September 14, 2010
Polls are Closed Half an Hour 'Til Poll Closing
Consider this an open thread for observations & predictions for primary day...
[11:29] Incumbent Democrat Michael Pinga (who upset former Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steven Alves in the last election) holds on to beat his challenger Peter Calci in District 9, 52.8% - 47.2%.
[11:26] Lombardo over Conti in Johnston Senate District 25, by 13 votes.
[11:10] Incumbent Democrat Kenneth Vaudreuil loses to James McLaughlin in District 57 (Central Falls/Cumberland), 52.5% - 47.5%.
[11:06] Incumbent Democratic Rep. Christopher Fierro loses to Robert Phillips in District 51, 53.3% - 46.7% (h/t Brassband).
[10:58] In the Republican primary in Senate District 36, William Connelly beats Michael Riley 52.3% - 47.7%.
[10:55] Doreen Costa has won the Republican Primary in District 31 with 63.6% of the vote, over James Halley and Ann Marie Marshall.
[10:51] With 5 of 6 precincts in, incumbent Republican State Rep. Jack Savage has a 70-30 lead over challenger Stephanie Sivalingham.
[10:44] Incumbent Democratic State Representative Joseph Almeida has lost to Leo Medina 51.9% - 48.1%. Almeida was a regular of sponsor of lots of progressive legislation; there's not any strong pattern emerging in these results.
[10:37] Incumbent Democrat Representative Peter Wasylyk losing to Raymond Hull in Providence 59.2% - 40.8% with 8 of 9 precincts in. No idea what the implications are on this one.
[10:29] Justin wanted something unpredictable: District 21 Incumbent Senator Leo Blais has lost to Nicholas Kettle in the Republican primary, 51.3%-48.7%
[10:23] Incumbent conservative Democrat Doug Gablinske loses to Richard Morrison in District 68, 46.7% - 53.3%
[10:19] On the other hand, in district 35, incumbent Michael Rice who I believe had a pretty good reputation amongst progressives has lost to Spencer Dickinson 53.4%-46.6% who ran as a folksy common-sense Democrat for Lieutenant Governor four years ago.
[10:15] Progressives flex their muscle: Teresa Tanzi beats incumbent David Caprio in district 34, 57.8% - 42.2% (setting the stage for a matchup with Tim Burchett).
[10:11] Democratic Rep. Al Gemma in big trouble in Warwick, down 37-63 with 7 of 9 precincts in.
[10:03] With 58% of precincts reporting, it will be very surprising if it's not Robitaille, Rogers, and Zaccaria on the Republican statewide side.
[10:01] One incumbent legislator in trouble: Michel Rice is losing to Spencer Dickinson 46-54 in District 35 (South Kingstown), with one precinct left to report.
[9:51] The free-for-all Democratic primary in Johnston is coming down to Frank Lombardo vs. Giovanni Conti. They're separated by one vote, with only one precinct left to report.
[9:48] Same 33% as the previous item: CICILLINE 36.3% LYNCH 22.1% GEMMA 21.3% SEGAL 20.3%: KILMARTIN 41.7% ARCHAMBAULT 35.7% FERNANDEZ 22.6%: LANGEVIN 5.6% DENNIGAN 35.2% GRECO 9.2%
[9:45] OK, real numbers now: 33% of precincts in: ROBITAILLE 66.7% MOFFITT 33.3%: ZACCARIA 55.9% CLEGG 21.4% GARDINER 13.1%
[9:37] 7% of precincts in: ROBITAILLE 65.6% MOFFITT 34.4%: ZACCARIA 53.5%, CLEGG 22.7% GARDINER 14.4%.
[9:32] From AR's news that will be stale in about 5 minutes bureau: The 4 precincts that are in from the official BOE tally are from Johnston, Coventry, and 2 from Portsmouth.
[9:28] Live numbers are up on the BOE website...
[9:00] Polls are closed. Anyone have an exit poll they want to leak?
[8:53] Patrick's comment of "All favorites win" reminds me to ask: did I miss the Projo endorsements list, or did they just not do them?
[8:46] Ted Nesi of WPRI-TV's campaign blog notes that Politico has picked up the John Robitaille/Frank Caprio story.
Predictions at around 8:45 pm:
Lynch and Lombardi, both narrowly.
Kilmartin nominated for AG.
Loughlin easily wins R nomination for Gov.
