Count me in for extra stuffing and cranberry sauce. Welcome back to my weekly column. You can follow me through the week on Bluesky, threads and what we used to call the twitters. I’m taking next week off, so have a happy Thanksgiving! This column will return on Dec. 6. Here we go.
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: In the cold glare of the weeks after the 2024 election, the mandate claimed by Donald Trump looks more like one of the most narrow popular vote victories in the history of presidential politics. “Republicans gained the White House and a slim Senate majority not because a massive tsunami broke in their favor but because of a slight red shift, wide but very shallow,” noted Jeff Jacoby, the resident conservative opinion writer at The Boston Globe. And the flaming-out of Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general shows that some bridges are too far. But Trump and his supporters have the next four years to put their stamp on things, so it’s difficult to predict precisely where things go from here. What is clear is that Democrats have their work cut out in choosing the next presidential candidate and overcoming a small but significant enthusiasm gap that helped elevate Trump. Just look at nearby Fall River, which hadn’t supported a Republican for the White House since the days of Calvin Coolidge. It’s not that Trump did that much better than in 2020 — his base grew by fewer than 1,300 votes, not a big swing in a city of almost 100,000 people. But as my colleague Ben Berke reports, Kamala Harris got almost 3,500 less votes in Fall River this time around than Joe Biden won in 2020. Various reasons explain the decline, including the weakening of Democratic ward committees, the appeal of Trump’s rhetoric on immigration, and how when Paul Coogan took office in 2020, he was Fall River’s eighth mayor in 14 years. As Jacoby noted in the column cited above, the narrow vote in support of Trump suggests that voters could just as easily back a Democrat next time around. But the bleeding of Democratic votes in such previously staunch communities as Fall River (and Johnston) shows how Democrats have their work cut out in building their appeal.
2. REPRO RIGHTS: Gretchen Raffa of Planned Parenthood Votes! Rhode Island talks with my colleague Luis Hernandez about possible fallout in Rhode Island from a second Trump administration.
3. ON TRACK FOR 2026: It’s not exactly news Attorney General Peter Neronha likes being in the arena. Neronha has used his office to pursue bold stances on issues involving healthcare and other topics, a flex made possible by how an AG has considerably more latitude than Neronha’s previous job as U.S. attorney. So it was unsurprising when the Jamestonian’s campaign organization sent out a fundraising pitch — first noted by The Public’s Radio — with the subject line “I’m staying in the game.” “If you’d asked me a few weeks ago about what’s next for me when my term as Attorney General is up in 2026, I’d have told you lots of books still unread and much more time on the bay,” Neronha wrote. “But that’s changed. Why? Because there remains an extraordinary vacuum of effective executive leadership here in Rhode Island and because I now believe that there will be a need for strong, experienced voices to fight for our shared values beyond 2026, when my final term as Attorney General ends.” When I asked which office he’s targeting, Neronha texted back, “Keeping my options open. But I don’t intend to retire.” Given the bumpy relationship between Neronha and Gov. Dan McKee, a two-way primary between the two men would be, uh, interesting. But whether that will come to pass is unclear. Neronha appears unlikely to pursue the top job if Helena Foulkes, as expected, makes another bid (and she has a fundraiser coming up on Dec. 5). Neronha recently told me he is open to a possible run for lieutenant governor, an office seen by some as long in search of a more muscular purpose.
4. GINAWORLD: Steven Overly of Politico Tech this week asked Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo about headlines — my exclusive last week — indicating that she’s considering another run for governor of Rhode Island. In a sign that she’s enjoying the speculation, Raimondo did not dismiss the idea (or express support for Gov. McKee). Here’s the gist of her answer to Overly’s question on what’s next: “I don’t know — that is a truly honest answer however unfulfilling it is. My husband and I were talking the other day. We don’t really know where we’re going to be living a year from now or what we’re going to be doing. Our son graduates high school in June, so we’re staying put in DC until June, that much I know. And I’m definitely going to take a minute to quiet my mind and think about what comes next.”
The Rub: In the unlikely event that Raimondo runs again for governor, the toughest question she’d face would be less about the Washington Bridge and more about whether she would leave mid-term.
Here are some other excerpts from the Politico Tech podcast.
*** “Some people call me the Sec of Tech,” Raimondo said, because of Commerce’s heightened focus on technology. “… But also, look, we are very much a national security focused agency now, more than ever, and that’s because national security now more than ever revolves around technological security, whether that’s on offense like the CHIPS Act — you know making more chips in America, there was no CHIPS office when I started … or defense with our export controls.”
*** Raimondo said she is driving her team hard to get CHIPS money out the door or obligated before the presidential transition. She said she wasn’t too worried about the money being rolled back under the new administration.
