2022 Rhode Island General Assembly general election ratings 1.0
Election season in Rhode Island has begun in earnest — high profile races for statewide and Federal office have been in motion for months now, but the end of the General Assembly session in June kicked off the bi-annual cycle for the 38 Senate and 75 House seats that make up the state legislative body.
As of last Friday, we got a clearer picture of what these races will look like with the passing of the deadline for candidates to submit signatures from registered voters in their district in order to qualify for the ballot. I chose to wait until this deadline to make this post because I was confident (and eventually correct) that a good number of “declared” candidates would not end up following through. In many cases (particularly when attempting to challenge an incumbent lawmaker) a candidate will choose to drop out when they see a second or third challenger emerge. We saw this a good deal on the Republican side, where it looked like we might have several GOP primaries before the signature deadline. As of now, we have only three.
Before I get to the ratings, I want to give a little context around what I am looking at in determining these ratings now, and what factors I will look for in future versions.
What I am looking at now:
Incumbency
The most influential factor in trying to guess what the outcome of a GA general election will be is whether an incumbent is in the race. It is rare at all levels of government, but particularly in state legislative elections, for incumbent lawmakers to be unseated. Therefore, I have built in an assumption that open seats are more favorable (and seats where the incumbent is running less favorable) to the party attempting to flip the seat.
Primaries
Of course, in addition to retirements, a general election obviously won’t feature an incumbent lawmaker if that lawmaker loses to a primary challenger first. Ten Democratic Senators and 19 Democratic members of the House are facing primary challengers this year. In cases where there is a Republican challenger as well, I factor in the possibility that the incumbent will lose in the primary. Obviously, future versions of these ratings will provide some more clarity on this point.
Partisanship and Past Results
Lastly, I am taking a look at the underlying partisanship of the GA districts (particularly results from the 2016/2020 Presidential elections and 2018 Gubernatorial election). Because there are so seldom competitive general elections for the GA, looking at how districts vote in state and federal elections gives us a clearer picture. This is still overshadowed by incumbency, though. There are many cases where incumbent lawmakers routinely win elections by large margins in spite of the partisanship of the district. More on this below. In some of these cases, we are treated to rematches of past general elections. If a candidate has run for the seat before and lost by 25 points to the same incumbent, I’m not really giving them much of a chance here, regardless of the national environment or the underlying partisanship of the district.
What I will be looking at going forward:
Candidate Quality
I want to make clear that in most cases, this is not factoring into my ratings yet, which gives room for movement in future ratings changes (plus, I only have so much time in my days). Other than cases where a past member of the General Assembly is running, or in the rematches mentioned above, the quality of a challenging candidate is not factored in. Going forward, however, the primary way of doing this will be to look at fundraising data. The easiest way to write off an unserious candidate is to see them raising/spending no money. Like it or not, it is a requirement to win, especially against an incumbent. I also put some stock into candidate quality markers like social media presence and earned media (good or bad). Seeing your yard signs as I drive around Rhode Island may be an indicator that you’re at least trying and spending some money, but that will be down low on my list of factors.
Fundraising information from the second quarter (April-June) is due at the end of this month, but many general election candidates will have nothing to report from this period. The following report will cover July into August, up to 28 days before Rhode Island’s primary in September. This report should start to give us some indication of who is serious and who is not. I expect to publish my next ratings sometime in August, with another version to follow after the September primary.
With all of that out of the way, let’s get to the ratings.
State Senate
- Including incumbents, Republicans are contesting 26 of 38 seats (not including Senator Jessica de la Cruz, the only Republican running unopposed). This is much higher than the actual number of seats they could win or come close to winning, but that is a good thing for them nonetheless. It may be ugly in the end, but as a minority party showing up is half of the battle.
- There are two races with no Republican candidate that have an independent candidate instead, which brings the total of contested general elections to 28 out of 38. To the best of my knowledge and memory of recent times, this is a high number, extraordinarily high even.
- Along with the 10 races where Democrats are uncontested, I rate 11 contested races as safe Democratic, for a total of 21.
