There will be so few Republicans in the Rhode Island Senate come January that the chamber will have to change its rules requiring one GOP member on every Senate committee.
Democratic challengers Samantha Wilcox and Nelly Burdette ousted Sens. Elaine Morgan (R-Hopkinton) and Thomas Paolino (R-Lincoln), respectively, in Tuesday’s election, shrinking the number of Republicans in the Senate from four to two.
Wilcox, the president of the Richmond Town Council, said her victory over Morgan – a six-term incumbent and enthusiastic supporter of President Trump – was due in part to the Blue Wave that swept Democrats into office nationally. But she also credited other factors, including “a lot of hard work.”
“We canvassed over 4,000 doors, we spoke with residents of all political aisles, and we were there for them,” Wilcox said in an interview. “I think the people saw that and felt confidence in me to do this work.”
A recent analysis by Ocean State Media shows how the House of Representatives has moved in a more progressive direction over the last 10 years. The Senate had retained a core of socially conservative Democrats. Now, both chambers are likely to shift a bit further left because of this week’s election results.
Republicans have struggled to increase their legislative representation for so long that even some Democratic stalwarts, such as former Rhode Island AFL-CIO President George Nee, have opined over the years that the state would benefit from more partisan balance.
But things keep moving in the opposite direction.
A Rhode Island Senate with just two Republicans among 38 members marks a historic low going back to at least 1950, according to Secretary of State Gregg Amore’s office. A Senate spokesman confirmed the outcome will require a change to the chamber’s rules governing committee makeup.
Across the rotunda, the number of GOP lawmakers in the 75-member House of Representatives is set to fall from 10 to 8, with the defeat of two first-term Republicans: state Rep. Richard Fascia of Johnston and state Rep. Chris Paplauskas of Cranston.
Former Cranston Mayor Allan Fung left the GOP earlier this year to become an independent. He beat Paplauskas by 10 points, with a third candidate, a Democrat, winning 32% of the vote.
The subtext in the race was how Paplauskas works as an aide to Cranston Mayor Ken Hopkins. Hopkins defeated Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung, Fung’s wife and the former state rep in District 15, to become Cranston’s mayor in 2024.
Another casualty was state Rep. Jon Brien, a conservative Democrat-turned-independent from Woonsocket.
Veronicka Vega, a first-time candidate backed by the progressive groups Reclaim RI and the Rhode Island Working Families Party, beat Brien by four points, or 114 votes.
Vega will be the first person of color to represent House District 49 in northern Rhode Island.
In a statement, Anusha Venkataraman, state director for RI-WFP, said Vega and Burdette, a first-generation immigrant, “won because working people organized for them door by door, without waiting for the party establishment to show up. Voters are hungry for candidates who are rooted in their communities and the issues they live with every day, not in the party machine.”
Isaac Slevin, field director for Reclaim RI, said progressives won because of their outreach and their prioritization of voters’ economic concerns.
“In Woonsocket, where Reclaim RI volunteers knocked more than 2,000 doors with Veronicka Vega in the final three weeks of the campaign,” Slevin said via email. “We constantly heard from renters in crisis and people who had never experienced someone coming to their door and talking to them about the issues.”
Slevin added: “In Lincoln, where Reclaim RI supported Nelly Burdette with four joint canvasses, volunteers regularly talked to families whose kids had graduated college but were living at home because housing is so expensive and jobs are so scarce. Voters want elected officials to deliver bold economic relief, and they're rejecting Republicans and corporate Democrats who aren't up to the task.”
Brien said a lot of conservative-leaning voters did not show up to the polls since the GOP lacked a competitive candidate for governor and since well-known northern Rhode Island lawmakers – including Senate GOP Leader Jessica de la Cruz (R-North Smithfield), Sen. Melissa Murray (D-Woonsocket) and state Rep. Brian C. Newberry (R-North Smithfield) – lacked opponents.
He characterized those activated by progressive groups as drug-addled and unserious.
“When people show up to the polls in their pajamas, reeking of marijuana, they’re not there to vote for the independent, I can tell you that,” Brien said in an interview.
Brien predicted the progressive direction of the General Assembly will translate into continued growth in state spending and more support for entitlement programs.
“What I know is that we’re going to run out of money,” he said, “and we can’t keep taxing people.”
Richmond’s Wilcox said she believes she can do a better job for her community than the incumbent she is poised to replace in the Rhode Island Senate.
Asked whether she had any concerns about the chamber's partisan makeup, Wilcox said voters sometimes asked her after she knocked on their doors, “Why do we need another Democrat?”
“And my response to that is, we cannot control who Providence sends as their senator,” she said. “We cannot control who Foster sends as their senator. We can only control who we send, and we need someone who can represent our district effectively – and I think that resonated with people.”
