With the 2024 election in the books, we’re on the fast-track to the holidays … and the quiet phase of a statewide election looming in 2026. Welcome back to my weekly column. You can follow me through the week on threads and what we used to call the twitters. Here we go.

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: The conclusion of the 2024 election season offered a split-screen in Rhode Island. On one hand, General Assembly incumbents enjoyed almost complete success, with the Democratic super-majority remaining unchallenged. Republicans gained one seat in the RI House (to hold 10 of 75 seats) and the GOP’s five-member RI Senate presence may shrink by one, pending a recount in a Warwick race. But not even the sway of Rhode Island Democrats could stem the Donald Trump wave that rolled across America. The Republican president-elect got 42% of the vote here, exceeding his performance in 2016 (38.9%) and 2020 (38.6%), and he won 13 Ocean State communities, up from 11 four years ago, notably including the previous Democratic bastion of Woonsocket (and Ben Berke saw it coming in Fall River). The outcome was dramatically different from the imagined Electoral College maps shared by Democrats on social media with varying degrees of optimism. But was it really a surprise that voters took out their anger over inflation on the party that held the White House? A February 2023 report warned Democrats that the economy was a top concern and “our brand is pretty damaged” in areas hit by deindustrialization in the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. It added: “Voters are both cynical about what we are saying now, and unaware of all that Democrats have accomplished that will directly benefit them.”

2. FEDERAL JOBS: It will take time to evaluate the effect of the Trump administration on life in Rhode Island. But the switch from a Democratic to a Republican administration in the White House will spark turnover in federal jobs in Rhode Island. That raises the question of who will become U.S. attorney (and whether the current one, Zachary Cunha, will pursue a 2026 run for Attorney General. He was non-committal on that question during an interview in May.) Don’t be surprised if some past and current GOP lawmakers are eyeing various federal posts. U.S. Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse will continue to have input on the process, even with their move into the Senate minority.

3. PROGRESSIVE WINNER: State Rep. Megan Cotter (D-Exeter) scored an eight-point win over former GOP Rep. Justin Price, in a conservative-leaning district won by Donald Trump, in the marquee legislative race of 2024. Cotter said her strategy was based on recounting her efforts as a lawmaker, aggressively knocking on doors, and drawing on the support of a community coalition, the Working Families Party, and House Speaker Joe Shekarchi. “Sometimes it takes a village, and sometimes you have to build the village,” Cotter said.

Here are some highlights from our interview on Political Roundtable:

***Although completely unsurprised by Trump’s win, Cotter said she was the top vote-getter in Richmond and she said there was a blue wave on the bottom of the ticket in the town encompassing races for School Committee and Town Council.

***What’s wrong with the Democratic Party: “Nationally, I don’t think anybody should be surprised. It feels like the national parties left the working class a long time ago. So I think we need to start at the bottom and work our way back up. And I knocked on so many doors and talked to so many people that were voting for both me and Donald Trump. And they used to be Democrats. Now they’re Independents. Now they’re Republicans. The party failed these folks, and we need to, we need to fix that.”

***How she addressed voter anxiety about inflation: “Well, one of the first things that I would say at the door is, I’m your state representative and I’m here to talk about local issues, not federal issues because I didn’t want to get into the whole Harris versus Trump debate and people respected that. So I talked a lot about the issues that impact us every day, what we can do at the state. And really, I wanted to listen to what their issues were. And there are a lot of things that we can do at the state level. We can help lower the cost of prescription drugs. That’s really impacting seniors in a terrible, terrible way. There’s a lot of other things that we can do that we have to tackle.”

