TGIF: Ian Donnis’ Rhode Island politics roundup for Nov. 15, 2024 – TPR: The Public's Radio

The quiet phase of the campaign season got a little louder this week. Welcome back to my weekly column. You can follow me through the week on Bluesky, threads and what we used to call the twitters. Here we go. 

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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Welcome to the 2026 race for governor of Rhode Island. Democrats near and far are largely focused on Donald Trump’s nominations and the expected impact of his new White House regime. But the news that Gina Raimondo is considering pursuing a possible return to Rhode Island politics shows how the next statewide election in 2026 is drawing close. Raimondo is avoiding comment for now about her next move, and whether she would actually seek a return to her former office as governor is a very open question. (Does she want to answer questions about the Washington Bridge, let alone return to small-bore RI politics after serving in a lofty post in DC?) But my story led Mike Trainor, campaign spokesman for Gov. Dan McKee, to share this: “It is very likely that the governor will make an official announcement for re-election by the end of the first quarter” of 2025. Fellow Democrat Helena Foulkes has been raising money and appears on track, after a near-miss in 2022, for another challenge to McKee (and Republican Ashley Kalus has suggested the possibility of running again). The conventional view on Raimondo is that she’s likely to take a corporate or university job after closing out her time as U.S. Commerce secretary in the Biden administration. If she’s serious about pursuing a presidential run, gaining distance from DC seems like a good idea in the current milieu. Suffice it to say, Raimondo has lots of options. And if she decides to return to Rhode Island politics, it will scramble expectations and significantly ramp up the intensity of the 2026 campaign.

2. MCKEEWORLD: On the surface, with a less-than-stellar approval rating and the ongoing headache of the Washington Bridge, Gov. McKee might be seen as facing a challenging climb for re-election in 2026. But Robert A. Walsh Jr., the retired executive director of the National Education Association Rhode Island, and a longtime Democratic insider, does not appear worried. Walsh, a McKee supporter, thinks that Raimondo should express support for the incumbent when she eventually comments publicly about her future. “I don’t think she would challenge Dan McKee — I think that sends a really bad message,” Walsh said, with Democrats reeling from the election results earlier this month and with McKee having won the past support of the Democratic Governors Association. Walsh rates the probability of a Raimondo campaign for governor as low, and while Helena Foulkes appears serious about running, he said he believes McKee, 73, is well-positioned to win another term. 

3.THE BULLY PULPIT: It was 13 years ago this month when a special session of the General Assembly voted on the pension overhaul spearheaded by Gina Raimondo. Regardless of whether you considered that initiative a necessary correction or an unconscionable overreach, it stands as a textbook example of how an elected official in Rhode Island can upend the conventional wisdom to make a big difference on public policy, while simultaneously enhancing their own reputation. As I wrote in an analysis at the time: “Thousands of union members turned out for a boisterous Statehouse protest earlier this week. It was an impressive show of force, but it didn’t change the momentum toward pension overhaul. When Raimondo rolled out her ‘Truth in Numbers’ report earlier this year, Governor Lincoln Chafee pointed to the workers’ compensation insurance reform of the early 1990s for an example of how the state can effectively tackle a major policy issue. That Chafee had to reach back about two decades, however, seemed to underscore the state’s serial struggles with economic development and other pressing needs.”

4. WHERE DEMOCRATS WENT WRONG: State Rep. Jon Brien, the conservative Democrat-turned independent from Woonsocket, and Lauren Niedel, a Bernie Sanders’ admirer and state Democratic committeewoman from Glocester, have very different political views. But they share a lot of common ground in diagnosing where the Democratic Party went wrong in the run-up to the election earlier this month, particularly a lack of focus on economic issues and underwhelming efforts to reach rural voters. “I think what people say is, look, my basket is half of what it used to be,” Brien said during an interview this week. “And it’s costing me twice as much more. My electricity bill, my oil bill for my house to fill my gas tank. What is going on? Why is this happening?” Added Niedel, referring to the rural northwest corner of the state, “It’s very, very challenging to be a staunch Democrat in a Republican area. We specifically asked for a regional event. We were told, yes, that’s a great idea. We’ll make it happen. It never happened.”

5. THE CHALLENGE: The last paragraph from a story I did in 2017, on Donald Trump’s first presidential victory — and how he won the previously Democratic town of Johnston — has renewed relevance for the pending new minority party in DC: “Now Democrats have lost the White House, they’re the minority in Congress, and it may just be a matter of time until the US Supreme Court has a conservative majority. Democrats also lost a lot of ground in state legislatures and gubernatorial offices during Barack Obama’s eight years as president. So if Democrats want to fight their way back, they’ll have to win over voters in scores of communities across the country like Johnston.”