I think low turnout benefits the underdogs, but I'm going to predict business as usual in RI and hope I'm wrong. All favorites win.
House D1: Cicilline
House D2, Dem: Langevin
House D2, Rep: Zaccaria
Prov. Mayor: Lombardi
Lt. Gov, Dem: Roberts
AG, Dem: Kilmartin
Posted by: Patrick at September 14, 2010 8:49 PM"Loughlin easily wins R nomination for Gov. . ."
. . . which would be quite an accomplishment, as he's running for the R nomination for Congress, which, upon further review, is actually the race that he will win, handily.
Posted by: brassband at September 14, 2010 8:50 PMIf I had to make predictions, Cicilline, Robitaille, Zaccaria, Costantino
Posted by: Mario at September 14, 2010 9:10 PMI enjoyed the 8:53 comment by Patrick.....regarding Projo's list...I tried checking it this a.m. to no avail!!
Posted by: IndepedentWoman at September 14, 2010 9:27 PMGranted, only 7% of precincts have reported, but the results already lead me to wonder: Can Rhode Islanders do anything politically unexpected? Or do we settle on the storyline early and just go along? Or alternately, are the constituencies so firm that we know who will get what percentage of the vote to high accuracy?
Posted by: Justin Katz at September 14, 2010 9:39 PMRegardless of how many precincts have reported, Anchor Rising makes the following calls:
Democrat Governor: Caprio
Democrat Treasurer: Raimondo
Republican Secretary of State: Taylor
Republican AG: Wallin
Republican Treasurer: King
Hey, it's more art than science.
Posted by: Justin Katz at September 14, 2010 9:45 PMYoung gets the same amount of votes as people who turned out at the last Tea Party rally, 1200-1700.
Posted by: Swazool at September 14, 2010 9:52 PMJustin, I shoulda stuck with your method!
Posted by: brassband at September 14, 2010 10:01 PMLooks like a really happy night for Kara Russo. Not because she's winning anything, but because she now won't have to marry Chris Young.
Posted by: Patrick at September 14, 2010 10:10 PMDid Rep. David Caprio has lose his House seat?
Ch. 12 (well, 64) is reporting that several incumbent Dems. have lost tonight.
Posted by: brassband at September 14, 2010 10:16 PMLooks like Gablinkski is gone too.
Posted by: steve at September 14, 2010 10:25 PMLooks like Rep. Chris Fierro (Dist. 51) is way behind challenger Bob Phillips in Woonsocket, with a little less than half the votes counted.
Posted by: brassband at September 14, 2010 10:47 PMWow was I off on Young. I just looked and he had 333 with 97% reporting. I would love to see him get exactly twice that by the end of the night. 666 might be a message from God.
Posted by: Swazool at September 14, 2010 10:49 PMThe race in Dist. 51 is over -- Phillips defeated Rep. Fierro, 57% to 43%.
Posted by: brassband at September 14, 2010 10:49 PMFrom the wpri.com blog:
"10:45 p.m. | WRNI’s Scott MacKay says the nine R.I. House incumbents who lost their seats tonight could also put House Speaker Gordon Fox’s leadership in jeopardy:
The nine [are] Michael Rice of South Kingstown, David Caprio of Narragansett, Doug Gablinske of Bristol, Peter Wasylyk of Providence, Kenneth Vaudreuil of Central Falls, Chris Fierro of Woonsocket, Mary Ann Shallcross Smith of Lincoln, Joseph Almeida of Providence and Al Gemma of Warwick."
This could get interesting. There seems to be some degree of "throw the bums out", and some business as usual. I guess we'll see if the state GOP can make hay with some of these results.
Posted by: Patrick at September 14, 2010 11:14 PMI only missed Shallcross Smith, so far in the main post!
it's never going to change in this state the unions dominate,they get out and vote, some fringe votes and the rest ignore politics, to the point of not even knowing who the candidates are. most i work with at a big human service agency could not name a single person beyond carcieri or cicciline and they had no idea that patrick kennedy was not running again.
none!!! not clue and they don't even care that they don't pay attention, but they pay and complain and pay and complain. most don't listen to AM radio, they don't read the projo and even less read any blogs. i have a neighbor that put up a schadone sign bit had no idea who he was.just a local business guy they said, no clue he was already their rep, none/ that why the low turn out, no one cares to vote, they could not even tell you where they should vote.
it sick in this area of ri,looks like south county has somewhat of a clue, maybe they can save the rest of us drowning in pure greed and ignorance in North Prov.
