Seth Magaziner will replace retiring Rep. Jim Langevin. Gov. Dan McKee will have a full term in office. Democrats swept the statewide races for lieutenant governor, secretary of state, general treasurer and attorney general.
In all, Election Day brought good news for Rhode Island Democrats.
To put the results in context, The Public’s Radio morning host Luis Hernandez spoke with Wendy Schiller, a professor of political science and director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University. Her book Inequality across State Lines: How Policymakers Have Failed Domestic Violence Victims in the United States is due out in February.
Luis Hernandez: Let’s start with the Second Congressional District. In a tight race, Seth Magaziner managed to hold the seat for Democrats. Heading into Election Day, it looked as if Republicans had a real shot at picking this one up. What happened?
Wendy Schiller: I think the Democratic party organization is what happened.
I think labor, in particular state employees for the governor’s race. I think McKee defeated his Republican challenger by a much bigger margin than people anticipated, given the contentious Democratic primary that he emerged from very narrowly. And I think these factors really contributed to what we have to say is sort of a hidden level of support that emerged for Magaziner.
Also early balloting — mail-in ballots: we know that people over the age of 65 tend to use mail in ballots more than any other demographic group. And Magaziner had been emphasizing Medicare and Social Security — maybe not quite enough, I think, in hindsight, but he had sort of pivoted in the last three, maybe four weeks to tagging Allan Fung with the Republican agenda, which is to cut those programs. So that may have been very effective, particularly for people over the age of 65, who use mail-in ballots, because we saw the race really broke wide-open after those mail-in ballots were counted.
Hernandez: When you talk about the governor’s race, another win for Democrats — again, Gov. Dan McKee held on to the position that he had assumed a year and a half ago. It looked, though, as if Ashley Kalus would put up a fight. But as you said, it was a big margin. Was this just a case of the Democratic advantage in registered voters coming through for McKee?
Schiller: That’s a really, really great question. And I think it doesn’t just extend to Rhode Island, I think it extends nationwide.
Was this an election about partisanship where people voted for their team? We have basically a 60-40 split in Rhode Island, and that’s pretty much what these elections emerged to be — a little bit closer in CD2. So did people just revert back to their regular habits when they vote, or was this about candidates? Was this about a specific thing about Ashley Kalus?
I think she spent money, she was polished, she was prepared for the debates. And she ran pretty strong ads against McKee. Everything about her campaign was pretty good, I think, though she was tagged as being an outsider. And people who had benefited from McKee, whether it’s a working relationship or believing that he would protect their policy interests, I think got out the door. And that was the big question mark for Election Day: Would they get out the door? And they proved to be much more enthusiastic about this individual candidate than people expected.
Hernandez: This is the first time he was actually elected governor. How does that win affect McKee, the governor?
Schiller: I think it gives McKee a lot of buoyancy, a lot of momentum going into his first full elected term. And sort of shaking off the shadow of Gina Raimondo, his predecessor, and taking credit for what he’s done already, and taking credit for, you know, trusting his judgment in terms of the campaign, particularly the general campaign. He had very good, strong ads that were well received. And he proved to show both the outside world and also the state legislature that he could command votes, he could get votes out the door and that his organization could produce victory. I think that puts him in a pretty strong position, even though the governor is traditionally weaker institutionally in Rhode Island. It’s a pretty strong political position to be in going into his first full term.
Hernandez: The perception nationally is that Rhode Island is solidly Democratic-leaning. Yesterday, I mean, it was a good day for Democrats, but is there some doubt, actually, because some of these races for Congress, governor, lieutenant governor — they were a little bit tighter. Is that “solid blue” status up for debate?
Schiller: I think it’s a little bit of a misread, because we have one of the highest proportions of independent voters, Independent registered voters in the country. So we actually have a lot of people who swing back and forth.
I think the stark difference is that New England as a whole was expected to be far more competitive, sort of harkening back to those days of Yankee Republicans, more moderate Republicans, and gaining votes. And we saw that in New Hampshire, and in Maine, and in Rhode Island, that didn’t work. That basically, the Democratic candidates were victorious across the board. So there may just be a solid reaction to the Republican agenda and the fact that the national party has shifted so right, the voters don’t really believe that a “New England Republican” of the type that some of us used to know is even possible in today’s world.
Hernandez: About 43% of registered voters actually cast a ballot in this election. That was lower than recent midterms. How did turnout affect the results?
Schiller: That was the big question mark: Would Democrats get out the door? You know, the enthusiasm was there among Republicans as it always is in midterm elections with a Democratic president. Republican voters were definitely going to vote. Then the question mark was “Would Democratic voters get out the door?” And in Rhode Island and other places, they got out the door in bigger numbers than anybody anticipated. So the turnout was a little bit lower than 2018. But considering that we had a very heavily contested governor’s race in 2018 and a big momentum in terms of a midterm reaction to Donald Trump, I think it’s pretty impressive that the turnout came pretty close to 2018 without those kinds of factors.
Hernandez: In 30 seconds or less: Did anything surprise you about this election?
Schiller: Yes. I was one of those people who saw the polls in CD2 and thought somehow Magaziner had sort of not shaped the right campaign. So I was surprised at the effectiveness of the Democratic Party in their turnout operation in Rhode Island. And also a little bit surprised across the country, how effective particular Democratic Party organizations were in making sure that their voters got to the polls to match Republican enthusiasm in this midterm election.
This transcript has been lightly edited.
The post How unexpected enthusiasm for Democratic candidates led to a sweep in big Rhode Island races appeared first on TPR: The Public's Radio.