McKee declares victory in Democratic primary race for governor, after seesaw election night

PROVIDENCE — Gov. Dan McKee declared victory on Tuesday night, after capturing a lead over former CVS executive Helena Foulkes in the five-way Democratic primary contest for governor on Tuesday night.

"I am so proud to be here," McKee, 71, told cheering supporters, "because Rhode Island is positioned in a way where we have never had this momentum before. And we are going to take full advantage of it.

"We are going to raise per capita income in the state of Rhode Island for every community," he promised. "Where there are hurdles...we are going to make sure all our families, all our kids get over the finish line."

"We will no longer be that state that is first in and last out of economic downturns. And we can do it,'' he said.

"The general election starts now, right now," he said to cheers.

McKee now faces the Republican nominee, Ashley Kalus, who crushed her primary opponent, Jonathan Riccitelli.

In a live interview with WPRI after the polls closed, Kalus said: "This, year, everybody understands that this is about the future of the state...What I am hearing is that voters are looking for person over party and they want change."

“Failed career politicians like Governor McKee continue to represent the very worst of our state," said Kalus, who moved to Rhode Island last year. "He and his administration perpetuate a system that puts insiders, special interests, and lobbyists ahead of the hardworking people of our state.

Here's what we know about the nail-biter of the night:

With 391 of 395 precincts reporting, McKee had 32.8% of the vote and Foulkes – a virtual political unknown until she announced her candidacy for governor last October – 30.1%.

Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea was in third place, with 26.1% of the tally. Neither Matt Brown nor Luis Daniel Munoz cracked 10%.

At that point, the vast majority of the mail ballots cast had been folded into the tally, with the 5,281 counted mail ballot votes for McKee propelling him into the lead after a seesaw night.

Foulkes did not at first concede.

At 10:16 p.m, she issued this statement: "Democratic primary voters cast their ballots in a critical election that will decide the future of our state. Thousands of those vote(s) have yet to be counted. This election is still too close to call, and we owe it to voters to ensure that every single ballot is counted."

At that point, a number of cities and towns - including Providence and McKee's hometown of Cumberland - had not reported 100% of their votes. Cities and towns also have until noon Wednesday to deliver any mail ballots placed in drop boxes.

But Foulkes later tried to call McKee to concede, but the governor - mid victory speech - did not take her call.

Asked during a brief interview if she planned to endorse McKee, she said "I have no plans on that," but did not rule it out.

"I honestly don't have any regrets," she said of her late surge in the months long campaign. "I feel like we put it all out there and obviously the momentum was ours...I think as people felt the energy of the last week and got to see me live, it just [made] a big difference."

For almost one anxious hour, McKee supporters gathered at the Renaissance Hotel across from the State House,were glued to their cell phones as results came in showing Foulkes uncomfortably close, and leading narrowly for awhile.

But as 9 p.m. neared, McKee's lead stretched to almost 3,000 votes with 91 percent of precincts reporting and the mood lifted with the first hoots spreading over the ballroom.

This was the big question leading up to primary day:

Would Gov. Dan McKee be able to hold onto the job he inherited, as lieutenant governor, when then-Gov. Gina Raimondo resigned mid-term to become U.S. Commerce secretary in March 2021?

A McKee loss would make him the first sitting governor to lose a Rhode Island primary since Myrth York beat Gov. Bruce Sundlun in a Democratic primary in 1994, before going on to lose to Republican Linc Almond.

A win by Gorbea would have given her a shot at becoming the first Hispanic governor in Rhode Island's history and the first Puerto Rican-born governor on the mainland.

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Foulkes, who once ran CVS Health's pharmacy empire, was always a wild card, with a glittery resumé as president of Harvard University's Board of Overseers and former top executive at one of R.I.'s largest companies. She has also had a seemingly endless amount of money for ads, including $1,195,000 out of her own pocket.

And she won plaudits for her performance in the two live televised debates.

Gorbea needled Foulkes repeatedly for a $500 contribution in 2014 to U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, which Foulkes called a mistake driven by her company's attempt to reach across the aisle to save the Affordable Care Act.

Dark horse candidate Luis-Daniel Munoz levelled the heaviest criticism of Foulkes, after she hailed her role in the decision by CVS to "put people over profit" and remove cigarettes from the shelves at a cost of $2 billion in lost revenue.

Muñoz's take on the move: "You took cigarettes off the shelves and pushed pills on the street," he said, referring to CVS's role in the opioid crisis.

