- Are you ready?

(crowd cheering) - The working people who make Providence home deserve to live here.

- People said, no, I am outraged.

And I do want change, and we're gonna make that change happen right here right now.

- This is something that I think is you know, difficult to deal with.

- This has been an exercise in utter ineptitude when it comes to communication strategy.

- There was nothing that was saying, I'm getting excited about Dan.

And that's hard because he's had such a long political life.

- This was a referendum on the affordability crisis in Rhode Island and in Providence.

- If you cannot afford to have a roof over your head, nothing else matters.

(bright music) - And welcome into our latest episode of Lively, a post-primary day election lively.

We are joined this week by Bill Bartholomew of the Bartholomew Town Broadcast and Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung, former state representative.

It was a rough night for the incumbents with Governor McKee getting shellacked by Helena Foulkes and Pawtucket's eight-term mayor upset by a newcomer.

But it is the Providence mayor's race making national headlines as Democratic Socialist David Morales comfortably defeated one-term mayor, Brett Smiley.

Bill, you had a feeling that the the Morales campaign was gaining momentum.

I don't think anybody saw a five to six point victory.

- No, I think a lot of people were expecting this to be very close no matter who came out ahead.

But the bottom line is, look, this was a referendum on the affordability crisis in Rhode Island and in Providence.

And that's what drove so much of the change in terms of incumbents going down, the progressives that won in Providence, Cranston throughout the state, and the poor performance by some of the, you know, like the League of Rhode Island Businesses, which put forth you know, they were trying to challenge progressive candidates on the grounds of being pro-business when in fact they're pretty much just MAGA.

All of that was rejected.

Progressives had huge gains.

And again, that's an affordability crisis referendum.

- Yeah, it was the day of reckoning in the Democratic Party here when the progressives have fully taken over the party now.

You're gonna ne of the most progressive speakers in Chris Blazejewski.

You have a progressive Senate president.

And now we're seeing at the Pawtucket mayoral level, agreement coming in, obviously with David Morales here in Providence, they are latching onto issues that maybe aren't, people just aren't listening to enough and they're not getting the feeling behind it.

If you cannot afford rent, if you cannot afford to have a roof over your head, nothing else matters.

I think Brett Smiley has done a really good job in Providence.

I think he did a great job during the Brown shooting last year.

But so many people who live on the West End, live on the South Side cannot afford their rents.

And I think he was just a little tone deaf to it.

- Which was always the haven.

If you can't live on the east side, there are other parts of Providence.

He campaigned as the meat and potato guy.

And I remember taking out the trash and you're gonna educate your kids.

How badly did the snowstorm hurt him?

- You know, I'm not sure how badly it hurt him.

I don't know if a snowstorm is still on people's minds in September to begin with.

And I think it was one of those campaign issues.

You remember Morales, you may remember Morales put out his own snow plan.

He wanted to purchase Yukon grade snow removers or whatever it was.

I do think in the moment it was an opportunity to differentiate the race from just socialism versus like the normal guy.

And then it all of a sudden became, oh wait a minute, we actually have to think about city services here and we have differentiation there.

Beyond that, I don't think it had any impact at all.

- No, the Providence mayoral race, which bled into some of the city council races in Providence as well, was all about rent control.

And you saw John Gonzalez who had mayoral aspirations of his own.

- He was the deciding vote against it on the veto.

- Exactly, he went down.

And then Anna Vargas, again, another one who had flipped kind of between yes and no on it.

She went down again, all around this rent stabilization, which was such a call to action for people in the city who wanted to remain in Providence, love the creative capital, but you know, they can't afford rents that are going up to 25, $3,000 a month.

It's just unaffordable on a normal person's salary.

- I'll tell you this.

How about this?

Since I moved into my apartment in Providence, my rent has increased greater than 68%.

- And your salary has not.

Yeah, not at all.

- I'm assuming.

- So, I understand.

For sure.

- You feel the pain.

- Yeah, or just the outrageousness of a system that's not working.

And what happened was people last night said instead of having low turnout as like Joe Fleming and others predicted, the pollster Joe Fleming, people said, no, I am outraged.

And I do want change and we're gonna make that change happen right here right now.

- So you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose, and so now you have a guy who's 27 years old.

We wish him the best of luck.

