RI Election Preview: Boston Globe's Dan McGowan

BB is joined by Dan McGowan for a final-week look at Rhode Island’s primary races. They unpack turnout, the Providence mayoral contest, the governor’s race, and the down-ballot battles for lieutenant governor and attorney general.

In this episode

• Why turnout and early voting may decide the election
• The momentum behind David Morales in the Providence mayoral race
• Whether Brett Smiley’s incumbent coalition can hold
• How Morales has broadened his appeal beyond progressive voters
• The Washington Bridge and opioid crisis as central issues in the governor’s race
• Why Dan McKee’s closing message may matter with undecided voters
• The crowded lieutenant governor race and its two apparent front-runners
• The attorney general contest, campaign dynamics, and the importance of endorsements
• Where to subscribe to Dan McGowan’s Roadmap newsletter

Timestamps

• 00:00 — Final-week election outlook and the importance of turnout
• 01:07 — Why the Providence mayoral race is the most compelling contest
• 02:09 — Early voting, new voters, and the Morales coalition
• 04:34 — Can David Morales expand beyond democratic-socialist support?
• 05:05 — Morales’s positive campaign and voter perceptions
• 06:44 — How a Morales administration could work with either governor
• 09:36 — Why Brett Smiley could still narrowly win
• 10:59 — The governor’s race: Washington Bridge vs. opioid crisis
• 11:41 — Why the bridge issue may be dominating voter sentiment
• 12:52 — Could McKee have made a stronger working-families case?
• 14:37 — McKee’s “grandfatherly” appeal and undecided voters
• 16:20 — Polling, closing ads, and the race for late deciders
• 18:04 — Lieutenant governor: who has a real path to victory?
• 20:18 — Why campaigning for lieutenant governor is uniquely difficult
• 21:25 — Attorney general race: the leading candidates and challengers
• 22:37 — Money, institutional support, and the East Side dynamic
• 24:44 — Candidate temperament and what voters may value in an attorney general
• 25:53 — The potential impact of Peter Neronha’s endorsement
• 27:00 — How to subscribe to Roadmap and final election-week thoughts

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Bill Bartholomew 0:00

Well, it's the home stretch, that's for sure. I mean, early voting's already open and people are definitely engaged in politics in a way that they weren't a month ago. But we still have election day coming up in just over a week, and it is gonna matter in terms of getting people out to vote, uh, in person or otherwise. And that is probably the big theme with most of these uh campaigns that we've been following now for in some cases years. The person who's been at the center of a lot of that coverage doing it and opining on it is Dan McGowan, columnist for the Boston Globe, Rhode Island, and beyond. Uh Dan, thanks so much for your time.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Thanks for having me. Always good to hang out with you. I feel like we do this every uh right before primary uh season for the last, I don't know, going back to 2018 probably. So uh it's it's it's a it's a it's fun to make this a pastime.

Bill Bartholomew 0:46

Absolutely. Yeah, it's a tradition like no other. So that's right. Get the cue of the piano music. Well what do you what do you think the big story is right now heading into the last week?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Uh yeah, I mean you're right, that that uh turnout and sort of you know what what the numbers are gonna look like, what the early votes are gonna look like, I think are probably things to to be paying close attention to. I think I share your uh I think you've said this, you know, to me the the race that is most interesting is probably the Providence mayoral race. Um, I I think you and I might disagree a little bit. I heard you on the radio last week uh uh, you know, sort of uh uh uh pushing the idea that the governor's race is still very, very competitive. I'm not sure I totally agree with that. Uh but uh and that's one of the reasons why I think Providence is more uh competitive. So I'm paying a I'm gonna be paying a lot of attention to what's what happens in Providence. I'm already paying pretty close attention to that early vote. Um and uh and it's I think it's a fascinating race.

