Been a lurker here for a while. Thought I'd comment (although it's mostly been answered)!
RI has similar demographics to Massachusetts but with more Italians, Catholics (more socially conservative) and fewer wealthy areas (meaning it was more receptive of Trump's economic populism). Extremely Italian mid-size middle/working class towns like Johnston and West Warwick managed to vote for Trump after voting for Obama by huge margins because of this. Then there's the WASP factor (White anglo-saxon protestant, think ME-02 or eastern Connecticut) that voted for Trump in huge margins, that you don't see too much in Massachusetts but is common in western and southern Rhode Island.
These differences are also why RI voted for Bernie in the primary while Mass voted for Hillary.
Comparing RI to MA Italian vs Irish descent according to Wikipedia last demographic demographics(not sure if the demographic breakdowns in the Wikipedia article are from 2010 or 2014.)
MA(% of ancestry group)
Irish: 23% of the Population
Italian: 14% of the Population
RI:(% of ancestry group)
Irish: 19% of the population
Italian 19% of the population
The major ancestry groups in RI seem to be a bit more distributed across the state compared to MA (except the Irish, and the English outside of the inner Boston metro). In MA, southern Bristol is a Portuguese stronghold, Italians are a plurality in a few north of Boston towns, west-central MA has a lot of French, the eastern Cape and western Mass have lots of English, the Springfield area has quite a few Poles, and the South Shore is arguably the most Irish area in the country. In RI, the overall county percentages for ancestry are lower (no counties over 30% for a single ethnic group), and most towns are 10-25% Irish/Italian/French/English, much (several MA towns are over 40% Irish/Italian).
