House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cruised through the Ocean State on Sunday to stump for underdog governor hopeful Helena Foulkes ahead of the Tuesday primary battle.
Hailing Foulkes as the “full package,” the top Democrat in Congress muscled through the nation’s smallest state during a campaign event in which she touted Foulkes’s job-creating credentials and recounted fondly Foulkes’s late mother, Martha Dodd Buonanno, who was the House speaker’s college roommate.
FILL-IN RHODE ISLAND GOV. DAN MCKEE COULD LOSE SEPT. 13 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY: POLL
“If I didn’t think that Helena would be a great governor of Rhode Island — if I didn’t think that she could win this — I would have never encouraged her to put herself in the arena,” Pelosi proclaimed, per WPRI. Pelosi held back tears when discussing Buonanno, who died of cancer in 2009, as “one of my dearest friends — the first person I met when we both showed up in college.”
Foulkes’s kinship with Pelosi has given her much-needed ammunition at a critical time in the race. The duo appeared before a crowd of some 200 locals at the headquarters of the nonprofit group Farm Fresh Rhode Island.
Recent stumbles by leading heavyweights in the Democratic gubernatorial primary contest have given Foulkes a glimmer of hope that she can pull off an upset victory despite trailing incumbent Gov. Dan McKee and Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea in recent polling.
Gorbea has attracted negative headlines amid reports that voting machines that she oversees as secretary of state had multiple errors during voting, displaying incorrect names on the Spanish ballot.
Meanwhile, McKee has faced criticism for his handling of massive floods that struck the Ocean State last week and has recently been mired in a tiff with CVS over an ad insinuating the company played a role in the opioid crisis.
Pelosi has previously gone to bat for Foulkes, the former president of CVS Health, on the fundraising circuit. Her political action committee even moved money to one backing Foulkes.
MONEY WATCH: @SpeakerPelosi just transferred $20,000 from her political action committee (“PAC to the Future”) to the super PAC supporting @HelenaBFoulkes (“4RI PAC”)
4RI hasn’t done anything publicly yet
Bkg on the Pelosi-Foulkes relationship here: https://t.co/4UF4aH3PCl pic.twitter.com/BoKVYMVMc1
— Ted Nesi (@TedNesi) August 18, 2022
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Foulkes contends she has gained momentum as the race heads into its twilight hours and has referenced internal polling as cause to be optimistic.
Whoever wins Tuesday’s primary election is likely to win in November, given Rhode Island’s heavily Democratic lean.