Bill Bartholomew 1:49

Everywhere I've gone over the last week, I mean that that that's uh whoa who might sound like a politician, but for the most part and shaker bakes. Exactly right. It's been in a couple of events over the last couple of days, I'll say that. And everyone asks me, what you know, what do you what's what's your take on the the mayor's race, the province mayor's race? Is Morales really gonna win this thing? And all I can say is it comes down to turnout. Is is there anything else that could really have I mean, obviously money and all that, but is there anything else besides just turnout that's gonna impact this race?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, I mean, the the even turnout is so you know suspect. It's not like Brett Smiley is saying, I want to drive down the turnout, right? He wants to get out traditional Democratic primary voters, older primary voters, uh, maybe people who would have been inclined to stay on the sidelines. He may want more people who maybe are are more inclined to vote in a general election um uh than just a primary. But you know, there's no question the reason we're looking at it you know so much about turnout is this narrative. And I think it's a reasonable one, an accurate one, is that uh, you know, David Morales uh certainly seems to have um you know captured the hearts and minds of a lot of particularly young voters, a lot of progressives in this city. And you know, you look at at some of the uh you think the the Morales campaign is really touting this idea that a lot of the folks who have voted early so far um don't have previous voter records in in uh Providence or in Rhode Island, and they think that means that they're that that's a good sign for them. That could be a whole lot of things, right? It it in in some cases it's young people who haven't voted before because they're they literally weren't eligible. In other cases, it's as as you know you've covered really deeply, Bill. It's a lot of people have moved to Providence and to Rhode Island um in recent years. And so that doesn't mean that that you know everybody is a David Morales voter who's never voted before, but I do think it does point to this idea that um David has has certainly caught on in a way that I don't think anybody really thought he would. Certainly I didn't think uh, you know, I thought David was we you and I talked about it many times. I thought David would be a good candidate in this race. I thought he was by far the best of the potential kind of lefty options against Brett Smiley, but they have done a really impressive job of kind of catching on and staying on ever since.

Bill Bartholomew 4:17

Yes, and I wonder how many people are Morales supporters that pr certainly with the with the Hory Alorza former Providence Mayor, Hory Allureza endorsing David Morales, and there being some opposition, I guess, positions or philosophies on schools and some other things even there. I wonder how much Morales is going to be able to, when it's all said and done, has been able to, will be able to broaden out to be more of a populist, if you will, more of a working class kind of guy versus democratic socialism and so on and so forth. Do you think he's done enough to broaden the message?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Well, I you know, I think he what he's done a really good job of to maybe blunt some of the criticism of, oh, you're, you know, you're only sort of a democratic socialist, you're only a defund the police guy, um, you know, things like that. That like he's had to to fight back at this. What he's done to do to counteract that argument um is be relentlessly positive, right? Um, I think that's been one of the really like nice stories about his campaign. Now, you know, there's an underlying kind of um uh bomb throwing that happens in the progressive movement when it comes to going after Mayor Smiley. You know, they're they know what they're doing when they're trying to attack him for you know being too tied to corporate interests or they're attacking his husband. You know, there there is a level of negativity to that. But, you know, David Morales is the I I was thinking about this before I came on, Bill. You know, the the first time you meet David Morales, you the first thing that jumps out has to be is that he's a young guy. He's a you know, you could say, first time you meet him, you say, boy, I don't know if that kid could be the mayor of Providence. Second time you meet him, you say, Boy, you know, he's very likable. He seems to really care about the city. He seems to have the pulse of kind of the working, you know, working families in the city. Third time you meet him, you say, you know, I don't agree with him on everything, but he's pretty smart. He has, you know, he has a thought-out position on lots of different things. And the fourth time you meet him, you say, Boy, I've met him four times now, and he seems, he seems okay to me. Um, you know, and by that point, I think what what David Morales has done a really good job of is um maybe alleviating some fears that he's gonna be this kind of radical, uh, you know, uh uh, you know, uh gonna come in and kind of blow everything up. I think the other thing that he knows, which is really interesting, is that there are gonna be a lot of people in his coalition in Providence who are also gonna vote for Helena Folks. And so he's if he becomes the mayor and Helena Folk becomes the governor, I, you know, I think there's this idea that that boy, you know, it's gonna be this, uh, you know, I'm gonna take on the gov, you know, the the establishment govern uh governor, and you know, we're gonna really take it to the state. He's gonna need to get things done, and he's gonna have plenty of supporters in Providence who also voted for the for for folks. And so it's an interesting crossover thing. Now, he similarly is gonna have people, if Governor McKee were to come back and win this race, there are pl certainly people in Dan McKee's coalition who I think are gonna vote for um for for Morales too. He's in kind of a good spot either way. Brett Smiley is too. I mean, that that's the but what is interesting is I think there will be, you know, inevitably, it's a little bit like new what we've seen in New York, where there's always gonna be a contingent of your movement. Mom Donnie had this in Morales who will be dissatisfied, right? Who will immediately say, Well, you, you know, you caved to the to the the you know traditional Democrats, things like that.

