Megan Cotter is a progressive Democratic state representative who first won election by just 32 votes in 2022. Republicans had high hopes this week of winning back Cotter’s seat, since voters in her district in Exeter, Richmond and Hopkinton lean conservative. But Cotter scored an eight-point victory over former Republican Representative Justin Price, winning the race by about 700 votes. She was victorious even though Donald Trump this week had his best Rhode Island performance yet and beat Kamala Harris in the three communities making up Cotter’s district. So what does the outcome tell us about how Democrats can compete more effectively in the Trump era? How did Cotter overcome her challenges as a candidate? And where does she think Democrats should go from here? This week on Political Roundtable, I’m going in-depth with state Representative Megan Cotter.
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Donnis: Welcome back to The Public’s Radio, and congratulations on your victory this week.
Cotter: Thank you very much. It’s good to be here.
Donnis: You represent a conservative leaning district, and Republicans had high hopes of winning back the seat that you represent. What was the strategy that you used to achieve your victory?
Cotter: I think it was a three prong strategy. The first is, I think, my first two years, I got things done. I had tangible results for my community. I had a meeting with RIPTA. I worked with RIPTA to get a van for Wood River Health using federal dollars. I worked on the green bond, making the green bond greener. And I worked to get more money for our regional schools. And I talked to people. I knocked on 3,500 doors, and I listened. And sometimes it takes a village, and sometimes you have to build the village. So, back in 2020, my first race, when I lost, I had WFP with me.
Donnis: That’s the Working Families Party.
Cotter: Correct. And this time I had the full, the full force of the speaker, WFP, and I built a small coalition in my community that saw me, and brought me to the finish line.
Donnis: The big news this week was Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential race. Did you expect him to win heading into election day?
Cotter: Absolutely. Knocking on 3, 500 doors, I knew there was no chance that Donald Trump would not win. I knew for a fact he was going to win. And he did. He won the district. He won all three towns. But also, I think it was interesting that I was the highest vote getter in Richmond. I’m very proud of that. And also the small coalition of folks that I’ve been working with for years, it was a blue wave on the bottom of the ticket. So from school committee, town council, and my seat, all blue, which has probably never happened in Richmond before.
Donnis: Democrats are now reeling at the national level from the loss of support from various voting groups, men, working class voters, Black and Latino voters. From your perspective, as someone who prevailed and won in a conservative leaning district, what advice would you give to Democrats nationally about where to go from here?
Cotter: Nationally, I don’t think anybody should be surprised. It feels like the national parties left the working class a long time ago. So I think we need to start at the bottom and work our way back up. And I knocked on so many doors and talked to so many people that were voting for both me and Donald Trump. And they used to be Democrats. Now they’re Independents. Now they’re Republicans. The party failed these folks, and we need to, we need to fix that.
Donnis: What does that look like? What policies or ideas or issues do Democrats need to approach differently to win back those working class voters?
Cotter: I’m proud of what we’ve done in Rhode Island. We reinstated the COLA for a lot of retired teachers and retired folks in Rhode Island.
Donnis: Cost of living adjustment.
Cotter: There’s things like that, that I think nationally we have to focus on. The cost of living is just too high. People are struggling to put food on their table. They’re looking for pay increases, they haven’t had them. We have to stop avoiding the issues that are the bread and butter issues, and we need to go back to them and talk about them and find real solutions for real problems
Donnis: To follow up on what you’re saying. I think inflation and the economy were the top issues in the presidential election, and you probably face questions from voters about that. How do you handle that in your state representative race as a Democrat and with Democrats being the party that’s bearing the brunt of voter anger over inflation?
Cotter: Well, one of the first things that I would say at the door is, I’m your state representative and I’m here to talk about local issues, not federal issues because I didn’t want to get into the whole Harris versus Trump debate and people respected that. So I talked a lot about the issues that impact us every day, what we can do at the state. And really, I wanted to listen to what their issues were. And there are a lot of things that we can do at the state level. We can help lower the cost of prescription drugs. That’s really impacting seniors in a terrible, terrible way. There’s a lot of other things that we can do that we have to tackle.
Donnis: You mentioned having support in your campaign from House leadership. What did Speaker Joe Shekarchi’s team do to assist you in your campaign?
Cotter: Joe put a cry out to knock on doors for me. And you know, he was, he was very generous with helping in any way I needed. Even sometimes it was a phone call, but he kept saying to me, you work hard, you win. And so I did, I worked really hard. And we won.
Donnis: Rhode Island is a reliably blue state in presidential elections, and sometimes it’s easy to think that we’re in a bubble here, immune from red states. But what is your sense of how the Trump administration will affect everyday life here in Rhode Island?
Cotter: I think we don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait and find out. Hopefully, hopefully funding continues to come for education. Hopefully, Medicare is, Medicaid is still fully funded. There’s a lot of questions. We don’t know what’s going to happen.
Donnis: We’re talking here with State Representative Megan Cotter, a Democrat from Exeter. And in winning your race this week, it was your third competition with former Republican Representative Justin Price. You lost to him in 2020, narrowly beat him in 2022 and had a bigger victory over him in this week. One of the notable things about former Representative Price is that he was in Washington on January 6th and in interviews with me and other reporters, he blamed anarchists for the riot that happened. That’s a false conspiracy theory. I wonder in your approach to voters, did you bring this up at all or not really?
