In Brief:
- A left-wing challenger beat the incumbent mayor for the Democratic nomination in Providence.
- The Morales campaign tapped into a network of tenant organizers and volunteers and won big margins in renter-heavy neighborhoods.
- The outgoing mayor, Democrat Brett Smiley, has declined to endorse him.
In April, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley vetoed an ordinance capping annual rent increases for most apartments. The Providence City Council fell one vote short of overriding the veto, and for a short time the measure seemed dead.
But it wasn’t. Last month, its backers defeated Smiley in the Democratic primary and are poised to take a majority on the City Council. That’s due partly to the lefty wave that has boosted socialist candidates for local office from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and partly to the growing power of tenants and tenant unions in Providence.
David Morales, a 28-year-old Rhode Island state representative who grew up in Providence public housing, is the first candidate in the city to ever defeat an incumbent mayor in a primary. His campaign was centered on housing issues and the high cost of rent, along with investing in public schools and protecting immigrants. Hispanic and Latino residents account for 45 percent of Providence’s population, its largest single demographic. Most of Providence’s 200,000 residents are also renters, and the average cost of rent has risen by more than 40 percent since 2020. Morales is facing a Republican opponent, Dave Talan, in the November general election, but he is favored to win in the heavily Democratic city. He has promised to sign a rent stabilization ordinance in his first months in office if he wins.
Morales was elected to the state House in 2019 and began putting his mayoral campaign together early last year. At that time, Zohran Mamdani had not yet won the New York City mayoral primary and provided a playbook for left-wing municipal campaigns. But progressive groups in Providence, like Reclaim Rhode Island, had been advocating for renter-friendly housing policies and investments for years, forming new tenants unions and tapping into a history of tenant organizing in the city. The campaign and those groups saw an opportunity in each other…