In the closing days, McKee adopted the attack line, accusing Foulkes of getting rich by "pumping opioids into our homes."

Heading into the final month, it appeared that McKee was in a statistical "dead heat" with Gorbea.

But the last public poll showing the race close was conducted weeks before Gorbea – the state's chief elections officer – was beset with a run of headlines no candidate would want.

The most serious went to the heart of her responsibility as the state's chief elections officer, when it came to light that the Spanish-language displays on new touch-screen vote marking devices used by voters in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls and Woonsocket listed 2018 candidates.

Gorbea blamed the state's Board of Elections and the company she hired to provide the new ExpressVote machines.

But the controversy shadowed her through the final week of the primary race, along with alleged campaign law violations in the "Who's Worse?" ad that her backers at the Latino Victory Fund aired on her behalf.

McKee had his oft-repeated data points: lowest unemployment rate in the state's history, fastest pandemic recovery in the Northeast and second fastest in the nation. His pitch: "leadership when it matters most."

But McKee was dogged throughout by the controversy surrounding his administration's award of an education consulting contract worth up to $5.2 million to the newly created ILO Group to help reopen schools despite a rival firm's offering to do the work for millions of dollars less.

Many of ILO's leaders worked for Chiefs for Change, an education nonprofit headed by Mike Magee, who served on McKee’s transition team and helped found the governor’s mayoral charter schools in Cumberland.

The disclosure that federal investigators served an ILO related subpoena on the University Club earlier this summer led Gorbea to say: the McKee administration is "so corrupt" the FBI is investigating.

As moderator of the last televised debate, WPRI's Tim White reminded the candidates: there is no evidence that McKee is the target. But McKee did himself no favors by refusing to say if his administration had been subpoenaed.

McKee's opponents also pounded him for his tie-breaking vote as chairman of the state's economic development agency on a $60-million public-financing package for the proposed soccer stadium in Pawtucket, before a report surfaced that predicted the stadium would not bring in enough tax revenue to cover the debt.

In the final week, with mud flying in all directions, Gorbea and Foulkes even blamed McKee for the Labor Day highway flooding that closed down Route 95.

But most of the state's unions – including the construction trade unions – were in McKee's corner, knocking on doors and spending big money on ads and mailers for him.

By the time they filed their last pre-election reports, the candidates had spent more than $11.2 million to become Rhode Island's next governor.

Foulkes was nearing $4.1 million; McKee, close to $2.2 million; Gorbea, $2.1 million; Brown, $580,000 and Munoz, $19,128.

Ashley Kalus, the Republican frontrunner, spent close to $2.3 million, most of it her own money.

The Democratic primary winner will face whoever wins the GOP contest – Kalus or Jonathan Riccitelli – in the November general election, when there will also be three independents on the ballot: Elijah J. Gizzarelli, Zachary Baker Hurwitz and Paul A. Rianna Jr.

On primary day, an affiliate of the Democratic Governors Association aired an ad attacking Kalus, the presumptive GOP nominee, as an "out of touch" candidate "backed by anti-choice extremists," who "recently moved to Rhode Island."

Kalus, who moved to R.I. last year, tweeted this response to the Alliance for a Better Rhode Island ad: "The D.C. insiders and elites are already attacking me on television on behalf of Governor McKee.

"They are obviously scared. They want to distract you from McKee’s failed record. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to change the course in Rhode Island. #LetsGo."

McKee's supporters began gathering about 7:30 in the ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel across from the State House.

And one of the earliest arrivals was one of McKee's former opponents.

Joel Hellman, 63, of East Providence, ran against McKee four years ago for lieutenant governor as a moderate, he said. Hellman lost, as did several other candidates. But after the election, Hellman said, McKee invited all of his opponents out to lunch.

"He wanted to hear all of our best ideas," said Hellman, "and that's why I'm supporting him now, because someone actually asked me for my opinion. That's how we're going to solve the problems of this state, with everyone sitting down and listening to each other."

Another McKee supporter at the Renaissance Hotel was Dola Ade, a registered nurse from East Providence, who moved to Rhode Island from Nigeria more than 26 years ago.

She supports McKee, she said, because "he's the only governor I've seen who reached out to the minority community to help their small businesses succeed. That is what is really important.

"He recognizes -- and understands -- that we have different cultures here. I've seen him go to other churches and mosques and I've never seen that happen. So this is life history to me."

With reports from Tom Mooney

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Rhode Island primary 2022 live results for governor