4. SOUTH OF THE BORER: While some Americans talk about voting with their feet when they don’t like a political outcome, storied Rhode Island political strategist Jeff Britt actually did it. Last December, Britt bought a home in Buenos Aires, and although he maintains his Florida residence, Britt said the specter of a second Trump presidency was an important element in his decision to spend more time in Argentina. “It was a big factor in feeling better about my environment,” Britt told me by phone this week from South America. Britt was a longtime Republican until he cited Trump and anti-Muslim sentiment in leaving the GOP in 2016. Now, he’s slowly learning Spanish while keeping an eye on Rhode Island politics from afar. Britt said he learned all he needed to know about Trump when as a candidate in 2015 he mocked a disabled reporter -- an ugly pattern of behavior, he said, that has been repeated multiple times. While inflation animated many voters, Britt said his fear is that American voters, by overlooking Trump’s tendencies, “have just shown us who they are.”

5. U.S. SENATE: The GOP takeover of the Senate means U.S. Sen. Jack Reed will lose his chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee. But seniority is the coin of the realm in Congress, and from that perspective, Reed and U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse remain well-positioned. During a post-election interview this week, Whitehouse -- a former state and federal prosecutor -- predicted that the Trump administration will cause more corruption. However, the junior senator also said that Rhode Island fared better in getting federal transportation money under Trump than Barack Obama. Backed by an imposing campaign account, Whitehouse (who has blamed dark money for his big spending) cruised to victory for his fourth term, although the Trump tide seemingly helped GOP rival Patricia Morgan, with 40% of the vote, to exceed the performance of past Republican candidates Robert Flanders (38.3% in 2018) and Barry Hinckley (35% in 2012).

6. RI SENATE: After spending more than half of his 75 years in the General Assembly, Senate President Dominick Ruggerio still commands enough loyalty to maintain his hold on power -- even as he faces questions about his health. That was the takeaway after a contentious Senate Democratic caucus Thursday at the Waterman Grille. Rival factions engaged in extended debates about such topics as whether a two-thirds or majority vote was needed to decide the fact of a motion. So it went as former Majority Leader Ryan W. Pearson of Cumberland wound up on the short side of a 23-9 vote for president (the formal vote is in January). In the months ahead, don’t be surprised if Ruggerio strips Pearson supporters like Dawn Euer of Newport and Alana DiMario of Narragansett of their roles as committee chairs. But as I recently noted, the clash between Pearson and Ruggerio is more of a debate about the Senate’s future leadership -- and that’s an issue with real staying power.

7. BIDEN’S BLUNDER: Lawyer-lobbyist Matt Jerzyk is among the most savvy political strategists in Rhode Island. Here’s his take on what went wrong for Democrats in the presidential race.

“How in the world did a former president who engaged in rebellion, was twice-impeached, convicted of multiple felonies, whose disapproval exceeded 50% on election day and whose policies more than 50% of Americans found to be “too extreme” win back the presidency? Let’s start with the basics. In the states that mattered most, this election was decided by two out of every 100 people changing their mind from Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024. Here are the numbers in the swing states that got to know the candidates the best. Changes for Trump: +0.9% in Wisconsin; +1.4% in Michigan; +2% in Pennsylvania; and +2% in Georgia. This is not a massive shift to the right. This is two out of every 100 people changing their mind.

Who are these folks? Uneducated men? White women? Latinos? We won’t get granular demographic voting information for a few months. However, a few conclusions are clear and they relate to Latino political power and the role of social media in politics. When you break down the available data, what you will find is that young men – white, Black and especially Latino – shifted in a small but meaningful way to Trump. The economy played a central role. For low-income and middle-class America, inflation mattered. Young men in particular have felt economically dazed and overlooked, especially from a Democratic Party focused on abortion and democracy.

Many in this group of voters that shifted to Trump consume content via TikTok and YouTube. High-paid Democratic consultants didn’t have a message for this audience nor did they know how to reach it. Meanwhile, Republicans produced easily digested memes.

For working class whites, this was a “change” election and VP Harris ran as the status quo. But don’t get me wrong -- this is not on her. Harris ran a great campaign, and in just 100 days, she raised the money, picked a good VP, won the debate and made few mistakes. The problem is that Joe Biden didn’t follow through on his commitment to be a transition president and announce his retirement after the mid-terms. He hamstrung the party and denied the opportunity for a primary process that would have let candidates from Harris to Newsome to Buttigieg get breathing room from an extremely unpopular president.