Bill Bartholomew 7:48

Just Tish stays on as police you know commissioner, boom. Now he's he's the worst thing that's ever happened to humanity. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Bingo, right. Um, you know, he's gonna have what what what if if uh Representative Morales does go on to win this race, I think he's gonna have to find ways to work with that, you know, work with the governor and work with the speaker who's from Providence. Um and and yeah, that might go against some things within your coalition, but you get, you know, you start to score early victories, and that's what Mayor Mamdani has done a fantastic job of in New York, which you know, people start people kind of are willing to look past that. You know, I think rational people will say, boy, I like that guy. He seems to be doing a good job. He'll he'll I think he'll keep. I think one of the things if he becomes the mayor, um, that that uh maybe we don't appreciate right now is I think there will be a general kind of earnestness about Representative Morales that will be um uh it'll it'll genuinely seem like he enjoys doing all the community things that the mayors have to do, going out and speaking every night and speaking five times a night and all that kind of stuff. It's not to say Brett Smiley doesn't like that, but I think you know, that useful energy that that David Moral, David Morales is never gonna come across as angry or uh tired of any of this. I think, you know, Brett Smiley's been there for four years now. He does come across as a little more um, a little chip, a little more of a chip on his shoulder now, maybe than he had when he was running 12 years ago, you know, uh uh for mayor the first time.

Bill Bartholomew 9:21

Yeah. Well, it's gonna be really interesting either way. I think it's gonna be an exercise and uh grassroots campaigning at the end of the day for uh in if Morales does pull it off, it'll be one of the best grassroots campaigns that the state has ever seen, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

I completely agree. I think it would be one of the most, I think it'd be the most impressive progressive victory in the in the history of the state. Um that being said, you know, we've talked a lot now about all the what happens if David Morales wins. You know, I would not be surprised at all if we wake up or if at 10:30 or so on a on primary night we come back and Brett Smiley has squeaked by and won the race. You know, I think he has probably earned uh a right to to uh be the mayor for four for four more years in the in the sense that he hasn't he hasn't catastrophically blown anything up. He's an honest guy, all of those kind of things. He just happens to have run into a situation where there's an anti-incumbent sentiment, uh, there's an exciting candidate out there. He's the only progress real progressive candidate that's that's running in a in a in a strong way. I know Sue Anderbois, there are others, but David Morales is the star of the show when it comes to the progressives this cycle. And I think that has really helped him.

Bill Bartholomew 12:58

The governor's got a new ad out today that once again tries to draw in this opioid saga that has they've used, and we I remember I think we could probably go back two years ago to a podcast that you and I did where it was like, this is gonna be Dan McKee's the most incompetent guy ever because of the Washington Bridge, and Helena Folkes killed a bunch of people through opioids because she worked at CVS. That was gonna be the campaign Here We Are a week beforehand, new ad from McKee. That's what it is pointing to. It's a story of somebody who uh they purport that their son uh was a victim of the opioid crisis after going through a mental health crisis. So does that matter to people? That's the question. And and in your what's your take on these sort of out the the major issues, the bridge, the opioids, uh two years later were were the consultants, like the teams, is everybody right that that's what this election is actually about?

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Well, I you know, I I think the interesting thing is that that uh we were you and I, and and certainly I think the vast majority of the rest of the media were right to call it out and say that this is what the race is going to be, and this is clearly what the race has been. There's no there's no question. It's a competence argument from from Helena Folks, and there's an opioid argument from from Governor McKee, and that's the the you know the way this has taken form. We we could have written it all two years ago. Uh we kind of did. And um, you know, what I'm interested in, I mean, look, uh there's gonna be a lot of revisiting uh uh the way this race played out, if in fact it goes on to be a Helena Folks race. I mean, you look at the Channel 12 polling, you can see it clearly. There, you know, Damicy did make up some ground after spending a lot of money going after Helena Folks, but he didn't make up nearly enough. And you look at the people are pretty dissatisfied with the Washington Bridge situation. They don't love the opioid stuff and they don't love CVS necessarily. But um I think the Washington Bridge issue has sort of won the day in a lot of ways. And I wonder, you know, there's a part of me that wonders if if we look back at this and if Governor McKee could get a kind of a do-over, if the way to reinvent himself would have been to run maybe a little bit of the 2020 Ed Barkey campaign, which was, you know, up against Joe Kennedy, you know, up against a progressive, and he sort of took on the progressive mantle. Because I think what you've seen in the last couple of weeks from Governor McKee, better than um uh he's been uh maybe in the in the months and years before this, has been this argument that, you know, I'm the one that fights for working families, I, you know, that's who I am. He just he never quite gained, you know, uh became uh was able to kind of win over that as his own brand, right? Yeah. Um I think he's tried to make that effort in the last couple weeks, and I do think it's successful, but um it it feels a little bit too little, too late. I I just wonder if they had tried to go about this this effort to say, you know, to put us, put him in sneakers and make them kind of lean in to all the things that um are kind of somewhat likable about him, grandfather, you know, those kind of issues. I wonder if that could have helped more than just having to run this kind of relentlessly negative ad. Because I think the number one of the, maybe not the number one, but certainly something that I hear, and you and I, when whenever we talk to, you know, people, we are I think we're both cognizant that we're not necessarily talking to just the average voter all the time. The kind of person who wants to talk to me is going to be somebody who who is politically engaged and that kind of thing. But I feel like constantly the the message is but Governor McKee seems like he's really mad. He seems like he's really angry in the debates, uh, you know, and and he needed to come out and show some fire, but I don't know that the message needed to be. He seems mad, he seems angry. Um and he I don't know that he's been able to square that away.

