- [Jim] Coming up on this week's "A Lively Experiment," a new poll shows where our local elected officials stand with Rhode Islanders.

And an interview with the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Board of Elections about what voters can expect when they cast their ballot.

- [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by.

- Hi, I'm John Hazen White, Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program and Rhode Island PBS.

- Joining us on the panel, URI Political Science Professor, Emily Lynch, Political Contributor, Scott McKay, and Republican Strategist, Jesus Solorio.

Welcome in, everyone.

I'm Jim Hummel.

We appreciate you spending part of your weekend with us.

Governor McKee is fortunate that he is not up for reelection next month.

A new poll out from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University shows just 34% of those responding approve of the job the governor is doing, with 56% disapproving.

The poll also found Kamala Harris with a 14 point lead in Rhode Island over Donald Trump.

We'll get to the national in a minute.

Emily, you know your way around polls.

I know this is not your poll, but as you break this down, any surprises to you?

Let's start with the governor.

- Yeah, so I'm not surprised with what we see with the governor's poll of his approval ratings.

They're consistent with what we saw over the summer with a couple different polls.

But I'm sure that the Foulkes camp is paying attention to these polls, and yeah, I don't see many surprises there with that, with the rating.

- [Jim] Okay.

- The interesting part locally for me was that Jack Reed, who, as you know, shows up at everything, has pretty much the highest of all the statewide office holders, he's at 60%.

Rhode Islanders have always been, if you look back, years even, have always been pretty skeptical about their governors and their local political people.

The favorability of the assembly of the governor, it's pretty much always been low.

This one, I think, is probably also affected by the string of bad news we've had about the Washington Bridge.

- [Jim] Mm, Jesus.

- Yeah, I think that, you know, Rhode Island's a traditionally blue state, and I think the silver lining for Republicans is that a lot of the statewide candidates, about a third really don't know who they are.

So I think it's opportunity for Republicans to start identifying potential candidates for 2026.

And I think what we saw with Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos and the signature debacle, I mean, that's gonna follow her until 2026.

And the bridge will follow Governor McKee into 2026.

- How much of that do you think is the bridge?

I mean, he's had a couple other things going on now, and we'll get to it a little later.

CVS and Hasbro or there's a little unrest there.

He's had some issues with personnel over the years.

Where does the bridge factor in, do you think?

- Well, I think it's, Rhode Islanders have been paying attention to Governor McKee.

And since he took office, since he was elevated to governor, you know, he's had a pretty disastrous administration, you know, from the FBI investigation for when he first came in, and now the Washington Bridge, which it's just affecting everyone across the board.

- [Jim] What do you think some of the factors are, Emily, that go into that 34%?

- I mean, I think that if we look back to the Rhode Island poll we did last year, it was kind of at a similar, there were similar ratings.

So, and of course we saw, you know, the Bridge Camp come out in December.

So we can't necessarily blame the low ratings just on the bridge, although I think that is an important factor and is on a lot of Rhode Island mines right now.

- And so potentially we're looking at Helena Foulkes gearing up, and it seems to be there.

"The Globe" had an interesting piece the other day.

Dan McGowan asked if McKee were to step aside, and we got, I mean, two years is a lifetime, you know, who would that create?

And he mentioned two names, potentially Secretary of State, Gregg Amore, and Joseph Shekarchi, the Speaker of the House, who probably wouldn't run against each other.

But I wonder whether either one of them would run against Helena Foulkes, if that scenario came into play.

- I think it's way early to try to speculate in that realm.

I do think that Foulkes ran a pretty good campaign last time, and her TV was great.

Her only problem was her organization.

You know, she- - [Jim] She didn't start early enough.

- That's true.

And she also didn't have a really good campaign manager and staff, which is what you need, and a ground game.

And one thing that McKee luckily had for him was the support of a lot of organized labor, because those people are good at communicating with their members, and they're very good when it comes to the ground game.

It really helped Seth Magaziner, for instance, when he ran against Alan Fung over in the Second District congressional race.

So you have to look at that.

I think what Foulkes needs is to expand her base beyond what she had.

And she's moving her feet around.

She's really getting out there a lot.

Gregor Moray too is a guy who shows up just about, he's like, you know, going to the opening of a garage door and, you know, in Rhode Island, that's something that people really, really appreciate.

That's one of the reasons Jack Reed is so high.

I mean, you know, Reed- - He's everywhere.

- We used to joke about his weekends being like that British movie, "Four Weddings and a Funeral."

(Jim laughing) And, you know, that's just Jack.

