopes this year she’ll break through.

Democrat McElroy is leaving the City Council to run for state representative.

Among his eight donors this year are House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, the Warwick fire and police unions and former Hasbro CEO Alan Hassenfeld.

Anthony DeLuca II (R) vs. Peter Appollonio Jr. (D) Senate 29

The glass-half-full side of being a small legislative minority for Republicans is they don’t have many seats for Democrats to target.

One that could be in play is this seat the GOP flipped in 2022 after former Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey retired.

That year, Senate Democrats’ hand-picked candidate lost in the primary after questions emerged about whether he lived in the district.

But party leadership didn’t lift a finger to help progressive Democrat Jennifer Rourke, and DeLuca won by 5 points.

The Democratic establishment is fully behind Appollonio, a retired West Warwick police officer.

Smithfield

Bernie Hawkins (D) vs. Paul Santucci (R) in House District 53

Hawkins lost this House seat by 89 votes to GOP Rep. Brian Rea in 2022, but Rea decided not to go for a second term.

Santucci, the GOP nominee to replace Rea, ran for state Senate in 2022 and lost a fairly close race to Sen. David Tikoian.

Warren

June Speakman (D) vs. John Hanley (I) in House District 68

This race appears to be all about housing policy.

Speakman chairs the House Affordable Housing study commission from which a number of Shekarchi’s pro-homebuilding bills have emerged.

Hanley is the Warren Town Council president and Pawtucket building inspector who says he wants to roll back at least some of the state’s affordable-housing laws.

The fallout from a comedian’s racially charged joke at a rally for former President Donald Trump continued Wednesday as the campaign for the presidency raced toward its final weekend, with Democrats on the defensive about President Joe Biden’s reaction to the joke.

Republicans claimed Biden labeled Trump supporters as “garbage,” while Democrats insisted Biden was being misinterpreted, and a battle over the placement of an apostrophe in Biden’s comment spread from the White House briefing room to campaign stops.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday further clarified Biden’s comment, made on a Tuesday evening call to rally Latino voters. Biden brought up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s remark at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”

“They’re good, decent, honorable people,” Biden said Tuesday of Puerto Ricans who live in his home state of Delaware. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

An initial White House transcript of the call placed an apostrophe after the word “supporters,” making its meaning about multiple Trump supporters. A later transcript placed the possessive inside the word, so it read as “supporter’s,” making it about a single supporter, Hinchcliffe.

Biden posted on X Tuesday evening that was his intent.

“Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it,” Biden’s post read. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, also told reporters early Wednesday that it was wrong to disparage people over political affiliation, while noting Biden clarified he referred only to Hinchcliffe. The flap over Biden’s comments came just as Harris was giving her “closing argument” speech on the Ellipse on Tuesday night before a crowd in the tens of thousands.

“Let me be clear,” she said. “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.”

Latino voters in general and Puerto Ricans in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania in particular are seen as a crucial voting bloc in the closing days of the campaign, and both campaigns are trying to get their support.

Jean-Pierre said from the White House briefing room Wednesday that Biden does not think Trump supporters are “garbage.”

“What I can say is that the president wanted to make sure that his words were not being taken out of context,” she said. “And so he wanted to clarify, and that’s what you heard from the president. He was very aware. And I would say I think it’s really important that you have a president that cares about clarifying what they said.”

Trump repeatedly has said the United States is the “garbage can of the world” as a result of Biden’s immigration policies.

Rubio: Harris camp should apologize

But Trump and other Republicans jumped on Biden’s remark, immediately comparing it to 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s comment that many Trump supporters comprised “a basket of deplorables.” That comment was seen as damaging to Clinton’s campaign against Trump.

At a Tuesday evening Trump rally in Pennsylvania, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida disclosed news of Biden’s statement.

“I hope their campaign is about to apologize for what Joe Biden just said,” Rubio said. “We are not garbage. We are patriots who love America.”

“Wow, that’s terrible,” Trump added. “Remember Hillary, she said deplorable, and then she said irredeemable, right? But she said deplorable. That didn’t work out. Garbage I think is worse, right?”

Harris brings closing argument in N.C.

At a Wednesday afternoon rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Harris echoed some of the themes she sounded in the “closing argument” speech she gave Tuesday night.

She urged voters in the battleground state to “turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump, who has been trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other.”

She said Trump was focused on personal grievances and seeking revenge on political opponents, while she would work toward improving voters’ lives.

“There are many big differences between he and I,” she said. “But I would say a major contrast is this: If he is elected, on day one, Donald Trump will walk into that office with an enemies list. When I am elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

First on her list would be lowering the costs of health care, child care and other expenses for families, she said.