Bill Bartholomew 16:52

Yeah, I completely 100% agree with that take. And I think one of the, and we're kind of doing a post-mortem here Monday morning quarterback a week after the election, but but I think I think it is meant maybe maybe they'll hear this and pivot. But I I do wonder if it's if it should have been less about opioids and more about work Main Street versus Wall Street. All right, something like whatever it is, somehow find a way to thread that needle. They just didn't. And then the other thing, you nailed the word that uh I've heard from several people, some of the people that that uh you just described that pay attention to politics, but grandfatherly, on the radio debate especially, he came across as, hey, he's he's got it covered. Now I'm I'm sort of again in an outsized or in a sample size of people that are plugged in from a completely different angle than the average voter is going to be. But I'm hearing more and more people say, I was undecided and I'm going McKee. I'm I was go I'm I was undecided and I don't want to go with folks, and less people saying I'm undecided and I'm going with folks. That's again anecdotal, no polling data. But I when I when I'm hearing that in real time and then seeing a University of New Hampshire poll that has what a 50-point spread, no chance that that's accurate. But I don't think it's I don't think it's neck and neck. I think it's probably closer to that 2015-10 number, but uh that's anecdotal. That's just that, but that's where I'm coming. I do agree that the governor's hardly neck and neck with with Helena Folkes right now.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, I mean, I think he got kind of uh and I'm the phrase I'll use is bullied, but I it wasn't because Gene was doing anything uh actually, but Gene, he almost got bullied into saying I'm within the the margin uh last week on WPRO. There's no sign that that's accurate. There's just there's just not been there's no polling that suggests that that's the case. Um I I think the UNH poll was an outlier. Um we should treat it as an outlier. The the Emerson Channel 12 poll um seems more likely from what I've heard internally with the with the folks campaign. It sounds like that's more in line with what um with with the numbers they're seeing. They're at this point, they're tracking every day, so they they have like a pretty good, you know, uh sense of of where they are every single day. You know, I I think the the it's certainly been hard though for for Governor McKee, you know, to to you know, you're gonna close with this message about the the with the opioid, you know, with a with a family. We're all waiting for like where's the the person that looks into the camera and says, you killed my child, or that kind of, you know, um that kind of ad, because those things can be incredibly powerful and they're moving and all that. You know, at this point though, virtually Governor McKee, I think he's clear about it. He's gonna be on, it's gonna, this is gonna be a digital ad, so he's not gonna get on TV with it. I assume he he has saved a little bit of money to go on TV with maybe one final closing message. I do wonder if it'll be maybe like a grandfatherly, as we talked about before, kind of grandfatherly type of ad that you know paints him in a in a positive way. You know, when it's when it comes down to the undecided, I tend to trust that Channel 12 poll, the the leaners uh seem to break that way. And Governor McKee needs them all to go his way, you know. Um and so I agree. I mean, there are certainly people that I've talked to who say, you know, I wasn't sure, and I think I'm gonna go with Governor McKee. The the hard part is that historically incumbents don't get all the undecided. Um in this case, the polling doesn't suggest that the the incumbents are gonna get a bunch of the undecided. And then you look at the undecided, the other numbers with undecided, they don't have a very high opinion of you know the the direction of the state, of the governor's favorability, of those kind of things. And so, you know, I think it's a closer race than 20 points, but um I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's a 10-point race, and and 10 is pretty significant for an incumbent to lose by 10 points would be a massive loss in this in this state.

