Anthony D’Ellena, 20, of Narragansett is a former town council candidate and political science student at Roger Williams University. He’s currently taking a year off school to run the election campaign for Republican Patricia Morgan, who is competing against incumbent Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Here’s what he had to say about what’s motivating him to vote this election year.
I’m the vice chair of the Narragansett Republican Party. I ran for the Narragansett town council in 2024. So I’ve been an avid supporter and a member of the Narragansett community, and I’m also a member of the Republican community. I’m a delegate to the state … and I worked for the state party back in 2022 as the field organizer, and now I’m currently running Patricia Morgan’s campaign.
I love the Narragansett community. That’s why I ran for town council, and I plan on running again in two years. It’s a coastal community that has everything. You know, it has the tourists, it has the college students. Has the everyday residents … you meet so many different unique people that you wouldn’t get to meet otherwise.
The biggest issue that’s driving me to the polls is the economy. Everyone’s feeling it from the bottom to the top, and it’s visible, you know, you go to the grocery store and you see the prices are just so much more than they were. … Some people have to pay for groceries nowadays with credit cards. They’re going into debt just to survive, to pay for their food, for themselves and their family … I feel it every single time I’m at the gas pump. During the summer, I didn’t even put the AC in my car on.
I’m voting for president Trump. … Trump appeals to the younger voter. You know, he’s soaring right now in the younger voter category, and Kamala is just falling flat right now. He appeals to younger men. And I’m voting for Donald Trump because look at his first term, there was no war. There were no new wars. The economy was booming. We had a secure border, and see what four years of Kamala Harris has done – just the exact opposite.
I would consider myself a pretty moderate Republican. I know people on the left like to call me a radical, but I view myself as a pretty moderate person. But I don’t feel like the [state] government cares about my voice. Nor does it care about the 40% of other Republicans that are in the state. Because when you break it down, Democrats are 40%, Republicans 40% and then we have the independents and they’re persuadable. Right now they’re voting Democrat but I think one day they’ll take a look around, you see the Washington Bridge, you see everything that’s happening in the state, and they’ll make the jump and they’ll switch to Republican.
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