But not only budgets are an issue, trying to get through rent stabilization, what that will really do to the market if that goes through.

We've heard what Brett Smiley said, but he also now has the Providence schools in his lap.

- Now it becomes reality.

And if I'm David Morales today, I am making phone calls to Robert Da Silva.

I'm making calls, you know, around the state, Lombardi, Polisina.

- The mayors.

- The mayors and being like, look, I want to forge better relationships.

David doesn't have those natural relationships.

He spent six years-- - You had overlap at the General Assembly.

- I spent four years with him at the General Assembly and David is a remarkably talented and smart guy but tends to kind of do his own thing and maybe wasn't forging the relationships that would've helped him up there.

And I think he needs to start doing that now.

That is something that is very hard to do in your 20s, okay?

And that is a skill he needs to get quickly because he'll be inaugurated in January, assuming he makes it past Dave Talan.

- Should mention there is a Republican, Dave Talan, who has been the longtime head of the Republican Party.

But I mean, let's be honest.

If Dave Morales is gonna take out an incumbent, he's not gonna lose to the Republican.

- Exactly.

But then we have snow season start.

And what happens in that first storm?

Yes, you can make all those videos and say we're gonna do this, but when you're facing a budget shortfall, and I remember when Angel Tavares was mayor and he had to call my husband and be like, we're out of salt.

Like we all need to help.

And you know, we put things together.

There is a reality.

It's a team effort and he's got to build that.

- Yeah, the municipal interplay is definitely something.

And all the inter-agency interplay and all that is something they're gonna have to put together.

But I do think that I was at the Morales after party last night or whatever it may be.

I have not seen or felt that kind of energy in Rhode Island politics.

I can't remember since when.

And a diversity of, of it wasn't just, oh, here's the socialists again, using that word or the whatever it is.

It was a very wide coalition of people that were just glad to say, this is authentic.

There's no plasticity to this.

It's very much so here's a kid that we put a message behind, he's got his message and people bought into it and came out en mass to vote for it and it's that simple.

- And he can deliver it very well.

Very much like Mayor Mamdani in New York.

- Even Joe Paolino said he ran a flawless campaign.

I don't agree with anything he said.

But from a campaigning, because I always though Brett Smiley ran Charlie Fogarty's campaign, almost picked off Don Carcieri for governor.

He's run his own campaign.

He knows all about the nuts and bolts.

Here's somebody, I think he clearly ran a good campaign, but tapping into that vein of frustration, there are people like, look, I don't care what Bret Smiley did.

I can't afford my rent.

I need somebody new.

- I think it's that.

And there were other issues besides rent.

No doubt rent was the major issue or housing but more broadly affordability and just I think direction that the city is trending in, you can ask yourself the question, are we an exo Boston outpost?

Like are we like the Stanford, Connecticut or something of Boston?

Is that where we're going?

We kind of are.

So then you have to say, well, do I want that or do I not want that?

And I think more people said, no, I don't want that.

I want Providence to be more about community, more about the existing residents and the direction that maybe is starting to, doesn't even exist yet, it's a new direction.

- Let's talk about the governor's race.

It was closer to the polls that we had seen as a 25 point trouncing by Helena Foulkes.

Surprised at all by that?

- No.

And polls create narratives too.

So if people thought it was closer, I don't take much stock in the UNH polls, but that was all that was going out there.

So that was feeding into another narrative.

And I just thought that, you know, having been through some major gubernatorial races before, this was a almost boring season.

There was no real substantial policy debate.

I didn't really get much from Helena and you know, I always thought that Governor McKee's communication staff did not serve him well, - We couldn't get off the bridge for Helena Foulkes and the opioids.

And look, as important as that is, it just didn't resonate.

And that was an awfully run campaign right from the get-go.

- I'll tell you what, sad to see last night as we were broadcasting on WPR.

All of us, you guys joined me as I was hosting there.

But we've had so many problems carrying the governor's messages on television, on radio, live, because of an inability to get his feed that worked of the audio.

And then last night while he's giving his concession remarks on stage at the funeral home turned Italian restaurant.

- That was a metaphor, right?

- I couldn't get a feed.

And I honestly felt like-- - This encapsulates everything.

- This is it.

- Even at the state house, they couldn't get the audio right, right?

- We've had so many.