Bill Bartholomew 20:33

Yeah, it'd be a national story, you'd see a minimum in in coverage in the f in the day after. All right, uh quickly on some of the uh down ballot stuff, the lieutenant governor's race, uh again, depending on which poll you look at. I if we're gonna treat the UNH poll as an outlier on on the governor's race, can we look at it with the same can we look at it in the lieutenant governor's race and you can say, wow, you know, the it's a two-point spread between SICOMS of Oravong, the former mayor of Newport and the sitting Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos. Uh but there's who knows? I mean, the polling in that is is pretty consistent in some ways, but you also saw one poll that if you look to the bottom, Cindy Coyne, the former state trooper, state center, she polled at like two percent, well behind Ross McCurdy, who had like seven grand in his bank account. So I mean his campaign account. So it's it's very unclear, but it does feel like you've got two front runners in the Lieutenant Governor and and Comzovorvong and a progressive option in Andrew Bois. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_00 21:26

I I I think that's accurate. I love I love the people that I talked to last week who were who said there's no way the UNH poll is accurate on the governor's race, but the LG and the AG numbers sound right, which is which is interesting. Um, you know, uh and by the way, I suppose that is entirely possible, but it is interesting that the way people kind of want to frame their races, you know, I think it's right. I think that that Lieutenant Lieutenant Governor Matos and Csycom Zavora Vine have sort of the seem to be the front runners in this race. I wouldn't be surprised to see either of them uh pull ahead and win. I would be surprised to see anybody else win. Councilman Anderbra, Sandy Coyne, uh certainly Ross McCurdy. I I don't think those three uh have much of a chance to to uh pull you know to somehow make a comeback. So I do think it's kind of a two-person race. Um, and you're not gonna see any last-minute, you know, massive shakeups. That's what's so interesting about the lieutenant governor's race. I mean, they spend so much time, and it's understandable. I don't envy candidates for lieutenant governor because you spend so much time trying to convince people uh, you know, something that they just don't believe, which is that the gut the lieutenant governor's office can actually do something. Yeah. Um, you know, most people uh think of that office as the office that you wait until you potentially become the governor or you do virtually nothing. It's not exactly true. We can look at Elizabeth Roberts and you could look at some of the things that Sabina Matos has done. It's not like you're just sitting there doing nothing, but um, you know, it when it comes to campaigns, it tends to be a lot of hyperbole and a lot of I'm gonna reinvent the office. And you know, realistically, it's it probably will look more like nothing than a big thing, no matter who becomes the lieutenant governor.

Bill Bartholomew 23:12

Well said. Um, and and I come I completely agree with that sentiment. It's it's very, very difficult to campaign on because it is it's all aspirational. Look, you know what? The hell let's just turn the lieutenant governor's office into the inspector general's office. I mean, and all of a sudden that's like a serious discussion for two weeks when it's you know, the statutory provisions that would have to be amended for that to even become possibly an option aren't gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

So I seem I seem to remember writing a roadmap about a podcaster who wanted to turn the lieutenant governor's office into a big podcast studio uh would have been a great choice. I I I I don't know who I can't remember that person's name, but yeah, I'm not sure.