I will go to a wake sometimes, people, I used to know were cover, it's inevitable that Jack Reed will be there if he's anywhere near Rhode Island.

- You know, Republicans have done well in the governor's race.

We had Ed Dupree for a number of years in the eighties.

We had two terms of Linc Almond and then Don Carcieri.

Not so most recently in the last decade.

I think if you, you know, I always kind of figure the population is like, well, the General Assembly's been dominating so long.

Maybe we need a little check in balance.

I wonder if the Republicans, I mean, it's really hard to find a candidate that's gonna go up.

You need time, you need resources, and that identification.

I know Ashley Kalus made a run at it, but I think she got started a little late too.

You have to really be working now for the next election cycle.

- Yeah, and I'm sure we'll have a great candidate that's gonna step up.

And Ashley Kalus was a stellar candidate.

She knew the issues.

She was personally financing the her campaign, but unfortunately, she just didn't have enough time in Rhode Island.

And so I think a lot of voters really took that into account.

But yeah, I think everything that's been going on with the bridge, everything that's been going on with de Democratic control of close to a hundred years in the state, I think voters are frustrated.

And I think we're gonna start to see that.

- (laughs) Yeah, but you know what?

Republicans haven't come up with good candidates.

The truth is about Rhode Island politics, when you've come up with good candidates, not just the governors that Jim just mentioned, but you know, Ron Makely, Claudine Schneider- - Jeff Pine.

- Congress, Jeff Pine.

Nancy Mayer, also Susan Farmer.

I mean, the Republican Party used to be the fulcrum of promoting women in Rhode Island.

And they were the pro-choice party going back years, if you'll remember.

And we don't see that anymore.

And I think if you had better candidates, you'd have a better shot at things.

- Yeah, and I think what's going on with the Republican Party, you know, I've moved here about in 2022, what I've seen with Sue Cienki, the former chair, and now Joe Powers, is that they're really focusing on building that bench.

And 2022, we had a really great lineup of candidates that ran for state representatives.

Some of them are running again.

And I do agree, we need to start identifying and building up those future- - [Jim] In the General Assembly.

- In General Assembly, and then start identifying folks to take on these.

In my opinion, some of these statewide candidates are very weak.

Lieutenant Governor Matos, again, very weak candidate.

Governor Dan McKee, I don't think he survives a primary election.

And then Amore and some of the other statewide candidates just don't have that strong name ID that they think they do.

- Okay, we are four weeks out, a little more than four weeks until election day.

So we thought it would be interesting to sit down with the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Board of Elections.

His name is Miguel Nunez.

He took over for the long time Director Bob Rapoza.

I talked with him about a variety of things, but I wanted to focus on poll workers, trying to recruit them, early voting and threats.

Here's a little bit of my conversation with him.

- I think that's one of the biggest changes with poll workers is over the last few years, is the pay has increased significantly.

Whereas Providence used to be by the highest, much higher than, by 30% in other communities.

Now it's not the case anymore.

There are some that are right there with Providence.

And that is because there has been a difficulty finding poll workers.

So in order to encourage more people to be interested in it, many jurisdictions have raised the pay.

- How has early voting going?

- Early voting has been very successful.

In fact, that is why the mail ballot, voting by mail has dropped significantly since 2020, we believe, because more voters are choosing the convenience of being able to go out in that 20-day period before election day and vote early.

They have that 20 days to be able to do it.

And we've seen that participation rate in early voting grow every single year.

- What concerns you most here in Rhode Island?

- Well, we're fortunate to not have the level of threats that our colleagues in other states have faced.

However, that doesn't mean that we're not preparing for them.

I mean, just last week we had a suspicious envelope arrive here.

Fortunately, it was found to not be hazardous and there was no threat.

But we still take precautions.

We still open our mail with protective gear, with masks, gloves.

And I just want to be clear that that is a threat that was directed at the Board of Elections in 49 other state capitals across the country.

But there is no threat to voters in the portions of the process that they interact with.

So everything that a voter would have the opportunity to vote by mail early at the polling places, there has been no threat in any of those aspects.

- A couple of key dates to keep in mind.

October 6th, which is Sunday, that is the last day that you can register to go to the polls.

October 15th is the last day you can ask for a mail ballot.

And early voting begins October 16th.

That's of course 20 days before the election.

Jesus, let me start with you.

It's interesting, during the pandemic, there were so many, you know, it's not a surprise now that people are out in the pandemics, in the rear view mirror, fewer people are using mail ballots.

But that was a big issue nationally.

I know former President Trump was a little skeptical about mail ballots to be generous.

But the Republicans, I think, have had to embrace that.

