By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
David Morales, nearly certain to be the next mayor of Providence, is even younger than he looks.
In the penultimate primary of 2026 (Delaware closes things out on September 15), Rhode Island put a punctuation mark on the theme that being perceived as part of a mistrusted “Democratic Establishment” could be deadly. Governor Dan McKee became the first sitting governor anywhere since 2018 to lose a renomination primary. And it wasn’t close: He was trounced by former CVS executive Helena Foulkes, who lost to McKee in 2022, by a 24 percent margin.
