Primary Rarity: Sitting Governor Loses

Rhode Island Democrats just showed their sitting governor the door. Business executive Helena Foulkes unseated Gov. Dan McKee in the party's gubernatorial primary on Wednesday, the AP reports. This is the first time in eight years that any governor has been toppled in a primary. In 2018, then-Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer was defeated in the GOP primary by then-Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who went on to lose to Democrat Laura Kelly in the general election. The last Democratic governor to fall in a primary was Hawaii's Neil Abercrombie, reports NBC News. In 2014, he lost heavily to then-state Sen. David Ige, who went on to serve two terms as governor.

Foulkes, a former CVS executive, narrowly lost to McKee in 2022. On live TV, he refused to take her concession call. In this year's campaign, Foulkes buried him on TV spending and leaned hard on voter anger over his handling of Providence's Washington Bridge shutdown, which remains under construction three years later, NBC reports. Polls had shown deep disapproval of McKee's decision to close the key commuter route, even as he insisted safety came first.

Backed by connections to Democratic heavyweights including Nancy Pelosi, Foulkes, whose grandfather and uncle served as US senators, now heads into November as the strong favorite in a state that hasn't sent a Republican to the governor's office since 2010. The AP notes that another Democratic incumbent was defeated in a primary Wednesday. Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, 47, lost to 27-year-old democratic socialist David Morales, who was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders.