GOP candidate for Congress Gerry Leonard Jr. leans on Marine Corps experience. Why he's running

If Gerry Leonard Jr.'s victory in the Republican congressional primary looked easy, his next mission – flipping a dark-blue seat red – looks nearly impossible.

A Republican hasn't represented the 1st Congressional District since Ronald Machtley gave up his seat to run for governor in 1994. And since then, the district has steadily crept to the left through a combination of redistricting and the decline of the moderate New England Republican.

The district favored Joe Biden by nearly 30 points in the 2020 presidential election, and David Cicilline, whose resignation triggered the special election, won by 28 points last year running to the left of most House Democrats. (His 2022 opponent was then Republican Allen Waters, who came in 10th running as a Democrat in Tuesday's primary.)

Leonard faces long odds in a Democrat-leaning district

As a sign of how long Leonard's odds are, national Republican groups, which rushed into last year's 2nd District race to help Allan Fung, haven't engaged in the campaign yet, even though it is one of the only congressional elections in this off year.

Beating Democratic nominee Gabe Amo, whom many have anointed Rhode Island's next congressman, would be a political upset of historic proportions.

But Leonard, a 58-year-old retired Marine Corps colonel and first-time political candidate from Jamestown, is approaching the race with a battalion's worth of optimism.

"I left for the Marine Corps as a Democrat. Thirty years later, I emerged [in the GOP], and it wasn't the Marine Corps itself, it was traveling around the globe and seeing other nations and realizing how fortunate we are to be born in the United States or to immigrate to the United States," he told Political Scene. "And I just absolutely believe our country could be doing better for all Americans right now."

More: RI GOP candidates for CD1 take center stage in dueling interviews

Who is Gerry Leonard Jr.?

So who is Gerry (pronounced Gare-E) Leonard?

His political trajectory will be familiar to many Northeastern Republicans: he grew up in a Democratic household that loved John F. Kennedy, and he voted that way before joining the military, hearing different perspectives and discovering Ronald Reagan.

Asked to name his political hero, Leonard named two Democrats – Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt – and two Republicans, Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt.

"I think our country really could use a combination of a John F. Kennedy-Ronald Reagan figure right now," he said.

Leonard grew up in North Kingstown. Both his parents were teachers. His father, Gerry Sr., was on the North Kingstown School Committee.

He studied economics at Hartwick College in upstate New York and went to work as an analyst for a bank on Wall Street.

But he didn't love it, and during one Christmas back home in Rhode Island, a family friend who taught at East Greenwich and happened to be a retired Marine officer pitched him on a military career.

"He starts telling me stories of his experience with the Marine Corps, specifically in Vietnam, and at the end of the conversation he was emotional and passionate about it, which I was not emotional and passionate about what I was doing in New York," Leonard said about the conversation.

Within six months he was in Marine Corps officer training.

Leonard spent 30 years in the Marines, with tours in Kuwait, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan he was chief strategy officer under Gen. David Petraeus, which he describes as "eye-opening" and an "absolute privilege."

Where does he stand on current issues in the Republican Party?

He retired from the military in 2019 and was working for construction firm Bentley Companies in Warwick when Cicilline resigned, and he decided to run for Congress.

Like many, although not all, recent GOP nominees in Rhode Island, Leonard is positioning himself as a moderate and bipartisan bridge builder.

He doesn't want to raise the Medicare eligibility age or repeal Obamacare, he thinks the federal government should negotiate prescription drug prices and he acknowledges Joe Biden as the country's "duly elected president."

He said he would have voted not to impeach Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot because House Republicans were denied places on the committee looking into it, but he isn't eager to talk about the current and possibly future president.

Leonard declined to say whether he is backing a candidate in the 2024 presidential primary or whether he would like to see Trump return to office. (He said he chose not to vote while on active duty.)

As a Republican in good standing, he supports cutting taxes in general, would not support codifying a federal right to abortion before fetal viability and thinks extra funding for the IRS would be better spent on border security.

"I think we need to take the hot air out of the room that's causing some of this divisiveness," Leonard said about what motivated him to run for office despite the long odds. "And I absolutely believe the state of Rhode Island needs a more balanced structure, not just in this congressional delegation, but in the state. And I think that's what our founding fathers wanted to see, a competition of ideas, which a two- or three-party system at least provides friction. Out of that friction becomes probably better, more workable ideas and policies that work for all Americans."

Asked to grade the job performance of Rhode Island's all Democratic congressional delegation, Leonard gives the group a C+.

"I am a big fan of Jack Reed and what he's done for our state. I think the Navy is still in Newport because of efforts of his and I think the defense industry is strong in this state because of efforts like his," Leonard said. "But I think overall ... let's just say a C+. I think it would help to have a Republican in that delegation, particularly if the House of Representatives continues to be controlled by the Republican Party. It would be beneficial to the state to have someone that can sit at the, if you will, the big table instead of a little table."

It's no surprise that, having spent years in the middle of the effort to control Afghanistan, Leonard has thoughts on what went wrong in the war and the U.S. withdrawal – too many to include all here.

Like many military officers, he did not approve of the push to withdraw troops from the country starting in the Obama administration, continuing through Trump and completed by Biden in 2021.

"I understand America did not want an endless war. We can't afford it," he said. "But, I think, when we get down to a force level of about 3,000, maybe 4,000, that was probably appropriate to keep a footprint in Afghanistan for the future."

"I still think it was strategically important to keep a footprint in that country if you look a little bit more geopolitically," he added. "But we had Iran surrounded, we were then a touch point, or in close proximity, to the west side of China, and we had a footprint below Russia. So strategically, while it's a landlocked country, I think there's some strategic importance to that piece of ground."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Who is Gerry Leonard, the Republican running in RI's special election