Remember he started the state of the state a couple years ago and his microphone was off.

This has been an exercise in utter ineptitude when it comes to communication strategy.

I have no idea what went into this process of building the McKee brand.

- He had the B team running his communications.

Let's be honest.

He had young people who were in over their head.

We can say that now.

And nice people, cordial, but at the end of the day, they didn't know what they were doing.

- And so he did so many good things, but we never knew about it.

I joked about it.

I think I was on with Bob Walsh one time and I was like, he's talking about all these different jobs that came out.

We had no idea.

Exactly.

And I mean, not even communications with the general assembly that went well.

It just, there was nothing that was saying, I'm getting excited about Dan.

And that's hard because he's had such a long political life.

He had been Cumberland Mayor, you know, lieutenant governor, and then governor.

And remember, so this is a long time to be in that public space.

And you do get stale unless you're constantly bringing new ideas and kind of warping.

- We don't know who's going to win the Republican primary.

It doesn't really matter at this point.

I think either Aaron Guckian or Elaine Pelino is going to be kind of a non-factor.

Now we move to Ken Block.

Look, what I was interested in was Helena Foulkes is actually running low on cash.

I mean, all that money she had, I heard a report yesterday, you know, she'll lock and load and be able to raise some more money.

But where does Ken Block fit into this now with the governor's race?

- Viable.

He's viable.

It's a real race.

I don't think that he feels as great running against Helena versus Dan McKee.

But I think it's a very real race.

And what you're gonna have to watch.

See, Ken will lack Elaine, the McKee campaign made a big mistake in not leaning into the working class, us versus them sentiment.

Hey, I'm a guy from Cumberland.

I'm just wearing a polo shirt and a URI hat.

- Playing cards with my mom.

- Exactly.

- One of the greatest ads.

- No question.

RIP Willow.

No question that you could have painted folks as a billionaire out of touch, not just opioids and him as, you know, I coach basketball and I live in Cumberland.

- There was so much there.

- My daughter's singing tonight, I can't wait to go watch her in town.

Instead they didn't.

They went with just nothing essentially until the very end.

But the bottom line is that Dan McKee was able to at least sort of slide into that working class lane.

Ken Block's not going to be able to do that.

He's got zero lane, zero angle to say, hey, I'm just like you guys, he's an accomplished guy.

He's a smart guy.

He's a successful guy.

I think he's an excellent candidate.

He has, I don't think he has much appeal though in the working class.

- I think he likes being that guy too, the successful guy.

I don't think he wants to come down to, you know, where we are in blue collar world and things like that.

So I think Ken will run a respectable campaign.

I think he's pulling from, in many ways, like the anti-Democratic vote, which I think probably gets you to 40 here.

If you're splitting, you know if Elaine Pelino comes out, she has almost no money to her name and Guckian is very low too.

- What are the chance either one of them drop out of the race and unite behind Block?

- I don't think it's gonna happen from an institutional standpoint.

- One thing I thought was interesting was that Helena Foulkes has said in the last week, I support the line item veto.

How's that gonna go with the legislature?

- They're gonna say, nope, we're not gonna give up all our power and we're gonna have this discussion until at some point there's a constitutional convention or the entire United States reforms and everything constitutionally goes away and we rebuild it.

Like this is, they're not gonna give up line item veto.

So there's no scenario where that takes place other than those two things I just described.

- That is something you say on the campaign trail to neuter Ken.

That is not a hill you die on when you're trying to negotiate the budget.

And everybody knows that.

- With the guy who's gonna decide whether that happens.

- Exactly.

- The one incumbent who wins is Sabina Matos.

I did not have that on my bingo card.

And the irony is, you know, she's chosen by Dan McKee, handpicked, she wins reelection, has the congressional problem.

And now she emerges.

Did that surprise you or not?

- We were here a year ago and you say like, which incumbent's gonna survive?

It wouldn't have been Sabina.

- And you would've said probably McKee, Smiley, maybe Grebian, right?

- Yeah, oh, absolutely.

Down that road.

But with Sabina, she is well known in the infrastructure of politics.

And so she made a lot of friends, Grebian, Bob Da Silva.

There's a lot of people who were kind of rooting for her because she is a very nice, genuine, respectful person and all that.