*** Raimondo’s Commerce Department and the U.S. State Department launched in San Francisco this week a new international effort to promote safety in artificial intelligence. “AI is the defining technology of our generation,” she said. “This isn’t unlike other technologies, you know, nuclear technology or other technologies,” she said. “There have been moments in the world’s history where new technology comes forward that is so powerful that we have to get the world together to agree on guardrails and restrictions and standards so that everybody is kept safe. And by the way in this regard our interests are aligned even with some of our fiercest competitors like China. You know, China is sending some of their scientists to this event. It is no one’s interest anywhere on the planet for AI to develop in a way that is unsafe and that is harmful, and so that is why this is such a seminal event.” President-elect Trump vows big changes on AI.
5. TRUMP’S SECRET SAUCE: Inflation looms large when people parse why Donald Trump prevailed. Immigration and cultural issues were in the mix, along with an unwillingness on the part of some voters to support a Black woman for president. One omnipresent yet widely overlooked factor is arguably Trump’s brand in American life and pop culture. As Patrick Radden Keefe wrote in a 2019 New Yorker profile of TV producer Mark Burnett, Trump’s business had foundered after his rise as a celebrity in the ’80s, “and by 2003, he had become a garish figure of local interest — a punchline on Page Six. The Apprentice mythologized him anew, and on a much bigger scale, turning him into an icon of American success.” It didn’t stop with The Apprentice. The more you look for Trump, the more you see his ubiquity. He’s name-checked in the pilot for HBO’s Sex and the City (and makes a subsequent guest appearance) and in season four of The Sopranos. He’s everywhere, or so it seems (boosting his relatability for voters), and the plastic language of conventional politics struggles to compete with this apotheosis of celebrity — someone who is famous for being famous.
6. MOB MYTHOS: Speaking of The Sopranos … Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos, a recent two-part documentary about the critical/popular hit and its creator inspired me to re-watch the show in sequential order from the first episode. On the surface, The Sopranos had enough narrative tension to captivate even casual viewers. But repeated viewings can offer an enhanced appreciation for the depth of the storytelling, the many nods to other Mob stories, and the stuff playing below the surface. If you’re into this stuff, I recommend Sopranos Autopsy: Examining TV’s Greatest Series. How else would you know that one of the aging “Atwell Avenue Boys” contacted to whack a rival is portrayed by Richard Bright, the same actor who played one of Michael Corleone’s bodyguards in The Godfather and who whacked Fredo in Godfather II? When I watched that episode when it first aired decades ago, it seemed like a weird, unfulfilling reference to Providence’s bygone days as La Cosa Nostra HQ for New England. In fact, Chase was playing a double-game, as Sopranos Autopsy curator Ron Bernard explained: “Bright’s advanced age underscores just how elderly Corrado has become as well. Dominic Chianese has also aged quite a bit since his appearance in The Godfather II as ‘Johnny Ola’ ”
7. ROGER HAS A POSSE: The unveiling of a new Statehouse portrait of Roger Williams, an event set in motion by Secretary of State Gregg Amore, is well worth the watch. Local artist Jennifer Gillooly Cahoon (self-taught!) explained how she incorporated soil from Rumford (where Williams first settled after being expelled from Massachusetts) into her painting. In her artist statement, she wrote, “Roger Williams never sat for a formal portrait, leaving his exact appearance a mystery. As a portrait painter, this posed a unique challenge. My goal is to always capture not only the likeness but also the essence and spirit of my subjects.” C. Morgan Grefe, executive director of the Rhode Island Historical Society, offered a detailed history of Williams’ early days in England. It was also noted during the ceremony in the Statehouse Library that Williams was both highly religious and a staunch believer in the separation of church and state.
8. HOMELESSNESS: A new report by the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness documents a worsening situation — a 35% increase in homelessness over the past year. As my colleague Nina Sparling reports, “The coalition pointed to rising rent costs as a key driver of the increase in homelessness. An individual with a minimum-wage job making $14 per hour would have to work 78 hours per week to afford a fair market 1-bedroom apartment, the report found. More than a third of Rhode Island households are cost burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent.”
9. HOUSING: Deborah Goddard is Gov. McKee’s pick to be Rhode Island’s next secretary of housing, and her nomination attracted positive reaction from housing advocates and House Speaker Joe Shekarchi. She faces state Senate confirmation.
10. PUBLIC SERVICE: Former Ward 3 Providence City Councilor Nirva LaFortune became executive director last year of City Year Providence, a nonprofit that recruits young adults for a year of service in the Providence Public Schools. She joined me on Political Roundtable to discuss that effort, whether she’ll get back into politics and more.
11. KICKER: The soaring popularity of Bluesky is reminding many of us of the early years of Twitter, circa 2009, when the vibes were good and the social media app offered an exciting new way of communicating. These were the days of the Arab spring and when then-state Reps. Chris Fierro and Ray Sullivan (RIP) used tweets from a closed Democratic meeting to spark a partial restoration of an envisioned cut in local aid. As Fierro told me at the time, “My goal is being more open and communicative to my constituents, but I’m hoping that it kind of informs a policy debate, so if someone says, why did he vote that way? They’ll be able to kind of look and see – and have a more informed opinion – because I’ll be able to respond and say, I voted this way because x, y, and z factors, and this is important to our district.”