- The two toss up races are SD17 and SD22. In SD17, Republican Tom Paolino is defending a seat won by Biden by 5 points in 2020 and by Trump by 5 points in 2016. Paolino ran well ahead of Trump in 2020 in his district, handily defeating a Democratic challenger. The wrinkle is the Independent candidate, former Rep. Jack Lyle, who lost re-election to HD46 in 2020 after leaving the Republican party to become an Indy. A well-known Independent who could take from either party (Lyle is pro-choice and was a supporter of labor issues) makes this one hard to forecast. In a similar 3-way race for HD46 (which is 8–10 points to the left of SD17) in 2020, Lyle got 31% of the vote and current Rep. Mary Ann Shallcross Smith won the seat with 39%. I think Paolino remains the favorite today.
- SD22 is an open seat in Smithfield left behind by retiring senator Steve Archambault. This is another Trump 2016/Biden 2020 seat. Archambault would have been favored to win a general election in my opinion, but a strong Republican candidate could put this on the table for the GOP. Paul Santucci will be that candidate — Santucci got 42 percent of the vote running against Archambault (who only hit 50.7 percent) in 2020, which I consider to be a strong showing against an incumbent. For Democrats, it will be a primary (between RI Political Co-op candidate Melanie DuPont and Smithfield town councilman David Tikoian) that I watch carefully.
- The other races I see as competitive are all in the lean D category right now, including SD38 (formerly held by Minority Leader Dennis Algiere), which I consider to be the most likely seat to flip. Algiere was a household name and a moderate, but SD 38 is a Clinton +5/Biden +15 seat that will be difficult for GOP candidate Westin Place to hold onto. Three-way primary on the Dem side, including a Co-Op candidate (Michael Niemeyer). Elsewhere, Frank Lombardi has both a Co-op primary challenger and a GOP opponent in SD26 (Trump +6/Trump +1) in Cranston.
- The most difficult races to handicap for me are Warwick’s SD29 and SD31, which are open seats that feature 2-way primaries in both parties. Both are on pretty favorable Democratic turf (SD31 being the more purple of the two at Trump +1/Biden +9), but the uncertainty here is great enough that I am keeping an open mind about these being competitive.
State House
- Republicans are contesting 35 of 75 seats, including incumbents (besides Reps. Fenton-Fung, Roberts, and Quattrochi) who face no Democratic opponents). Several declared Republican candidates withdrew before collecting signatures, making this a slightly worse showing for the party than in the Senate.
- Twelve races with no Republican are being contested by Independents, giving us 47 contested general elections.
- In addition to 25 seats where Democrats face no opposition, I rate 21 contested races as Safe D, for a total of 47.
- The two toss-up seats are HD42 and HD53, both held by incumbent Democrats and both won twice by Trump. HD42 (Trump +12/Trump +7) in Johnston is shaping up to be maybe the strangest (and most Rhode Island) of all the primaries, with incumbent Edward Cardillo facing two primary challengers, including his own nephew. Messy, and uncertain, enough to merit a toss up for now. HD53 (Trump +7/Trump +2) in Smithfield/Glocester is actually a rematch of the closest GA general election from 2020, in which incumbent Bernie Hawkins defeated Brian Rea by less than 100 votes.
- The most likely seat to flip from R to D is HD36 (Clinton +13/Biden +22), formerly held by Minority Leader Blake Filippi in South County, which I rate as Lean D. Pretty close case to SD38 above, this is tough territory even for an incumbent Republican that becomes that much tougher without one. HD39 in Exeter (Trump +10/Trump +1) is worth watching as a rematch of a close election (and the only three-way House race), between controversial GOP incumbent Justin Price and progressive challenger Megan Cotter. Price defeated Cotter by a little over 300 votes in 2020.
- The other competitive races (all Lean D for the moment) are a mix of purple-to-red areas where incumbent Dems face primary and general election challengers or rematches of close races from 2020.
That will do it for my first rundown. I’m looking forward to following these as they progress. If you want to follow along (or argue with) future versions, be sure to follow me on Twitter @hutch_blog. Thanks for reading!