Look, that ship has sailed now mail ballots are there, we have to embrace it.

So do you see that, let's play the game rather than question the validity of mail ballots?

Or do you still think that's an issue?

- Yeah, and again, in 2022, when I was executive director for the state party, we were doing a push for mail ballots.

Unfortunately, Republicans prefer to go to the mailbox that ballot and vote.

And what we saw after the pandemic was that there was a rush, a hasty rush to implement mail ballot.

And that was one of the big concerns is what was the process?

You know, what are the threats, you know, for voter fraud?

But what we are seeing now is that folks are taking advantage of early voting and not so much of mail ballots.

And do think we need to revisit early voting.

I think 20 days is far too long.

I think something about seven, 10 days before election day would be a much better timeframe, especially for the local Board of Canvassers with resources and staffing.

I think we need to revisit early voting.

- I would say that on the point of early voting, I think convenience voting is important.

And I think it makes sense to have a longer period of time to allow individuals to go and vote.

But as for mail ballot voting, we saw before 2020, there wasn't a partisan difference in voting by mail.

But then of course, as you mentioned, there is the rhetoric from Trump of the concern over voting by mail, but then has since switched to embrace or at least encourage Republicans to vote by mail.

And I think the concern here is how long these perceptions are of voter fraud among Republicans and others, that even though you change the messaging, it may not have caught up to how people feel about trusting mail ballots.

- You know, Rhode Island's elections, unlike our bridges and roads, have been pretty good the last few elections.

We haven't had any real big problems.

The mail ballot situation, now Jim and I are old, we go back to when the people like Lloyd Griffin and Providence had serious mail ballot issues.

They've cleaned that up by making it a felony.

If you're going to impersonate someone in a mail ballot, you better love that person because you're risking a felony to do it.

What I'm worried about, and I think we all should be, is the level of intimidation in this highly, highly divisive presidential election.

And I think around the country we've seen, you know, poll workers and people being threatened.

And I wouldn't be surprised if you're gonna have to call out the National Guard at some of these states.

I just hope that doesn't happen because it would be just terrible to have another January 6th happen at the polls.

And it's just ridiculous.

- And I think Secretary Amore has been really proactive about conducting or holding these meetings across Rhode Island to discuss the elections process to, you know, and I think that's a good way to hear voters' concerns and raise awareness and knowledge about the elections process in Rhode Island.

- And the election integrity is not a partisan concern.

I mean, the recent polling show that about 40% of independents are concerned about the process.

About 22% I believe Democrats are also concerned with the process.

So it's not a partisan concern and- - But it kind of is.

If you wanna replay the 22- - Yeah, put the polling is showing that there's concern across the board.

It's not just one party.

I understand that the Republicans have been a little bit more vocal, but across the board everyone has concerns about the process, especially 'cause it's been post-pandemic, it's been rushed.

- I don't see that.

I'm not seeing that from Democrat frankly.

- And I also remember that the signature verification was removed in 2022 as well.

- Yeah, I should mention, and we talked about this at length, now, if you wanna see the entire interview that I did, it's about 15 minutes, with Miguel Nunez.

We talked specifically about mail ballots, the signature issue.

You can find that on our YouTube page, the Rhode Island PBS YouTube page if you wanna look at the entire thing.

And he talked about the processes you had to go to.

That they actually have physically people, two people verifying the signatures just to allay those fears.

'Cause I know when they removed on the mail ballot the signature, that was a question.

So they've addressed that.

On the early voting, and I've heard this argument, you know, we should tighten it up a little bit.

Don't you think it's buyer beware?

If you're gonna go vote on October 16th and something crazy happens in the next couple of weeks, that's on you.

Why is the concern for 20 days?

Why do you wanna see it tightened up a little bit?

- Well, I think we need to look at the data from the past couple elections and see, is there a need for 20 days?

You know, at what point is there an actual spike?

I mean, I've gone to early voting locations and there's been one or two people that voted that entire day.

Again, it takes resources, it takes staffing.

You need to identify individuals.

So I think we need to revisit and see what is optimal.

Is it seven days?

Is it 10 days?

- They talked about this in "The Cycle" two years ago.

And I think the legislatures just, because didn't they codify a lot of what happened in 2020?

There were some emergency provisions that then they codified for 2022.

And what I heard from most legislative leaders that I talked to, they said, we think the 20 days is okay.

- Right.

And if it alleviates the polls becoming overwhelmed during election day or a few days within election day, then that's a good thing.

That does help the poll workers and others, election officials involved in the process.

- Okay.

