PROVIDENCE – Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse has won his party’s nomination to another term in the U.S. Senate, while Rhode Island Republicans chose state Rep. Patricia Morgan as their nominee over her GOP primary opponent, Ray McKay.
With 94% of precincts reporting, Morgan was leading McKay, 64.8% to 35.2%, according to the unofficial Board of Elections tallies.
Three-term incumbent Whitehouse was trouncing his self-funded Democratic primary challenger Michael Costa, 82.5% to 17.5%.
Whitehouse issued this statement upon winning the nomination to serve as Rhode Island’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate: “I work hard every single day on behalf of all Rhode Islanders, and I am honored and grateful to have their overwhelming support today.
“We are heading into November with a strong Democratic ticket, from Vice President Harris on down the ballot. If voters here and across the country put their trust in Democrats, we will grow the middle class, protect democracy, and leave this planet a better, safer place for our children and grandchildren. I look forward to talking with Rhode Islanders to make that case over the coming weeks.”
Costa, a 55-year-old Bristol resident who mounted a short-lived campaign for governor as a Republican two years ago – and then withdrew – splurged on an 11th-hour run of TV ads to let Democratic voters know they had an alternative to Whitehouse,
Here’s one example of where he agreed and disagreed with Whitehouse, who was first elected to the Senate in 2006: “Senator Whitehouse is right on term limits for the Supreme Court. However, the principle should be applied to all federal courts – Supreme, Appeals, and District. And one shouldn’t discuss term limits and ignore what nearly 90% of the public thinks: that Congress itself should be term-limited.”
But Whitehouse, with more than $3.4 million in his own campaign account, hit the TV airwaves during the Olympics and then again in the run-up to primary day to tout his record and pledge his efforts to shore up Social Security and Medicare.
Whitehouse also gets a lot of free publicity from the frequent announcements, in concert with the other members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation, of huge federal grants, including this one: $15 million in new federal funding for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) to help install more than 200 new electric vehicle charging stations.
Morgan went into the GOP primary contest with more name recognition as a former state Republican chair, House minority leader – and unsuccessful 2018 primary candidate for governor – who has served in the legislature off and on for 12 years.
McKay launched his “Right Direction Right Now” campaign for the U.S. Senate in May 2023 with fighting words: “For the record, I do not belong to, nor have I ever belonged to, an exclusive country club or all-white beach club that discriminates by race, color or religion,” he said, citing an unsubstantiated claim about the makeup of the membership of Bailey’s Beach Club in Newport that has made the news rounds in more than one election cycle.
On issues, he and Morgan agreed more than they disagreed.
In response to a Journal survey on their views, they both agreed, for example, that government should end all subsidies to offshore wind farms. Both said no, for their own reasons, to the United States and Israel launching a preemptive strike on Iran. And neither blamed former President Donald Trump’s intervention for the collapse of the bipartisan immigration and border security deal that was on the table earlier this year.
They disagreed on whether the federal government should guarantee access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, with Morgan saying yes and McKay saying it should be left up to the states.
As the GOP nominee, Morgan now faces an uphill battle in Rhode Island.
Republicans held one of Rhode Island’s U.S. Senate seats for nearly three decades. That came to an end when Lincoln Chafee lost his bid for reelection in 2006, a defeat widely attributed to voters’ dislike of the national GOP. The state hasn’t sent a Republican to Congress since then.
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Publish date : 2024-09-10 13:53:00
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