Harris appealed directly to disaffected Republicans, saying she would seek common ground with those she disagrees with. That approach, she said, was also in contrast to Trump, who used charged language to describe his opponents and pledged to retaliate against them.

“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy,” she said. “He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table. And I pledge to be a president for all Americans, and to always put country above party and self.”

Harris won another endorsement from a nationally known Republican Wednesday, with former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger saying he would vote for her despite policy disagreements.

Trump also campaigned in North Carolina on Wednesday, in Rocky Mount, a town in a more rural part of the state about 50 miles east of Raleigh.

He said his campaign was a welcoming one to all races and religions and said Harris was the one running “a campaign of hate” toward Trump and his supporters, while lobbing an insult at the vice president.

“Kamala, a low-IQ individual, is running a campaign of hate, anger and retribution,” he said, repeating a term he has used for her before.

Election integrity

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said Wednesday they won a court case in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, over early voting hours, RNC officials said on a call Wednesday afternoon.

A judge in the key swing county extended the deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot after some voters said that long lines forced them to miss the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

On the press call, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a Trump supporter had been arrested after telling people in line near the deadline to remain in line.

Party officials, including Trump’s daughter-in-law, RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump, said the result bolstered their confidence in a free and fair election.

“We want to make people all across this country feel good about the process of voting in the United States of America,” Lara Trump said. “It is so foundational to who we are as a country that we trust our electoral process and this type of work allows exactly for that.”

Lara Trump said the party was “incredibly confident” in its staffers dedicated to ensuring the election is fair.

The issue has been a major priority for Republicans since Donald Trump and others claimed, without evidence, that election fraud caused his 2020 re-election loss.

That claim was rejected in scores of courts and a federal grand jury indicted Trump on four felony counts for using the election fraud lie to inspire the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump and allies have also speculated that his political opponents would seek to use illegal means, including voting by noncitizens, this year.

But in a departure from that rhetoric Wednesday, the RNC officials voiced confidence that the 2024 results would be trustworthy.

“I think it’s really important that we get the word spread loud and clear that we are taking this seriously, that you can trust American elections,” Lara Trump said. “In 2024, we want to re-establish any trust that may have been lost previously.”

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — With less than a week before the polls close on Nov. 5, the U.S. Justice Department Wednesday reiterated its efforts to protect voters’ access to the ballot box through its civil rights, national security and criminal divisions.

“Protecting the right to vote, prosecuting election crimes, and securing our elections are all essential to maintaining the confidence of all Americans in our democratic system of government,” the Justice Department said in a press release.

The Justice Department said that any complaints relating to violence, threats of violence or intimidation at a polling place should be first reported to local authorities by calling 911 and then the agency for further action.

In Washington state and Oregon, two ballot boxes were set on fire. In North Carolina, yellow signs in Spanish have popped up outside voting locations warning people that voting by noncitizens is illegal, something that voting rights groups have called voter intimidation.

There are heightened concerns from election officials and pro-democracy groups about attempts to disrupt the election process and the potential for violence once results are known.

A presidential victor is unlikely to be announced on election night or even the following day, which election officials have warned could easily sow distrust in the official results.

In Maricopa County, Arizona, the nation’s fourth most populous county, local and federal law enforcement officials said they are prepared for violence. Maricopa County was at the forefront of election fraud conspiracy theories in 2020.

Civil rights violations

The DOJ Civil Rights Division “is responsible for ensuring compliance with the civil provisions of federal statutes that protect the right to vote and with the criminal provisions of federal statutes prohibiting discriminatory interference with that right,” according to the agency.

Any civil rights violations should be reported to the agency at 800-253-3931 or online.

That division enforces the laws of the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Acts.

Under those laws it’s prohibited to intimidate voters, as well as have election practices that are either discriminatory or discriminate on the basis of  “race, color, or language minority status.”

The Justice Department said that throughout the election, its attorneys “will be ready to receive complaints of potential violations of any of the statutes the Civil Rights Division enforces.”

Election-related crimes

The Criminal Division of the Justice Department enforces federal laws relating to election crimes such as voter fraud, destruction of ballots, vote-buying, submitting fraudulent ballots, altering votes and wrongdoing by election officials and employees.

That also includes any threats of violence against election workers and voter intimidation outside of reasons relating to discrimination.    

The Justice Department said any election-related complaints should be directed to the local U.S. Attorney’s Office or the local FBI field office.

The National Security Division in the Justice Department will handle any cases involving foreign influence.

In September, the Justice Department unsealed charges of the Russian government’s efforts to spread propaganda and try to influence voters, including the 2024 presidential election.

“As in past elections, the National Security Division will work closely with counterparts at the FBI and our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to protect our nation’s elections from any national security threats,” the Justice Department said.