- I really think that we're gonna do a good job here in Rhode Island.

I just think that the swing states where there's all this pressure on both sides are gonna be something you're going to have to watch.

I mean, the republicans, I hate to say this, but we saw it in advance during the debate recently with the vice president, and former President Trump, they're still re-litigating and replaying the 2020 election results, which I think is just a little bit ridiculous.

- Well, that's 'cause the media continues to bring up the question about the 2020 election.

I mean- - No actually, Trump's bringing it up himself.

- Because the question brought up.

The Trump-Vance campaign is focused on what they're gonna do forward, how they're going to turn around the disastrous Harris-Biden administration.

- But every time they ask him, even in the pre, we'll get to the vice presidential ballot a little bit later, debate on Tuesday.

But Governor Walz asked Senator Vance, you know, "Was it free and fair election?"

And he totally dodged the question.

So, I mean, I've never heard Donald Trump say, yes, I lost to Joe Biden.

And don't you think that would go a long way toward, a lot of people listen to what he says.

They hang on every word to saying, let's look forward and put the past in the past.

- And that's the thing he's been saying, that he's focused on the future.

He's encouraging Republican voters to go out do mail ballot, do early voting, make sure that you participate in this election, but unfortunately the media loves to focus on 2020.

- [Jim] Is that what you're hearing?

(Scott laughing) - Well, if we...

There was a really interesting piece in "The Atlantic" this week about the vice presidential debate and how Vance did not repeat what Trump has said of the falsehood that he won the 2020 election.

And he dodged it.

And that was because he is looking to the future and he's looking toward his own, you know, what his future lies in- - [Jim] The Republican Party.

- The Republican Party, exactly.

So it was just kind of an interesting take on him not admitting to what his running mate has been saying, so.

- [Jim] What was your takeaway from, let's talk about the debate.

What was your takeaway from the debate?

- I mean, it's like Scott mentioned, the vice presidential debates really don't have a sway in voters, but I think this one does because of the fact that Harris and Wallace have been hiding from the media.

They've only done about 10 or a dozen so interviews since they were anointed the nominees.

And so I think that it is a clear contrast between Senator Vance and how he would be prepared to take the role on as president should that need come.

- I agree with you.

And I think that came back to bite them, that Walz really didn't look like he was ready for prime time.

Maybe if he had sparred a little bit with reporters.

I mean the media's, you know, a favorite punching bag.

But I think that's on them that they could have gotten him out there more before the debate.

I thought Vance looked strong.

- Vance looked good at the start, but his close was terrible.

I do think that he was smooth, very good and came out from the start very well and on message.

And I don't think that vice presidential candidate Walz was good at the start.

He looked kind of nervous.

He was talking quickly.

But, you know, beating up the media and blaming them.

Trump says this 2020 election canard, he says it at rallies all the time.

Was doing it the other day.

It's not because the media is pressing him, frankly.

- Well, no, it's every single Republican gets asked that question.

Every single time.

- Yeah, but the presidential candidate is doing this on his own.

- Right, because the media likes to focus- - No, it's not.

- They like to focus on that single issue because they know that it eliminates Democratic voters.

- But maybe the Republican gets asked, because I saw a poll that said 46% of the Republicans nationwide think that the election was stolen in 2020.

- [Jesus] Again, it's not a partisan issue.

- No, Republicans.

Why do you think they think that?

- But it's also across the board, you have some Democrats and some independents that also are concerned with the election results.

But again- - But they don't think the 2020 election- - What we're focused on is on the future.

And the Harris-Biden administration has been a complete disaster.

- [Scott] Oh, come on.

- [Jim] What'd you take away from the debate?

- Well, I think it was a more civil debate as, I mean, you can look at the reactions from a lot of pundits said the same thing.

But one of the key things that I noticed was they were both more moderate and presented themselves as more moderate as what sometimes we hear within the media of Vance being more extreme, Walz being more extreme on their own ends.

And they were moderate in issues related to abortion and guns, which makes sense that we see this in a vice presidential or a presidential debate of trying to get those voters in the middle.

- Yeah, I thought that Vance really tried to thread the needle on abortion.

And I think- - [Scott] He didn't tell the truth, but that's okay, right?

- I think part of it is he says we need to do a better job, which I think that, I mean, and I think that's an issue that should concern Republicans 'cause we've seen what's happened in Ohio and Kansas with the local referendums on abortion to enshrine the right.

And that's on the ballot in Florida this year.

So I wonder if that's gonna drive voters in which way they would vote.

You know, I've heard in North Carolina they've had issues with the Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, that they can separate that and who they're gonna vote for for president.