Bill Bartholomew 23:51

Perhaps Ed Fitzpatrick has uh once planned to run for lieutenant governor. Uh attorney, attorney general. It's it's uh similarly, it feels like a two-person race. Um, but Jason Knight and Joe Solomon each have constituencies that are very real and very and vote in Democratic primary. So I'm not sure what to make of this. Would you read?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Same thing. Um I I wish I could like fight with you and disagree with you about something. It feels like a Kim O'Huron Keith Hoffman race, but you know, I think Representative um Solomon. Solomon has certainly has his constituency. There's going to be a lot of people who are going to vote for him who are maybe more moderate, who are kind of more traditional. They know the name Solomon, you know, whether it was Anthony Solomon, the treasurer, they knew Joe Solomon, his his father, they know Michael Solomon in Providence. There's a lot of Solomon signs in my neighborhood in Providence because the other Mike Solomon is running for city council. And you know, Jason Knight has crushed it in the debates. Jason Knight is I think he's won, at least all the ones that I've seen. I think he's won or at least been, you know, 1A in everything he's done. He's good at this. He's good on his feet. He's a trial lawyer. He knows what he's doing. Um, and so, you know, it is really interesting. It does the, I think the part of it is both Kim Ahern and Keith Hoffman have the most money. They seem to have the most uh institutional democratic support, though they are dividing it in some ways. You know, there's this battle on the east side of Providence where uh, you know, you have a lot of people who are they both live over on the east side of Providence. I think it's you know, it's it's an interesting thing. It'd be an interesting if they were running in like a state senate race against each other over there. I think that would be a fascinating race. Um, how do how does it translate outside? Keith Hoffman is certainly spending a lot of money and he's trying to kind of put some gum on the shoes of Kim Ahern. I think that is not necessarily working that well, particularly on that east side of Providence. It kind of reminds me, Bill, uh uh forgive me for being a little bit obscure, but um the the there was a council race a bunch of years ago when when uh Helen Anthony defeated Ryan Holt. And uh it was Ward II in the city council, I think it might have been 2018. And uh the the thing that Ryan Holt's a very good guy, he's from my side of the city and and and you know has a family that grew up here. He went to PC. He's a lawyer. Um but they tried to kind of run a little bit of a negative campaign against Helen Anthony, and people said, wait a minute, why are you going after this woman who's accomplished, who's a lawyer, who we know to some degree? And it really backfired Helen Anthony went on, won the race really pretty, pretty comfortably. I do think Keith Hoffman has a little bit of that challenge here. I think there are a lot of people that are saying, wait a minute, I, you know, I'm open to voting for you, Keith Hoffman, but I don't necessarily like you going after Kim Ahern. Um, you know, she seems nice. I see her with her kids in the park, uh, her kid in the park, like that kind of thing. And so uh, you know, I I think it maybe has backfired a little bit, but again, the race isn't just decided by the side of Providence. And so there are other people probably who I assume that this strategy can work, uh, can be working. So I think it's a uh pretty much a coin flip between those two.

Bill Bartholomew 27:06

Yeah, and they both have intangibles. It was Joe Fleming on for for WPRI when the first polling in this race came out months ago and everyone was equal in the race essentially, very, very low, under 15, under 10%. And he said, look, Kim may have an advantage because she's a woman. That may like it may come down. I also think uh Keith Hoffman is um you know, his height and and but but more than anything, it's it the kind kind of the combined package. He's a very intense person. There are some people who who or he can be at least, there's some people who want an attorney general who has that intensity, and they think that that's like probably the most important characteristic. There are other people who might say, but I don't know if I want that. I might prefer a temperament more like Jason Knight. So there's all these weird, impossible to predict things that go into people making a decision, I think, here, that are very real if you even have an idea of who you're voting for, and we know that there are a lot of undecided that probably are gonna look at this the night before the election.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

And don't underestimate, I you know, I don't think Peter Nerona's um, you know, uh a surge of endorsements in this in this political election season necessarily matters deeply in the governor's race or the lieutenant governor's race or the mayoral race where he's endorsed Brett Smiley. But I do think his voice matters when it comes to the attorney general's race. And so, you know, if then in the next 10 days or nine days, you know, you do start to see you you can see Peter Nerona maybe kind of stay a little bit disciplined to some degree and you know, kind of really go and tout Keith Hoffman. I think that could play a significant role because I do think people still, um, you know, the kinds of people who complain about Peter Nerona are people who you who you and I talk to, right? It's it's people who pay very close attention to social media, people who are really hyper-engaged in this. Most people probably don't know that Peter Nerona, you know, tends to, you know, spends a lot of time on social media, a lot of time opining on lots of different things. They just think he's a respectable attorney general who did a good job for eight years and now seems to be supporting somebody. And so I think his voice in this race potentially matters, but uh it you have to take it for what it's worth because you know he also could spend the next week just trashing Governor McKee, and that may not help Keith Hoffman very much.

Bill Bartholomew 29:18

That's right. Nine days to go, a lot of stories in each and every one of them. Uh certainly subscribe to roadmap in general, but make sure you're following Dan's work. Let's get that email out there so I don't butcher it. What do you do if you want to subscribe to roadmap?

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Very simple. RInews at Globe.com, RInews at Globe.com. I will sign you up and you'll start getting roadmap first thing tomorrow morning.

Bill Bartholomew 29:40

It's essential reading to start your day here in southern New England, especially as we enter into the election season proper, which it's kind of now, I guess. This is where it feels like the intensity is starting to pick up.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

I know we've been we've been we've been doing this for years, but it's actually here now.

Bill Bartholomew 29:53

Yeah. People well to to the to go back to what I was saying, this is the first time where I've been out at a couple of events, non political events this weekend, where enough people have asked me my take on the governor's race or something like that, where it's like, okay, this is real. This person who has literally I'm not even sure they do they even know what a governor does, that there is a governor. Now they're asking me about that. We're at that level, so that's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yep, for sure.