Since the Great Depression, Rhode Island politics have been dominated by the Rhode Island Democratic Party, and the state is considered part of the Democrats' "Blue Wall." Democrats have won all but four presidential elections since 1928, with the exceptions being 1952, 1956, 1972, and 1984. The Rhode Island Republican Party, although virtually non-existent in the Rhode Island General Assembly, has remained competitive in gubernatorial elections, having won one as recently as 2006. Until 2014, Democrats had not won a gubernatorial election in the state since 1992, and it was not until 2018 that they won one by double digits. The Rhode Island General Assembly has continuously been under Democratic control since 1959.
Democrats hold all statewide and congressional seats including Governor Daniel McKee, Lt. Governor Sabina Matos, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, Senate President Valarie Lawson, U.S. Representatives Gabe Amo and Seth Magaziner, U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, Secretary of State Gregg Amore, General Treasurer James Diossa, and Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey.
In a 2020 study, Rhode Island was ranked as the 19th easiest state for citizens to vote in.
Party registration as of February 2021Rhode Island Voter Registration Party Total voters Percentage Unaffiliated 348,569 43.18% Democratic 346,320 42.90% Republican 112,334 13.92% Total 807,223 100%
History Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists (1776–1820) Rhode Island declared independence from the British Empire on May 4, 1776, two months before the U.S. Declaration of Independence was ratified. However, despite this eagerness for independence, Rhode Island was also a stronghold for Anti-Federalism through the Country Party, which was widely popular among rural areas of Rhode Island and dominated the Rhode Island General Assembly from 1786 to 1790. The Country Party's dominance prevented ratification of the Federalist U.S. Constitution, and the state had even refused to send any delegation to the 1787 Constitutional Convention that wrote it. Father of the Constitution James Madison described Rhode Island as ruled by "wickedness and folly" in which "All sense of character as well as of right have been obliterated." After the insurance of the inclusion of a bill of rights, however, support grew for the Constitution in Rhode Island. Rhode Island became the last of the original 13 states to ratify the Constitution in 1790 by only 2 votes, after Gov. John Collins supported it and several remaining Anti-Federalists boycotted the ratifying convention.
After ratification, many Anti-Federalists remained with the Country Party or joined Thomas Jefferson's Anti-Administration faction, which eventually became the Democratic-Republican Party. Rhode Island's first 2 governors after ratification (Anti-Federalist leader Arthur Fenner and Henry Smith) were both nominees of the Country Party. Meanwhile, one of Rhode Island's first 2 senators, Joseph Stanton Jr., was a nominee of the Anti-Administration Party.
Despite the Anti-Federalist views during the 1780s, the Federalist Party eventually became the dominant party in Rhode Island. Rhode Island gave its electoral votes in most Presidential elections to the Federalist candidate during this era. Meanwhile, Federalist Senator William Bradford became the 1st U.S. Senator from Rhode Island to serve as President pro tempore of the United States Senate during the 5th Congress. While the Federalist Party is generally considered to have died after the War of 1812, Rhode Island still had Federalists in the U.S. Congress as late as 1820, and Federalist Governor William Jones was not defeated by a Democratic-Republican candidate until Nehemiah R. Knight was elected in 1816.
Democratic-Republican Era (1820s) In the 1820s, Rhode Island, like the rest of the union, was largely dominated by the Democratic-Republican Party. Knight, William C. Gibbs, and James Fenner (son of former Governor Arthur Fenner) were all elected Governors of Rhode Island during this time. After the party split into Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party and the opposition National Republican Party, Rhode Island was generally opposed to Jackson's policies and supportive of the Federalist-inspired policies of National Republican leaders John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, supporting the former in the hotly contested Presidential elections of 1824 and 1828. Many of these "Anti-Jacksonians" or "Adams Men", such as Asher Robbins and former Governor Nehemiah R. Knight, represented the state in Congress before the formation of the Whig Party in 1833.
Whig Era (1833–1850) Rhode Island Congressmen were almost exclusively Whigs during the 1830s and early 1840s. Whigs Lemuel H. Arnold, Elisha Harris, Henry B. Anthony, and William W. Hoppin were also Governors of Rhode Island during this time. However, Democrats John Brown Francis and William Sprague III served for most of the 1830s. Rhode Island's electoral votes also backed the Presidential candidacies of Whig leaders William Henry Harrison in 1840, Henry Clay in 1844, and Zachary Taylor in 1848.
Dorr Rebellion (1840–1842)
In 1841, Rhode Island was the last state to still require ownership of property to vote in its elections, as it was still governed by the provisions of its original colonial charter of 1663, which restricted voting rights to landowning white men and their eldest sons. About 60% of Rhode Island adult men were ineligible to vote due to these restrictions by 1840. Political activist Thomas Wilson Dorr was the leader of a group known as the Rhode Island Suffrage Association (or "Dorrites") that attempted to amend or replace the charter with a new constitution extending suffrage to all white men, but efforts to do so consistently failed in the Rhode Island General Assembly.