She, I will say this, there were too many people in that race going against her.

So you split the anti-Sabina vote very well.

She was helped by Providence turnout being high.

She wasn't helped as much as I thought.

She won Providence, but Sue Anderboy really cut in there quite a bit.

I think Sue took almost 20% there.

So, you know, I think that number would've been even higher.

I think as we sit right now, she's up about 11, 12 this morning.

So yes, Sabina pulls it through.

She never went up on air.

She never had the money to, but you know, the institutional union backing helped drive that out.

- She got an influx of money at the end from an outside group, so.

- Still didn't go up on air.

- I also wonder how many people were like, oh, the election day's coming up and, you know, I just got to go vote for David Morales because I got to save Providence, or I just got to go vote for Helena Foulkes because we can't have this, what his name again?

Dan, oh, McKee, yeah.

I wonder how many people walked into the poll like that and then they went, Lieutenant Governor, I don't know.

- I know this one.

- She's the incumbent, great.

I wonder how many people made that choice.

- This sets up potentially the most competitive race in the general election.

A lot of it's over with the primary.

John Laughlin's been waiting in the wings.

Look, I'm not sure this is the Republican's year, but he's been on the radio.

He's well-known.

And I think he's run before because he's been, he's run for Congress and he was a state rep for all those years.

- He's a smart guy.

He's a nice guy.

He has that common man appeal by far.

And he brings in some cool aspects.

He used to work for NASA.

He's brought some astronauts and everything.

- A pilot, yeah.

- Yeah, just really cool kind of guy.

He will run a very strong race.

I mean, Aaron Guckian against Sabina four years ago came awfully close as well.

So I expect it to be in that range.

I think John's facing some headwinds because he just doesn't have that kind of financial backing that you really need to mount a pretty serious campaign.

- He's very conservative.

If you listen to his talk show, he was pretty Trumpy early on.

And not really that a lieutenant governor's race is gonna make a difference, but we've seen Dan McKee takes over for Gina Raimondo.

You're one step away from the governor's seat.

And is that gonna fly in Rhode Island?

- No.

And also, there's gonna be this issue that he's got the notion of he's gonna turn the office to some kind of Inspector General's office, which is, there's just-- - With no subpoena power.

- There's no subpoena power.

It's statutorily just-- - And the wind got taken out of his sails because Chris Blazejewski said, you know what?

Let's have an Inspector General after all these years.

Go ahead.

- I do think John Laughlin brings a lot of interesting ideas to the table though.

And I do look forward to a very healthy lieutenant governor's debate.

- It was missing during this primary.

So it'd be nice to hear it.

- That's because you had four people.

And it's nice when you have one-on-one, right?

To be able to go up.

Finally, you sat with the head of the League of Rhode Island Businesses on this set many months ago.

There was a novel fundraising.

They were getting all these people together.

And at the end of the day, is it gonna be results?

How did they do?

- Shut out.

Not a single win.

They got trounced in basically every election.

You may remember David Levesque, their co-founder, who didn't admit that President Biden won the 2020 election trying to sell the group as some kind of moderate.

Remember he said he was gonna primary unconstitutional Democrats or something like that.

- Because of the gun control bills.

- Look, you know, look, it never was serious to begin with.

It wasn't really run in a serious way.

And it was a Trojan horse type of operation that tried to dupe people into voting for MAGA candidates when they thought they were voting for Democrats.

And it failed.

I feel like we should probably just assume that they're done and that they won't resume.

They won't do this again because it just was such an utter collapse at the end here.

That the strategy to get conservative candidates elected is to build a strong Republican party.

And that takes a lot more time than setting up PACs and going around saying, yeah, we're just, just normal business people that want to make things normal again and get unconstitutional people out.

If you don't have depth, if you have convictions, why don't you stand on them and stand here and say, you know what?

I don't think that the president.

I don't think Biden won that election in 2020 and whatever other issue I believe in, I'm gonna go out in public and tell people who I am.

And then maybe you'll actually find an audience.

- Yeah.

So I have a different kind of take on it in that I always love when people are more engaged than not.

Voter apathy drives me insane.

So these people got together, they thought this is what I want to go and tackle, and they did.

- And they raised money to do it.

- They raised significant money.

Good on them.

Thanks for being part of that process.

