Republican challenger Steven Frias edged Democratic House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello in voting Tuesday, but Mattiello said he received more than enough mail ballots to ensure him a victory. With the mail ballots yet to be certified by the state Board of Elections, Frias did not concede defeat.
Unofficial results showed Frias beat Mattiello by 147 voters through tallies cast on voting machines. Mattiello’s campaign team said the speaker was the choice of more than 500 people who used mail ballots to vote, in what they called an insurance policy for a Mattiello victory.
The state Board of Elections said the mail ballots will be counted starting at noon Thursday, with final results expected by about 4 p.m.
Mattiello claimed the win as he swept into the Oaklawn Grange in Cranston, to the delight of a crowd of more than 100 supporters. The two front runners to become the next House majority leader, Reps. Joseph Shekarchi (D-Warwick) and Chris Blazejewski (D-Providence), stopped by to offer Mattiello their congratulations.
Elsewhere in Cranston, Frias was not ready to support Mattiello’s claim of victory. Frias said he wanted to make sure that no one who voted by mail was manipulated. The Republican said people in his district are clearly dissatisfied with Speaker Mattiello’s leadership, especially if the speaker struggled to get 50 percent of the vote.
“When the speaker can only squeak through — even if he were to squeak through — what does that say?” Frias asked. “That says that people are unhappy with him. He’s the face of the status quo in Rhode Island.”
Mattiello downplayed the strong showing by Frias, a lawyer and a Republican activist, attributing it to a bitter year in local and national politics.
“A win by one vote, when you’re on the incumbent side of the fence, is a tremendous win,” Mattiello said. “You’re swimming against the tide of negativity, not for any reason that it was an interesting year from an electoral perspective. And obviously we had whatever the history was last year — I’m not going to recap it.”
That was an apparent reference to ethics issues involving two ranking Democrats, former House Finance chairman Ray Gallison, who resigned amid an ongoing law enforcement probe, and the committee’s vice chairman, Rep. John Carnevale, who was found not to be a legal voter in his Providence district.
Frias and GOP allies argued that these issues were symptoms of Mattiello’s leadership, and that the state would be better served by a change. Mattiello defended his record, pointing in part to a series of tax cuts backed by the House since he became speaker in 2014.
Most legislative incumbents scored easy re-election victories, despite attempts by critics to use tolls planned for big trucks as an issue against lawmakers who supported the measure. If early results hold, Democrats will gain two legislative seats, increasing their representation from 94 to 96 of 113 General Assembly seats.
Mattiello said he considers the vote a voice of support for policies supported by legislative Democrats. “Our budgets have been balanced and great and that’s what we’re really there to do,” he told reporters. “At the end of the day of your work product is what matters, and our work product has been really good.”
Rep. Michael Marcello (D-Scituate) appeared to lose a close race to Republican Robert Quattrocchi, who got 51.5 percent of the vote. And Sen. John Pagliarini (R-Tiverton), with 48.8 percent of the vote, may have lost a close race to Democrat Jim Seveney. with 51 percent.
Unofficial results showed House Judiciary Chairman Cale Keable (D-Burrillville) with 50.4 percent of the vote, narrowly repulsing a challenge by Republican David Place.
Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, who upset House Majority Leader John DeSimone by defeating him in the September primary, easily repulsed a write-in campaign by DeSimone. She won 64.9 percent of the vote, compared with 19 percent for DeSimone and 16 percent for Republican Roland Lavallee.
Some General Assembly races were close enough that mail ballots could change the outcome: Rep. Robert Lancia (R-Cranston) got 50 percent of the vote, compared with 49.7 percent for Democratic challenger Christopher Millea; With 52 percent of the vote, Republican Ken Mendonca edged Democrat Linda Finn for the seat vacated by GOP Rep. Dan Reilly. Also, Sen. Lou Raptakis (D-Coventry) got 50.8 percent of the vote in a race with independent Scott Copley.
If the unofficial results hold up, Democrats will have won three of the five legislative seats vacated by incumbent Republicans.
With reports from RIPR’s Ambar Espinoza.
This post has been updated.