Cotter: I did not because I knew Donald Trump was going to win and I didn’t think that that would sway anyone in my direction. But really, I think that’s where the National Democrats fail as well. We need to stop talking about our opponents. We need to start talking about the voters and the people in our communities and what we can do to help them and what kind of candidate we want to be and what we want to do when we’re elected. So I think that’s a real miss from the party nationally and I was not going to fall in line with that.
Donnis: When you and your Democratic colleagues return to the Statehouse in January, Rhode Island will be facing a tougher budget climate due to the end of federal COVID aid. There’s an estimated $400 million deficit for the fiscal year starting next July. What is your sense of what this means for what will get funded and what will not get funded?
Cotter: I have complete confidence that the social programs will be funded. That under the Speaker’s leadership will have a wonderful budget. What happens after it leaves the House and goes back to the executive branch is a different story. Hopefully that money is spent appropriately and we don’t have to worry about what happens after that, but the House allocates money appropriately. I feel very confident that we will continue to do so.
Donnis: You worked with House Republican Leader Mike Chippendale of Foster to help create a Forest Management Fire Prevention Commission. What is your evaluation of how forests in Rhode Island are currently doing?
Cotter: Well, they’re not doing well. So that’s why we really did have to take a big look at that. In 2017, the gypsy moth infestation killed about 25 percent of Rhode Island’s trees. They were just left standing there for a long time. The forestry division of DEM has been underfunded. So working to get two additional forest rangers added to the budget and making the green bond greener by adding 5 million for forest management and 3 million for more open space was crucial in the health of our forest moving forward. So I’m looking forward to seeing how that money will be spent, and I’m looking forward to seeing a healthier forest out of this.
Donnis: Another issue facing forests is the development of solar fields. This is an issue about which you’ve expressed concern in the past. Is the state doing a better job at all in preventing the wholesale clear cutting of forests to develop solar farms?
Cotter: That’s a loaded question. I will be putting in legislation again this year to really hone in on that. I look at a 40 acre solar farm behind my house every day, and it’s not what we should be doing if we want to hit the goals from the Act on Climate. I am disappointed every day when I look at that. So I would love to see us make better choices. Stop incentivizing clear cutting for solar, incentivize it on previously disturbed sites. We need to continue to work on that.
Donnis: You were part of the Democratic super majority in the general assembly. How do you respond to Republicans, independents and some Democrats who believe it would be smart to create an office of inspector general to offer more oversight on state spending?
Cotter: I agree with that. I think that we do a great job in the House of formulating a budget that works and then how that money is spent is up to the executive branch, and I think there needs to be more oversight.
Donnis: What are your top priorities for the 2025 legislative session?
Cotter: I have a bunch. Making sure our forests are maintained and healthy is one. I think we need to look at how we tax the wealthiest in our state. You know, I knock on 3,000 doors and you talk to people and we really have to do something about the prescription drug costs in our state. When you leave a house, I will never forget this as long as I live, about a 75 year old man who’s still working. Between his property taxes and his wife’s prescription drug costs, he can’t retire and he’s 75 years old. We have to help folks in our state that need the help.
Donnis: I believe you were part of a news conference early in the last legislative session where you were among progressive lawmakers calling for higher taxes on the rich. Legislative leaders have been reluctant to support that, being sensitive to Rhode Island’s economic climate. How do you respond to the concern that raising taxes would send a bad signal about Rhode Island’s economy?
Cotter: I think we should look at Massachusetts. They’ve done that and they have, they have benefited greatly from it. So I think we can look at the other states that have made these decisions and how it’s positively impacted them. You know, one of the arguments is, “the wealthiest will leave our state.” Where are they going to go? To Massachusetts where they’re already being taxed? So, I think the argument has a lot of holes in it and I think we need to start looking at it, especially when we’re facing a deficit.
Donnis: The housing crisis is one of the state’s top issues. What does the housing crisis look like in District 39, which you represent?
Cotter: It’s equally as, as challenging in District 39. A lot of seniors would love to downsize. Maybe they have three bedroom homes, but where are they going to go? They’d like to stay in the community they’ve raised their families in, but there’s nothing smaller here. There’s nothing smaller in our community where they can downsize to. That’s a problem.
Donnis: We see how there are some changes involving big corporations in Rhode Island. CVS is cutting jobs. Hasbro is looking at moving out of the state. What can the legislature do to help address this situation?
Cotter: We have to be confident in our leadership and, I’m confident in Leader Shekarchi’s ability to make the deals as he did with Citizens. I think the executive branch needs to step up and help make that happen.
Donnis: All right. We’ve got to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us. State Representative Megan Cotter, a Democrat from Exeter.
Cotter: Thank you so much for having me. It’s always a pleasure.
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Donald Trump’s first popular vote victory might quiet gripes from some Democrats about the Electoral College. Less well known is how Richard Nixon once squelched an effort to reduce the importance of the Electoral College due to a fairly petty political dispute. You can read more about that in my weekly TGIF column posting around 4 this afternoon on what we used to call Twitter @IanDon and at thepublicsradio.org/TGIF.
That’s it for our show. Political Roundtable is a production of The Public’s Radio. Our producer is James Baumgartner. I’m Ian Donnis, and I’ll see you on the radio.