I think what is a learning curve, when you run your first race, your second race, things like that, you got to realize money is important, always.

But the progressives have found a way to make volunteerism and running pretty small, low cost campaigns work because they just outwork you at the doors and maybe that execution.

So they got one part of it right.

They didn't have the other part there.

They had some good candidates.

Mark Medusarobian, very well known in the area.

But also Leo Bosclair running against Tina Spears, they both got, I mean, there was 60 point margins.

It was crazy.

- It was.

And you know, you just think, okay, I'm glad you were in the arena.

Maybe retool it if you're gonna continue on.

- I just don't know why in this state do Republicans not just say, let's be Republicans.

- Okay.

Onto the general election.

With the primary season firmly in the rear view mirror, the focus nationally shifts to the midterm elections and whether Democrats can take back the House and potentially the Senate.

It is gonna be a sprint to the midterms.

What's your thought on this?

- So I think that the House is gonna be one way or the other, very, very close.

And when you have a three or four vote margin, will it probably go dem?

Historically, it has.

It goes across what happened the cycle before.

But is that gonna allow you to govern?

Because say Hakeem Jeffries does become Speaker, you lose just a couple of people and maybe somebody's sick, they're out.

All of a sudden you get jammed up.

And I think, you know, Speaker Johnson has found out that having a four or five vote majority really doesn't mean you're in the majority when it comes to functional governing.

And, you know, especially in the swing districts, you'll have some Congresspeople be like, I need to represent mine, and it pops off and then there becomes a lot of chaos, which we see in DC right now.

- Yeah, that's exactly it.

But how much does the hyper-local poll drive that conversation?

- You know, and I wonder as they go through, the Democrats, I think everybody's saying, we know what's gonna happen.

We know what's gonna happen.

You never know until the final votes are counted.

And particularly with this, we talked about it in the last segment, with this progressive shift to the left, are some people worried about that and they're like, well, you know what?

This is the guy I know, my Republican that I can count on in my district.

- Look at New Hampshire for that.

With Sununu coming back.

And again, he took out more moderate Scott Brown.

The moderate Republicans just do not have a spot right now.

- Scott Brown was a wonder boy 20, 25 years ago.

He got killed.

- So, because it's just not the modern day Republican Party where they're at.

So yes, I think Sununu might be a sleeper race up there.

I know Collins is getting all the attention because they feel as though they need to really put in a lot of money to hold her there.

Sununu, if that pulls out, I think the Senate feels more comfortable.

But again, I think that Senate's gonna be plus two Republicans.

- The Senate has so many interesting races.

North Carolina looks like it could flip.

Ohio, maybe go back to Sherrod Brown.

Talarico in Texas.

- I mean, that would be a profound, that'd be like a statement piece, right?

- Or is it like Charlie Brown and the football?

The Democrats get close and then Ken Paxton somehow eeks it out.

- Again, it's almost impossible to predict or even offer in-depth analysis when we're so far.

I don't know what the ground game looks like.

I really do think a lot of these races though come down to hyper-local and comfort with and familiarity.

- Congress especially, but the Senate race, you know, former Congressman Patrick McHenry was on CNN last week and they're like, somebody said to him.

- Brief speaker of the house.

- Very brief, very brief.

Mr.

Bow Tie.

And they were like, Well, do you think Talarico's real?

And he handed them.

I'm sure this is gonna be cut into a million commercials.

Well, yeah, because the Republicans nominated a criminal, is what he said straight out.

And I was like the NRSC must just be like, wow.

Okay, yes.

- But that doesn't seem to make a difference for many races, has it?

- No, many.

- Our bar of what is acceptable and not has changed dramatically.

- I have a personal feeling about that, but yes, I'll keep that to myself.

Yeah, I think that Paxton is really gonna make it difficult.

They're gonna have to spend money in Texas, which they should not have to be spending money on at all.

But yeah, there's, you know, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, a well-liked guy, you know, maybe with the swing back this year, he's got a little more momentum, but you know, this will be very close either way.

And again, what does that mean for functional governing?

- It'll be gridlock until the 2028 election.

- Which will be a very interesting presidential.

- What interests me though is when we were talking in the last segments about, like in Providence, you said all things local.

You had so many people coming, I just can't afford things.

