Langevin retirement fuels RI GOP's hopes for U.S. House seat

PROVIDENCE — Has Democrat Jim Langevin's decision not to seek reelection to the U.S. House given Rhode Island Republicans the best shot they've had in three decades at winning a U.S. House seat?

They think so.

They believe President Joe Biden — and the Democrat-led Congress — have left a trail of "disappointment," that Americans are angry about rising prices and looking for someone to blame, and that "the right" Republican candidate can capitalize on these frustrations.

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They also believe they have a really good argument for the election of a Republican to represent Rhode Island in Washington in the event the GOP regains control of the U.S. House, as some national pundits predict.

"I’ve been saying for years that it behooves Rhode Island to have a split congressional delegation,'' state Rep. Brian Newberry said Friday.

"I don’t say that as a Republican but as a resident. It is always wise to have at least one member with a voice in the majority, and that is especially important this year, because I think we all know the GOP is going to retake the House."

"Some Rhode Islanders may actually want someone who will be in the majority and get something done for them rather than a politician who will just go around parroting [Rhode Island's other] Congressman Cicilline," suggests the state's National GOP Committeeman Steve Frias.

But veteran pollster Joseph Fleming remembers how well the reverse argument worked, when Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse used it at a different political juncture, in 2006, to beat then-Republican U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, at the height of his popularity:

His argument: "Don't let Chafee be the 50th vote in the Senate to keep the Republicans in charge." (As it turned out, Chafee's loss gave Democrats the edge they needed to recapture the Senate that year.)

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"Republicans nationally are well-positioned to retake the House this year, but that plays in both directions politically," says former Brown University political science professor Darrell West, now a vice president at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"On the one hand, candidates can argue it is better to have a Republican in a chamber with a GOP majority so that person can get things done. But Democrats will counter that it matters what gets done, and the state needs someone who reflects public opinion."

"We don't know who's running, so it is kind of hard to speculate what is going to happen," Fleming said Friday, in the wake of Langevin's bombshell announcement.

"Right now, you've got a wide open congressional race," Fleming said. "I'm hearing name after name after name of Democrats thinking about running.

"How nasty of a primary could have an impact on what happens in November."

A growing slate of possible contenders

So what do we know?

Rhode Island has an all-Democrat congressional delegation. Democrats currently hold a slim majority in the U.S. House, and the mounting retirements could put their control in peril.

With a few notable exceptions — the House speaker among them — just about everybody who's anybody in Rhode Island politics is at least considering a run for the state's 2nd Congressional District seat, even if it would require moving into the district, as then- Lt. Gov. Robert Weygand famously did in 1995 to win the seat.

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Example: Senate Republican Whip Jessica de la Cruz — who lives in North Smithfield, in the 1st Congressional District — tweeted that she is interested in running for Congress: "I've opened a campaign account and will make a formal announcement soon."

More than a few are encouraging Cranston's former mayor Allan Fung to jump in, the thinking being that he has high name recognition after two statewide races for governor and he won 11 of the 21 cities and towns in the 2nd Congressional District his last time out.

His wins included Cranston, which has the second-largest pool of voters in the 2nd District, which lies west of the Bay and includes half of Providence, South County, and eight towns that went for Donald Trump in the last election: Burrillville, Coventry, Johnston, Scituate, Glocester, Hopkinton, Exeter and Foster.

The district has 371,736 registered voters: 41% are unaffiliated, 37% Democrat and 16% Republican.

The last Republican who occupied the 2nd District seat was Claudine Schneider, who gave it up to wage a losing campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1990.

Will Fung run for Congress instead of state treasurer, as he seemed likely to do before Langevin shook up Rhode Island's political world?

"I am taking a look at the entire chessboard and will take some time to thoughtfully think about this race,'' he told The Journal.

On the Democratic side, the list of potential candidates grows by the minute.

State Rep. Carol McEntee, state Sens. Josh Miller and Sam Bell, former state Sen. James Sheehan to name a few, along with Omar Bah, the founder and executive director of the Refugee Dream Center, who told The Journal he is definitely running and willing to move into the 2nd District to do so."

"I am just going to pop some corn and kick back and watch that bloodbath," said Newberry, a North Smithfield Republican who lives outside the district.

Last week, former state representative and onetime Democratic Party chairman Edwin Pacheco signaled his intent to jump in with a video announcement. Pacheco is the external relations and communications director at Rhode Island College.

Cienki: 'A winnable race with the right' GOP candidate

What chance do the Republicans have of capturing the seat?

“No Democrat-held seat is safe in this political environment. Voters are furious that Democrats' socialist policies caused an inflation crisis and a nationwide crime wave," National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Berg told The Journal on Friday.

State Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Cienki called the 2nd District "a winnable race with the right candidate."

She bases that on what she sees as "disappointment in ... President Biden and the direction of the Democratic Party [that] controls the White House and both sides of Congress.''

"We [have] had inflation, open borders, disastrous foreign policy (including Afghanistan), rising aggression in Russia and China and [a] rise in crime across the country."

While giving a nod to former state Rep. Robert Lancia's second bid for the seat and unnamed GOP women exploring a run, Cienki described Fung as "a candidate that could win."

Added Rhode Island's National GOP Committeeman Frias: "To win in a blue district, a Republican must walk the tightrope of holding on to the Republican base while appealing to swing voters.

"Fung is the only Republican who has carried CD2 in the last 10 years. Fung won CD2 in 2014 by 4 percent in his race with [then-Gov. Gina) Raimondo. In 2018, Fung did lose CD2 to Raimondo by approximately 4.6 percent, but independent candidate Joseph Trillo, who had co-chaired the Rhode Island Trump campaign, got 4.2 percent."

Asked to define the "right candidate," Newberry cited the results of a poll that his colleague, House Minority Leader Blake Filippi, had done for him last summer while he was considering a run for governor.

The finding: a "pragmatic," "socially moderate" Republican — who "fights to protect the environment and works across party lines to get things done" — could win.

The Trump factor

According to former Brown professor West: "Rhode Island always is going to be hard for Republicans at the congressional level because the party has veered so far to the right in recent years.

"The state has a lot of needy populations who look to the government for assistance, so the GOP agenda of tax cuts and restrictions on social spending don't play very well. This is one of the reasons why it has been a long time since Republicans held a House or Senate seat in Rhode Island.

"All Democrats have to do is tie the GOP candidate to Trump, and that takes them a long way towards victory. "

Adds Providence College political science professor Adam Myers:

"While Democrats are clearly favored to hold the seat, I do think that it is potentially winnable for Republicans in the current political environment.

"The stars would have to align for them: they would have to run a particularly strong candidate, while the Democrats would have to be unusually divided.

"The latter could happen if a progressive victor emerges from a messy Democratic primary. The proposed CD-2 includes lots of more conservative Democratic voters in places like Johnston, West Warwick, etc.

"Those are the kinds of folks who could support a Republican against a highly left-wing Democrat."

With reports from staff writer Patrick Anderson.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Langevin retirement fuels RI GOP's hopes to capture U.S. House seat