Breaking Down Prospects for Magaziner, Fung in RI Congressional Race: Lawless LIVE
Breaking Down Prospects for Magaziner, Fung in RI Congressional Race: Lawless LIVE
“I don’t see a path for a Republican for the seat, for a couple of reasons. The first is this is one of these times where the control of the House of Representatives is really on the line. And in order for Rhode Island’s congressional delegation to get anything done, in order for Democrats to get anything done, Democrats have to hold on to the seats that they currently have,” said Lawless.
In 2006, Lawless had challenged Langevin in Rhode Island in the Democratic primary while she was a professor at Brown University.
Lawless spoke about Republican and former Cranston Mayor Allan Fung’s chances, if he ultimately decides to run.
“[Fung] demonstrated he’ll go whichever way the wind blows — when we saw him run for Governor and we saw him ultimately embrace Trump when it meant potentially winning,” said Lawless. “So I don’t have much confidence that even if he were a ‘moderate’ Republican and he got elected, he would remain a ‘moderate’ Republican.”
“Second thing I would say, is there’s no place for moderate Republicans in Congress, and we’ve seen this. I don’t think a moderate Republican would have a voice if the Republican Party wins the majority — unless [they] would be pivotal — and I just don’t see that happening,” said Lawless.
“So in some ways, I think Democrats could make the case that a nominee like Allan Fung is actually the worst thing the state would get in terms of representation — because he wouldn’t be a Democrat, which means that the majority of Rhode Island voters wouldn’t be in sync with him, but he also wouldn’t be embracing the Republican party as it is currently conceived in Washington,” she added.
Lawless was bullish on General Treasurer Seth Magaziner’s chances, after he dropped out of the governor’s race this week to run for Congress.
“If you look at the [Democratic] candidates, a candidate like Seth Magaziner is pretty appealing at the federal level, when you think about what it takes to run most Congressional races — which are now multi-million dollar contests with a national fundraising base,” said Lawless.
“Whether Magaziner himself has that base, he certainly has connections to that base, so my bet is that he is unusually well-situated among those who are thinking about running.”