State Rep. David Morales, a 27-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated Mayor Brett Smiley in the Democratic primary for mayor of Providence on Sept. 9, ending the incumbent’s bid for a second term in Rhode Island’s largest city.
Unofficial results posted by the state’s election night reporting system as of 8:15 a.m. showed Morales with 52.52 percent of the vote to Smiley’s 47.48 percent, or 14,021 votes to 12,678, with all 82 polling locations reporting.
Morales will face Republican David Talan in the Nov. 3 general election. Talan was the only Republican candidate to qualify for the election.
Providence has not elected a Republican mayor in decades, and Democrats make up a majority of the city’s registered voters.
The result came on the same night that Gov. Dan McKee lost the Democratic nomination for governor to former CVS Health executive Helena Foulkes, making him the first sitting governor in the country to lose renomination since 2018.
Morales, who has served in the Rhode Island House since January 2021, ran on capping rent increases, expanding affordable housing, and limiting city cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
In his victory speech in Providence on Wednesday night, he cast the outcome as an endorsement of that platform rather than a personal win.
“We launched a campaign centered around a simple vision, that the working people who make Providence home deserve to live here,” Morales said.
“A simple vision that our neighbors deserve a mayor who will fight for them. And while many agreed with the vision, few believed that a 27-year-old democratic socialist could ever. Few believed that we could ever take on big money, corporate real estate interests, and endless attack ads. And we took them on, and we won.”
He said the city should confront federal immigration agents directly.
“We said that the city of Providence must use every tool that we have at our disposal to defend our immigrant community and protect us from the fascist ICE agents,” Morales said. “Solidarity was on the ballot.”
On housing, Morales committed to a specific number.
“Together, we said that when working people are getting priced out of the city that they love, then we must cap rent increases at 4 percent every single year,” he said. “And to continue building housing our neighbors can actually afford.”
Morales said his campaign knocked on more than 80,000 doors and took no money from corporate political action committees.
He credited support from a coalition that included former Providence mayor Jorge Elorza, City Council President Rachel Miller, former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), the Working Families Party, Reclaim Rhode Island, the Providence Teachers Union, the SEIU state council, the SMART Transportation Division, AFT Local 6516, and Unite Here Local 26. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also endorsed him.
Smiley, 47, was backed by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
He was first elected in 2022 after serving as Raimondo’s chief of staff and as director of the state Department of Administration.
Smiley conceded on Wednesday night and said he had called Morales.
“Tonight, the voters of Providence made their choice, and they chose David Morales as our next mayor,” Smiley said. “Now, while I’m not happy with that outcome, I’m so happy and proud of the campaign that we ran.”
He defended his record in office.
“We have built more housing than in the last 20 years,” Smiley said. “We are building new schools in every neighborhood. This city is safer than it’s been in 20, 35 years, and I want to thank the Providence Police Department for the work they do every day.”
Smiley said he would remain in office through the end of his term and offered advice to his successor.
“Providence must continue to confront the housing crisis, and we need to keep building our way out of it,” he said. “We need to continue to improve outcomes for our students, and I hope the next mayor focuses relentlessly on improving outcomes for our kids at Providence public schools.
“We need to keep modernizing our infrastructure and moving this city forward.”
He closed by describing the office as his lifelong dream.
“Serving as your mayor has been an honor,” Smiley said. “It’s really been the honor of my lifetime. For those of you who’ve known me for a long time, this is the only job in public office I ever wanted.”
The Providence result adds a state capital to a run of Democratic primaries this cycle in which candidates aligned with the party’s left have beaten incumbents and establishment-backed candidates.
Seven House Democrats have been unseated in primaries in 2026, including Reps. Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat of New York, who lost in June to challengers endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Rep. Shri Thanedar of Michigan, who lost in August to state Rep. Donavan McKinney, a democratic socialist.
Morales embraced the comparison to Mamdani during the campaign, and said on Wednesday that his administration would operate the way the campaign did.
“The same way that we campaigned, we are going to govern, and that is going to be done in coalition side by side with our neighbors,” he said.
The Rhode Island Republican Party and Talan did not respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times before publication.
Joseph Lord contributed to this report.
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