Talk Elections

If the 2012 election for congress was being held today and the candidates are David Cicilline, the Democrat and John Loughlin, the Republican for whom would you vote, Cicilline or Loughlin?

47% John Loughlin
32% David Cicilline

Once again, if the 2012 election for congress was being held today and the candidates are David Cicilline, the Democrat and Brendan Doherty, the Republican for whom would you vote, Cicilline or Doherty?

46% Brendan Doherty
33% David Cicilline

This survey was conducted by Fleming & Associates exclusively for WPRI-TV and WNAC-TV by telephone between May 13, 2011, and May 15, 2011, of 300 registered voters in Rhode Island's First Congressional District. The overall margin of error is ±5.7%.

http://www.wpri.com/generic/news/politics/local_politics/wpri12-may-2011-poll-campaign-2012

     Don't know much about this firm, though those are amazingly bad numbers for a Democrat in Rhode Island. Any reason that Cicilline would be so unpopular?

I would say because he's gay but I'm sure that's not a strike in Rhode Island.

Providence is in a major fiscal hole.  He was mayor for 8 years until 5 months ago and is taking blame for that.

He was elected many times as an openly gay man so that has nothing to do with it.

Fleming & Associates is a Rhode Island-based polling firm that has a lot of experience polling Rhode Island elections for WPRI-TV, Providence's CBS affiliate.  Their polling usually is okay, though they often split a statewide sample and release RI-01 and RI-02 subsamples for congressional polls.  This poll appears to be a 300-RV poll of RI-01 RVs only, with a MoE of +/-5.7% - a little higher than for your typical 400 RV poll.

Nope. It's because Providence is in extreme fiscal peril. It's already being floated around that the city may wind up filing for bankruptcy, which as you can imagine, is very bad news. Blame for this is being squarely put upon Cicilline's head.

Compounding matters for Cicilline, it's being alleged that he was actively trying to hide Providence's financial woes to keep his congressional campaign from sinking. Specifically, Cicilline filed false finance reports to the state as late as Q4 2010. Millions of dollars are currently unaccounted for in city accounts.

Cicilline has been desperately trying to push the line that Providence's woes are a result of former Gov. Carcieri, but his fellow Providence Democrats aren't buying it. Recently, they referred the case to the state Attorney General for investigation.

I don't expect a Republican to pick up this seat, because I don't expect Cicilline to be able to run for re-election. Dude is headed for a prison cell.

Occupational hazard for a mayor of that city, no?

Yup.  Good old Mayor Buddy Cianci (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Cianci).  Actual criminal convictions never seemed to hurt his career, and he still might try to mount another comeback after 2012.  Corruption is a time-honored Providence tradition.  Some jail time might ultimately do Cicilline some good with the Providence electorate, as bizarre as that sounds.

How does someone win an election and a few month's later is losing by double digits?

Gross financial mismanagement to the point where your successor sends pink slips to every Providence teacher would do that.  A better explanation from Politico, here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52081.html

Should be an easy R+1 if he isn't thrown out in a primary, which is ironic considering how well Obama is likely to do in Rhode Island next year.

  John Loughlin is a good candidate, he has done well in RI right?

If Cicilline somehow gets the nod, he could very well benefit from a divided Republican primary with Doherty and Loughlin. I don't know if Doherty will win though --- he's not a politician, and could run into tough situations when having to answer questions about Medicare or abortion.

I agree with other people in that Cicilline is toast in a primary, though. DCCC has to be hoping for someone to run against him right now.

Helps that he did quite badly in the general election too, of course.

Anthony Gemma is probably the best bet IMO.


John Loughlin (Cicilline's 2010 opponent) isn't exactly an all-star candidate. He made remarks calling Social Security a ponzi scheme (which Cicilline bombarded the air-waves with.) These poll results are a direct response to Providence's mounting problems, which have come to light shortly after Cicilline left office.

(Forgot cinyc posted a link on this already.)

Gosh, remember when Patrick Kennedy retiring meant that a competent, uncontroversial Democrat could hold the seat easily for a lifetime?

A competent, uncontroversial Democrat would though and that's what'll probably eventually end up happening.

http://blogs.wpri.com/2011/12/15/poll-61-back-pension-law-chafee-cicilline-approval-in-20s/


If I had a more prominent role within the Democratic Party in RI (I have zero, unless you count a father who serves as an Independent Town Councillor in a town with a year round population of 6,000 who the local Democratic Party hates. I don't count that), I would have told them that re-nominating Cicilline would be a stupid, stupid idea. Even back in May/June, his approval ratings were going down the sewer the more information came out about his tenure as Providence Mayor.

I coincidentally took a class for my MPA program last semester with Brendan Doherty, the likely GOP nominee. He was a nice guy, I only talked to him once or twice, but he was obviously very analytic, smart, and thoughtful. Not your usual Republican. If he beats Loughlin, I suspect he has at least a 50% chance of taking the general election. The polls seem to show the possibility, if for no other reason than Cicilline's unpopularity.

Why is Chafee so unpopular? What are the odds of him being reelected?

Chafee's been unpopular since the day he was elected. Remeber, he only won with 34% of the vote or so -- not exactly a landslide. Republicans think he's an out of touch, bumbling goofball who reluctantly think he did two good things by passing a voter ID law and pension reform (the former was unncessary and terrible, IMO, while the latter was painful but necessary).

Democrats hate him because they think he's a bumbling goofball who occasionally holds the correct position on social issues that don't matter too much (i.e. gay marriage) when it comes to the economy, and think he sold liberals out because of Voter ID and Pension reform.


Luckily for Chafee, the state of RI has a LOT of bumbling goofballs -- that has to be where his approvals come from.

http://news.providencejournal.com/politics/2012/01/doherty-praises-loughlin-calls-cicilline-out-of-touch.html


See, quotes like calling Cicilline a "mouthpiece for out of touch liberal interests" is NOT how you win RI-01, and unfortunately cuts right into my previous assessment of Doherty as thougtful and anlalytic.

There's a lot of self-identified liberals in RI-01. It's Providence. If you run a bitter campaign against Cicilline (Doherty does not need to do that, in my opinion), Cicilline can try and use his money to turn Doherty into a bogeyman for right-wing special interests. It's the kind of campaign Cicilline probably wants to wage.

Any hope he gets primaried?

Cicilline? Not likely. Somebody would have stepped up by now. There's a LOT of Democrats unhappy with David, but few have the money to seriously compete with him. He has token opposition, but there's little chance anyone seriously gives him a fight.

Don't know if anyone else has posted an RI-1 thread since January, but whatever.

I think I was right in my assessment! Cicilline has essentially turned a double-digit deficit (a DDD, if you will) into a 5-7 point lead according to public and internal polling from his campaign. Doherty has run an absolutley TERRIBLE campaign...The guy was essentially quiet all summer, very few ads, and Cicilline merged from a bitter primary against Anthony Gemma (DINO) who falsely accused his campaign of voter fraud. Cicilline wound up winning by 20+.


Cicilline is doing the same thing Whitehouse did to Chafee in 06 -- tying Doherty to congressional republicans, and national issues such as social security and Medicare reform. For as slimy as Cicilline seems to be personally, the guy is an outstanding politician, and has outmanuevered Doherty in every step of this race.


I'll call it now -- Cicilline hangs on and wins by 10 or so. Dems get a much-needed hold in this seat.