I don't know.

Do you vote all one way when you go to the polls or can they separate that out?

- No, there's certainly folks that vote Republican for local candidates.

I mean, we see it here in Rhode Island.

In Cranston, you know, when Senate District 26, Trump won the district, Allen Fung won the district, but Don Ballot, they voted for Democrat.

- Right.

Final thoughts on the debate?

- I don't think, again, it's gonna mean a whole lot.

I do think that Vance obviously is trying to lay down a template for his future in the Republican Party.

And I think a professor you might agree with that.

- Yeah, I definitely agree and, but I think in the end, the vice presidential debate is not going to be all end all of how people decide how to vote.

And I think that neither of them made any major gaffes, right?

So that was probably like the best thing for both of them.

- I mean, one came out as a knucklehead.

(laughs) - (laughs) A self-proclaimed knucklehead.

All right, let's do this, let's do outrageous and/or kudos and we may have a few other things to get to.

Emily, let's begin with you this week.

What do you have?

- My thoughts go out to the individuals living in Southeastern states and especially in Western North Carolina.

And I hope that they're able to receive the essentials, the food, water, shelter that they need at this time after the devastation of Hurricane Helene.

And it's going to take some time to rebuild and that should be, you know, a priority of our country right now and looking toward that- - My cousin, who was an emergency room nurse in New York City for years, retired to the mountains of North Carolina.

She's north of Morganton.

And we weren't able to get ahold of her.

And I'm sure this is a story that's been replayed.

My wife finally heard from her.

She said, you know, they had no cell service, they had no water, they have a generator, but they didn't know how long the propane's gonna last.

She said, "We're up the hill so it's good, but downhill, their entire church community had been washed out."

So it's gonna be a long rebuild.

We'll see.

Scotty, what do you have?

- My outrage is immigration.

These far right people have these two different narratives and I wonder which one is true.

"These people are coming here, migrants, to get on welfare and take all of our tax money."

And the other narrative they have is, "No, they're coming here to work and they're taking away your jobs."

So what is it?

One thing I've never seen is I've never seen that commercial or a person says, you know, I'm an American and I was working hard picking lettuce under a hundred degree temperature and I had a great job until these darn immigrants came in.

(laughs) I mean, it's really... and the cats and dogs thing in Springfield, Ohio, that Trump and Vance and other people who put out there is really despicable and I think racist.

- [Jim] Jesus, what do you have this week?

- Well, on a lighter note, I wanna give kudos to the Republican Party and the Rhode Island Young Republicans as well as leader Michael Chippendale and de la Cruz.

They hosted a vice presidential debate watch party to engage with young voters here in the state.

They had a successful event this past week.

And it's clear that, you know, looking at polling, that both Trump and Harris are neck and neck with voters between the ages of 19 and 29.

I think that's a good sign.

- Okay, we have just about a minute left.

Scotty, let me ask you.

You and I have been around a long time.

We've seen the issue with tax exempt property in Providence.

It's up to probably 45% now.

Mayor Brett Smiley had been talking about negotiating.

He got a payment in lieu of taxes with the universities and colleges last year.

This week he announced a million and a half over essentially three years.

It's front loaded in the first two years from Lifespan, which hasn't paid for the last three years.

What do you think about that again?

- Well, this is one of those situations where the PR word is gonna come out.

The PR phrase, which is it's a good first step.

And so what you wanna do is you wanna put this into practice, the same as they did with Brown starting.

And then the other universities, Providence College and some of the other places have fallen into line.

So the idea is you start with 1,000,005 and then next time it comes up, you try to push that to 2 million or 2.5 million or see what you can do.

Right now the hospital is not richest.

We all know the medical system's being pressed, so.

- [Jim] They don't have the endowment that Brown University has.

- (laughs) They do not.

They're not sitting- - All right, folks.

- On billions of dollars.

- It is a quick 30 minutes.

Thank you for joining us.

Scott, good to see you and Emily.

And I didn't give you the official hello.

So welcome, Jesus, this is your first time.

We hope we can have you back.

- Thank you for having me.

- All right, great to have you.

If you don't catch us Friday at 7:00 or Sunday at noon, we're all over social media.

You can catch us on Facebook, X, and we archive all of our shows at ripbs.org/lively, and wherever you get your favorite podcast.

Folks, we are heading into the back stretch to the presidential election.

Plenty going on locally, so join us back here next week as "A Lively Experiment" continues.

Have a great week.

(lively music) - [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by.

- Hi, I'm John Hazen White, Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program and Rhode Island PBS.