7. SUDDEN IMPACT: “How The Onion came to own the website Infowars”

8. MESSAGING: One question — will President-elect Trump overreach with his nominations and policies? Here’s an early view from U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, a ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement and Intelligence: “I am deeply concerned that President-elect Donald Trump is making our country vulnerable to attack by nominating unqualified and potentially dangerous individuals to critical national security positions. Tulsi Gabbard’s deep ties to some of our nation’s most dangerous adversaries, including Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Vladimir Putin of Russia, make her an untrustworthy guardian of our nation’s most closely held secrets. As the highest-ranking intelligence official in the federal government, she would have access to information spanning everything from our nation’s nuclear weapons program to the location and activities of our military service members, and we cannot risk this information falling into the hands of our adversaries. Matt Gaetz, the subject of an ongoing ethics investigation regarding alleged illegal activity, has openly called for the abolition of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, which is our nation’s leading counterterrorism agency. These appointments will have dangerous and lasting ramifications ….” 

9. CLIMATE CHANGE: Another test for the incoming Trump administration is how it responds to the increasingly intense weather affecting different parts of the U.S. “He has called climate change ‘mythical,’ ‘nonexistent,’ or ‘an expensive hoax’ – but also subsequently described it as a ‘serious subject’ that is ‘very important to me,’ ” according to the BBC. In Rhode Island, as my colleague Olivia Ebertz reports, the third-driest fall on record is fueling a record number of brush fires and shrinking the habitat of some species.

10. HEALTHCARE: The Atlanta-based Centurion Foundation has agreed to what Attorney General Peter Neronha calls minor changes in his conditions for the acquisition of CharterCARE Health Partners. This sets the stage for the deal to go forward, pending state Health Department approval. As I reported in June, big questions remain about the future of the biggest parts of CharterCARE, Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital.

11. CITY HAUL: The coming together of a school-funding shortfall in Providence, the capital city’s perennial paucity of revenue and a worsening state fiscal climate makes for a difficult situation. Mayor Brett Smiley warned this week of “harmful, harmful cuts” that “are going to impact the very same children and families that the school department says that they’re trying to help.” Smiley said tax increases are also under consideration, as my colleague Nina Sparling reports. 

12. MEDIA: The Providence Journal’s printing facility on Kinsley Avenue was launched in 1987 — a momentous year for the newspaper. That was when then-Publisher Michael Metcalf died during a mysterious bicycle crash near his summer home in Westport, Massachusetts. The newspaper was a singularly powerful media entity in Rhode Island, with a larger than typical reporting staff for a paper of its size and an array of bureaus. Did Metcalf’s death expedite the eventual 1997 sale from the family that long owned the ProJo to Dallas-based Belo? That’s hard to know. But here we are in 2024, Gannett now owns the Journal, and although the printing facility has long been cited as a key revenue source, it will close due to what is cited as “an insurmountable supply chain issue,” with the loss of 136 jobs. Rhode Island’s statewide daily, already showing the effect of earlier deadlines, will now be printed in New Jersey. 

13. HIGHER ED: Rhode Island College President Jack Warner was inaugurated this week after serving for more than two years in an interim role. Here some excerpts from his appearance with me this week on Political Roundtable:

— The Institute for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies, created one year ago and poised to benefit from $73 million in borrowing approved by voters, has attracted more than 100 majors so far. The institute also introduced an AI program this year. 

— Not surprisingly, Warner argues that schools like RIC are a good way to counter the problem of student debt: “Our tuition is just over $11,000 a year, tuition and fees. And with the HOPE Scholarship, you have the possibility of getting your second two years for free. So that’s a college degree for under $25,000. And the value proposition is difficult to debate in that context when we’re that affordable.”

— Warner grew up in western Massachusetts and has worked most of his professional life in either the Bay State or Rhode Island. But during a brief sojourn in South Dakota, he got to know Kristi Noem — now Trump’s nominee for homeland security — and U.S. Sen. John Thune, the newly elected majority leader in the pending GOP Senate majority. He recalls Noem as a moderate state lawmaker (before she took a turn to the right), and Warner remains a fan of Thune: “John Thune is somebody I’ve admired for a very long time. He’s a standup guy. He’s a straight shooter. You’ll know what he’s thinking. He’s honest, hardworking. I have a lot, enormous respect for him.”     

14. RAM POWER: The University of Rhode Island has received a $65 million gift to support student scholarships for high-achieving students. Via news release: “The philanthropic gift — the largest in the University’s history — is the result of an estate gift from the late Helen Izzi Schilling, a 1954 graduate of the University. Based on a commitment made with her late husband to include the University in their will, the gift establishes the Helen Izzi Schilling ’54 and Francis Schilling Scholars Program. The endowed scholarship will provide up to $20,000 per year for four years to high-achieving undergraduate students majoring in a science, technology, engineering, or math field.”

15. GETTING SOCIAL: Longing for the bygone days of Twitter? Bluesky is coming on strong as an alternative to X and you can find me and some of your other favorite local sources there. “Bluesky’s the new Twitter probably,” writes Ryan Broderick at the media-tech site Garbage Day, adding, “Bluesky is currently so popular that Threads’ algorithm has mindlessly picked it up as a trending topic lol.”

16. KICKER: Is Rhode Island too sexy for its shirt? You bet we are.

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