Rhode Island’s Democratic primary for governor is set for September 9, with incumbent Gov. Dan McKee seeking to avoid becoming the first governor in the state to lose a primary in more than three decades. His challenger is Helena Foulkes, a former executive at CVS Health who is making her second attempt at the office after narrowly losing the primary four years earlier.
Foulkes has significantly outraised McKee and mounted an aggressive advertising campaign. She has criticized the governor’s administration, arguing that state government operates primarily for the benefit of a powerful few and that voters lack confidence in leadership regarding economic opportunities. McKee, 75, is facing a political environment where Democratic voters have demonstrated increased willingness to remove sitting officials from office.
A major issue shadowing McKee’s campaign is the Washington Bridge in Providence, which carries nearly 100,000 vehicles daily across Interstate 195. State officials closed the westbound side in 2023 after identifying a critical failure, with repair work originally estimated to take several months. The project has since extended considerably longer than anticipated, with costs exceeding initial projections. McKee asserts the bridge will be completed by 2028 and notes that repairs are progressing faster than those on Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which is scheduled for completion in 2030 following its collapse in 2024. However, according to Adam Myers, a political scientist at Providence College, infrastructure issues are particularly damaging to governors because voters clearly understand state government responsibility for them.
The candidates have launched competing attacks. McKee accuses Foulkes of being an out-of-touch corporate executive attempting to purchase political office and argues she prioritized profits over people during her 25-year tenure at CVS, where she served as president of the pharmacy division from 2014 to 2018. Foulkes denies these allegations and contends that CVS reduced opioid dispensals by 40 percent during her leadership. McKee notes that neither Rhode Island’s Democratic Party nor the state AFL-CIO has endorsed him, while Foulkes has attracted support from business leaders and Democrats in McKee’s hometown of Cumberland.
Foulkes has also warned that McKee’s criticism of CVS could damage the company’s operations in the state, given its significance as one of Rhode Island’s largest employers based in Woonsocket. The winner of the primary will be heavily favored in the general election in the Democratic-leaning state.
Article Attribution | Read More at Article Source
Article summary produced by Claude AI