And now gas is, you know, who knows what it's gonna be by the time, you know, the midterms come around, the war in Iran, even Trump himself said, I don't think it's gonna you know, end for another two months.

Do people just say, anybody but who we have in power right now?

- I think we got a little bit of that indication in some ways.

And I looked a little bit at 2006.

I started to look at those results in primaries and generalist thinking, - Did you do research for this show?

- As a matter of fact, I did.

- You come very prepared.

- You like that.

And look, there are a lot of analogies between 06 and 26, obviously Iraq war or war in Iran operation, whatever you want to call it.

- And George Bush was the president.

- George Bush, president.

That's right.

- W.

- Yes, indeed.

Well past mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier and all that.

And so people were fed up.

Do we have that mission accomplished moment here already with the president sort of declaring, well, this thing is over, but it's gonna need a little bit more time.

It may have the same effect of people just saying, I don't like this back and forth push and pull.

I need someone to come in and resolve things.

And that may be what motivates people.

- You talked about 2028.

I'm not sure what the bench is on either side.

Republican or Democrat forming.

- I think that in the Republican world, it is Marco Rubio kind of surging in the background right now.

- J.D.

Vance off to the side?

- J.D.

Vance might be moving off to the side a little bit and that will be a very formidable candidate who, when your point is to come in and try to sweep things out.

Marco is seen a little bit differently in the party for sure.

He has a very common person's touch.

He speaks fluent Spanish.

And you know, he has stayed away from this Iran war/conflict, whatever you're calling it because I'm not sure he's fully involved.

- Who's the farm team in the Democratic Party?

- AOC.

- Josh Shapiro.

I mean, but that would be a gift that the Republicans if AOC emerged, don't you think?

I mean, Gavin Newsom, Shapiro, what?

- But AOC is not a pushover.

Some people think she is.

If you speak to Republicans in Congress, they don't mind working with her.

She's actually pretty smart.

Don't wish for that.

- And I think, you know, watching a Michelle Wu.

Watching a Zoran Mamdani and the, the way that that block, if you will, can connect in with other people in the coalition, that may be something that drives AOC as well.

- Okay, let's go to outrageous and/or kudos.

Bill, let's begin with you this week.

- I want to give a kudo to all of the candidates in the Democratic primary for particularly Lieutenant Governor.

It was an honor to be around these people.

I felt good around every single one of them.

I think they all brought soulfulness and spirit to that race.

The lieutenant governor herself, Xay Khamsyvoravong, the former mayor of Newport, State Senator Cynthia Coyne, former Senator Coyne, Councillor Andrew Watt, and Ross McCurdy.

- And it never got nasty.

- Never got nasty.

And I love the way that these people campaigned, Coyne out with her kids.

Everyone was very passionate.

It was a beautiful race that ultimately, I think, played out in a way that some people were happy, some people were disappointed.

Doesn't matter.

It was politics at its best.

- That's kind of the way things used to be.

Years ago.

What do you have?

- So we're celebrating this weekend, celebrating, remembering the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

You know, so many, I was in Boston that day and I remember walking home from the hospital to my apartment, you know, surrounded by a new world, you know, men everywhere with ARs and everything.

But there are certain people, like my uncle Jim, my uncle Jim was FDNY.

He was not supposed to be on that day.

At 8:46, everybody was on that day.

And for the thousands of firefighters, police, rescue workers who ran into what became an absolute disaster zone just for all of them who are still here, thank you so much for everything you did that day in Philadelphia.

I mean, not Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania at the Pentagon, there are so many of these heroes who are still with us.

They are getting up in age.

They are suffering from 9/11 related diseases and whatnot.

And just, you know, especially my uncle Jim who still lives in New York.

He went in, they cut cell phone service, so we didn't hear from him for a few days.

So you, you just didn't know what was going on.

And that was a harrowing time.

So for all of them, thank you.

- Last thought on that.

- What else can you say?

You know, what else can you say?

Total heroes, profiles in courage.

- Absolutely.

- Great.

Thank you so much.

It was a great analysis.

I appreciate it.

Again, onto the November elections.

Thank you for joining us.

Be sure and check us out on Facebook, X, Instagram, and on the Ocean State Media YouTube channel and wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

We'll see you next time right here on Lively.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Lively is generously supported in part by John Hazen White's Lookout.