After failed attempts to change the system from within, the Dorrites held a convention for the newly formed "People's Party", which drafted a new constitution that enfranchised all white men after one year's residence. Meanwhile, General Assembly members who supported the charter, known as "Charterites" or the "Law and Order Party", drafted a constitution that made concessions to the People's Party, but two referendums held later that year determined that a majority of voters approved of the People's Party constitution, but disapproved of the Law and Order Party's constitution by a narrow margin.
However, Governor Samuel Ward King, a Charterite, refused to recognize the results of the referendums, resulting in the holding of two elections that April: one set up by the People's Party, which elected Dorr as governor, and another set up by the Law and Order Party, which re-elected King. King and Dorr essentially served as governors concurrently after this election. King declared martial law and attempted to persuade U.S. President John Tyler to send federal soldiers to Rhode Island to resolve the issue, but Tyler, feeling that the threat of violence was "hourly diminishing", refused. Without the threat of federal interference, Dorr's government mounted an attack upon the Providence Arsenal on May 19, 1842. Charterite defenders, including Dorr's own father and uncle, suppressed the attack and the Dorrites retreated to the village of Chepachet to hold another People's Convention. Charterites cut off the retreat in the city of Woonsocket, causing Dorr's government to fall.
Despite their victory, the Charterite General Assembly ultimately drafted and adopted the current Rhode Island Constitution in September 1842, which extended voting to all free men (of any race) who owned property or could pay a $1 poll tax. Although the former members of the People's Party attempted to oppose the Law-and-Order Party's candidates in the 1843 elections, the Law-and-Order Party took all major offices in these elections, and their new constitution was adopted in May. Encouraged by the new constitution's expanded suffrage, Dorr returned to the state but was captured by King and tried and convicted of treason. However, public protests resulted in Dorr's pardon by Governor James Fenner in 1845.
Law and Order Party and Whig Party co-dominance (1840s) After the Dorr Rebellion ended, the Law-and-Order Party shared power with the Whigs for the remainder of the 1840s, until the former dissolved and the latter fell from power in Rhode Island. The Law-and-Order Party's James Fenner was the first governor elected under the Rhode Island Constitution. Fenner had previously served as governor on two other occasions as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. Byron Diman also represented the Law-and-Order Party as governor.
In 1843, Rhode Island was given a 2nd Congressional district. The Law-and-Order Party's Elisha R. Potter was the first Congressman from this district. The 2nd district also elected Benjamin Babock Thurston to Congress in 1847; Thurston was the first Democrat elected to Congress from Rhode Island.
In the late 1840s and early 1850s, the nationally declining Whig Party became diminished in Rhode Island, while the Law and Order Party dissolved, and most of its members returned to their pre-Dorr Rebellion allegiances to the Whigs or Democrats.
Republican Era (1850s–1930s) After the demise of the Rhode Island Whigs, the Know Nothing and Democratic Parties were briefly co-dominant parties in Rhode Island. From 1851 to 1853, Rhode Island had an all-Democrat set of executive offices for the first time, led by Governor Philip Allen. In the same year, Charles Tillinghast James became Rhode Island's first Democratic Senator. Meanwhile, Benjamin Babock Thurston returned to his Congressional seat as a Know-Nothing, and William W. Hoppin was Rhode Island's only Know-Nothing governor in 1854, serving in the office until 1856.
In the late 1850s, however, much of the remaining Know-Nothings and Whigs nationally were absorbed by the Republican Party, which would become the dominant party in Rhode Island until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Republican dominance in Rhode Island began with the elections of several Republicans to major offices in 1857, such as Governor Elisha Dyer, and Sen. James F. Simmons. The first 14 Republican Party Presidential candidates, beginning with John C. Frémont in 1856, won Rhode Island's electoral votes during this era.
The Constitutional Union Party became strong in Rhode Island during the early 1860s. Across the country, many conservative former Whigs and Know-Nothings, unsatisfied with the secessionists in the national Democratic Party, became Unionists, and nominated Unionist candidates at their state conventions. Both Rhode Island representatives to the 37th U.S. House of Representatives were Unionists.
During the American Civil War, Rhode Island was the first state to respond to President Abraham Lincoln's 1861 request for troops from the individual Union states. Governor William Sprague IV (nephew of former Governor William Sprague III) believed that the war would be over rather quickly and easily in the Union's favor, and chose to lead the Rhode Island brigade to Virginia to oversee what he expected to be a Union victory. There, he participated in the First Battle of Bull Run and, despite the Confederate victory, was offered a commission as Brigadier General, which he refused, opting to remain Governor of Rhode Island. Sprague went on to serve 2 six-year terms as a Senator from Rhode Island after retiring from the Governor's post in 1863. Burnside also became a Governor of Rhode Island from 1866 to 1869, and then replaced Sprague in the U.S. Senate in 1875, serving there until his death in 1881.