Ray Hull in House District 6 has been a friend of mine for 20 years or so-we can expect a Democrat in the mold of Lou Raptakis(too bad he lost) or John Brien-definitely not in the "progressive" camp.
We had a good grassroots campaign against an incumbent who took things for granted and seemed to consider his job a sinecure.
Ray supports 2nd Amendment rights and e-Verify.
He also has a great reputation as an honest and hardworking police officer for 24 years.We occasionally worked together years ago.
Hard to believe Almeida lost,especially to a candidate who seemed to have some serious problems dogging him from past caampaigns-I'd have thought Almeida had a "safe" seat.Well,they said this wasn't a year for incumbents.
Cicilline's narrow margin of victory causes one to hope that John Loughlin can deeat him in the general.
Tim Burchett vs.Teresa Tanzi,a "progressive"-that oughta be a slugfest,considering Tim's tenacity and intelligence-he doesn't do anything halfway.
Posted by: joe bernstein at September 15, 2010 1:15 AMRay Hull got my vote. Since progressive candidates are as hard to find as Republicans in NP, I'd just as soon give the new guy a chance. If only Rubbers had a credible opponent...
Posted by: rhody at September 15, 2010 2:11 AM"Teresa Tanzi beats incumbent David Caprio in district 34"
This is doubly confounding because David's campaign would have also benefited from the name exposure of his brother's campaign.
"Regardless of how many precincts have reported, Anchor Rising makes the following calls:
Democrat Governor: Caprio
Democrat Treasurer: Raimondo
Republican Secretary of State: Taylor
Republican AG: Wallin
Republican Treasurer: King"
Whew! Fortunately, the voters pulled A.R. back from the limb that it was out on ...
"Ray supports 2nd Amendment rights and e-Verify."
That's funny how he snuck in under the communists (progressives) noses-at least for 2 years.
The state is still doomed though as these results show. We'll beat out New Jersey within the next decade for the gold medal in the coveted Worst Property Tax in America competition.
Oh I should add that getting rid of that blatant racist scum Joe "seven bankruptcies and counting" Almeida was another brief breath of joy. Having garbage like this on the finance commitee shows what a joke RI is.
Oh and bye bye to open communists Chris Fierro and Mike Rice too.
No tears shed for the Al Gemma forced retirement party either.
Posted by: Patrick at September 15, 2010 9:40 AMTommy-Ray wasn't involved in politics at all until he got tired of "phantom" representation by a career legislator and a bunch of us got together to buck the powers that be.
Better check out who Almeida's replacement is.I find out he runs some kind of "immigrant advisory" service.
When I was an INS agent we busted a number of those for running serious fraud operations.
I sure don't support Joe Almeida,but this guy could be possibly worse.The one thing is,he hasn't got the juice Almeida did as Deputy Majority Leader.
rhody-don't hold Ray being a friend of mine against him-he's a MUCH nicer person.
Seriously,he's a man who gets involved in his community and works as a volunteer on the Providence Fire Canteen which responds to all major fires and disasters to provide aid to first responders.
Really, what's progressive about Waslyk? Constituent service is my priority, and he wasn't getting the job done.
Ruggerio is the biggest union fat cat in the GA, and yet those who complain the loudest about union influence never call HIM on it. Sorry, Dom, it takes more than just flashing your union card to earn my vote, as Waslyk found out.
Wasylyk is an attorney and his only claim to being a "progressive" is voting against e-Verify.
wasylyk came by my door despite the yard sign and told me he voted against in state tuition for illegal aliens-I advised him it never came to a vote and he kinda did the "homina-homina" routine.
Heck,the guy voted less times since 2007 than anybody in the House except McCauley,SanBento,Williamson(now gone)and one other rep whose name escapes me.
Even Steve Ucci voted more times in spite of getting chemotherapy over a period of time.
Ruggerio didn't get my vote this year-a lot of good that did.Laborers' Union honcho-that carries just a LITTLE weight in RI I guess.His nickname is embarrassing.There was a guy on my old job they called "Cementhead"and that's better than "Rubbers".
Two years ago Christine Spaziano ran against him,but I never heard of her until election day.
Wasylyk didn't go down over politics-it was about taking care of responsibilies.