Did racism and sexism have an impact? You bet. Did Biden and Harris try to have it both ways with the Israel/Palestine conflict? 100%. Did Trump take a page from the authoritarian playbook with his fear-baiting and immigrant-blaming rhetoric? All day. But at the end of the day, Democrats need to return to their roots and speak the language of the middle class. Democrats need to understand the tailspin that many Americans have felt since Covid. We need to leave the cozy liberal echo chambers and get to know the other side. Or demographics will be destiny, and this will be the beginning of a long, cold conservative era.”

8. BIDEN’S TRIUMPH: A great joke reveals the truth about something consequential, or so the saying goes. Consider this recent Daily Show segment, for example, about how a verbal gaffe by Joe Biden was commanding attention as huge issues were getting relatively scant notice in the presidential race. Biden’s legacy now includes being the president who helped hand the White House to Donald Trump, in a campaign season dominated by voters’ economic anxiety. Yet as Politico recently reported, “Voters are convinced the economy is worse than it is. It could cost Harris the election.” And writing in The New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann made the case that Biden’s economic policies are transforming America for the better -- even if, in an echo of the criticism that Obama did a poor job selling his economic accomplishments, few people know it: “[O]utside of a limited cadre of activists and policymakers, none of this is the dominant narrative of American politics. Another complaint that people make about politicians is that they are all talk, no action. With Biden, on these issues, it has been almost the opposite: lots of action, very little talk.”

9. HOUSING VOTE: House Speaker Joe Shekarchi didn’t have an opponent this election season, but Shekarchi is claiming victory nonetheless. Narragansett Town Council President Ewa Dzwierzynski, who led the push to pass local legislation overriding housing initiatives coming from Smith Hill, was swept out of office, along with two other councilors. In a statement, Shekarchi said, “When the town councilors enacted these anti-housing laws in recent months, I said they would have to answer to the voters. Well, the voters spoke loudly and clearly on Tuesday, and I support their decision. The housing crisis is not going away and municipalities need to be offering solutions on how to fix it and not try to create obstacles to housing production.” In related news, Ballot Question 3, which will borrow $120 million for housing, passed with almost 66% of the vote. And Warren Town Council President John Hanley, whose challenge to Rep. June Speakman (D-Warren) was based largely on her advocacy for housing, was defeated on a 17-point margin, 58% to 41%.

10. ELECTION WINDFALL: Same as it ever was -- political ads boost revenue as local TV stations. Years ago, there was a campaign promoting the idea of free political ads for candidates, as a way of leveling the playing field and increasing issues-based discourse. But Citizens United-era decisions made that approach untenable.

11. ELECTORAL COLLEGE: Since Trump won the popular vote, there may be fewer Democratic gripes about the Electoral College. If you want to learn more about how the EC was almost eliminated under President Nixon (!), check out this edition of Radiolab (https://radiolab.org/podcast/the-unpopular-vote). Excerpt: “In the 1960s, then-President Lyndon Johnson approached an ambitious young senator known as the Kennedy of the Midwest to tweak the way Americans elect their president. The more Senator Birch Bayh looked into the electoral college, the more he believed it was a ticking time bomb hidden in the Constitution that someone needed to defuse. With overwhelming support in Congress, the endorsement of multiple presidents, and polling showing that over 80 percent of the American public supported abolishing it, it looked like he might just pull it off. So why do we still have the electoral college? And will we actually ever get rid of it?”

12. KICKER: Constitutional Convention, we hardly knew ye. A well-organized opposition effort seemed to tilt the vote against what supporters saw as a good way to counteract Democrat’s stranglehold on Smith Hill. The last ConCon was in 1986, so check back in 10 years, since Question 1 went down in flames this year, on a 62.5% to 37.5% vote.