Sanders Win in RI is Another Blow to Governor Raimondo
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
General Electric moved to Boston, Rhode Island’s tourism campaign featured Iceland, and Bernie Sanders just won Rhode Island — it has not been a good year for Gina Raimondo.
Raimondo hosted Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton twice in the past ten days in Rhode Island, but Rhode Islanders rejected the familiar and often popular Clinton message.
“Sanders victory for Rhode Island is confirmation of an anti-establishment sentiment in Rhode Island, and that's not particularly good news for Governor Raimondo. Any public official who closely aligns with a candidate who loses the state in the primary creates some reason for consternation,” said Professor Val Endress of Rhode Island College, in an interview with GoLocalProv Tuesday night.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTHow Big a Blow for Raimondo — This Was Clinton Country
Historically, all Bill or Hillary had to do was stop by Rhode Island and then collect the delegates. In 2008, a year in which Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination for President, Hillary Clinton soundly defeated Obama in Rhode Island. Clinton received 108,949 votes to Obama’s 75,316. Clinton won 59 percent of the vote to Obama’s 41 percent.
Eight years later, Clinton’s fate is reversed in Rhode Island and she received roughly half the number of votes -- and Raimondo’s support proved to be a negative. According to a poll released by Brown University on Sunday, only 6.5 percent of Rhode Islanders rated Raimondo's job performance as “excellent” and while her overall rating in not the worst in modern Rhode Island history, it may be the lowest for a Governor in the past 20 years in an improving economy.
Raimondo's Vice President Chances Dashed
For Raimondo, who was flagged as a potential Vice Presidential possibility for Clinton just five days ago, the dream is now dashed. The Atlantic’s David Graham wrote:
"To be fair, this isn’t the first time Clinton or her aides have mentioned the idea. In January, she told Rachel Maddow she would “absolutely not” rule out a female running mate. Some of the names that are circulating: Senators Elizabeth Warren (of course), Claire McCaskill, Jean Shaheen, and Amy Klobuchar; and Governors Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire (an unlikely choice, as she’s running for U.S. Senate) and Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island.”
“This is certainly not a fatal blow, but this combined with the fact that she has yet to score a big win in economic development for Rhode Island, she had to assume some responsibility for the tourism campaign missteps, and there's some reason to believe that she's losing ground with her favorability ratings, means that she needs to work diligently to reaffirm and regain the public's support,” said Endress.
Related Slideshow: 5 Shocking Facts from the 2016 RI Presidential Primary
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