And on Wednesday, First Lady Jill Biden will travel to Rhode Island in part to deliver remarks at a political event for Governor Daniel J. McKee and the Rhode Island Democratic Party.
On Saturday morning, US Labor Secretary Marty Walsh came to Roger Williams Park as part of a campaign rally for Democratic state treasurer Seth Magaziner, who is facing Republican Allan W. Fung in race to replace Democratic US Representative James R. Langevin.
PROVIDENCE — With the Nov. 8 election looming, Democrats are sending some big names to Rhode Island to try to keep Republicans from wresting Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District and the governor’s office from Democrats.
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A Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll released on Oct. 11 showed Fung, a former Cranston mayor, leading Magaziner, 45 percent to 37 percent, with 5 percent going to Moderate Party candidate William Gilbert and 13 percent undecided. And that has riveted the attention of Democrats, who now hold all the House seats in New England.
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Walsh, the former Boston mayor, spoke outside the Roger Williams Park Casino, touting legislation and policies that President Biden and Democrats in Congress have put in place. He warned that allowing Republicans to take control in Washington, D.C., could lead to curtailing Social Security benefits and a return to a “trickle-down economics.”
“What type of country do we want to be?” Walsh said during his speech. “Do we want to be a country that takes away benefits from working class people and poor people? Or do we want to be a country that supports people to create that opportunity to get into the middle class?”
Walsh said Democrats, including the four current members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation, backed initiatives such as the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act.
“When President Biden took office, 10 million people were out of work, our schools were closed, our businesses were closed, businesses were going bankrupt,” he said. “The American Rescue Plan was able to keep those businesses open, was able to get people back to work,” and it included “investment in getting vaccines in people’s arms.”
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Walsh also cited the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which aims to boost domestic high-tech manufacturing and compete with China.
“The CHIPS bill is going to allow us the opportunity to not talk about bringing American manufacturing back to the United States of America but actually doing it,” he said. “We see it right now in Ohio, where Intel just broke ground on a $20 billion project to build microchips that we invented in the United States of America.”
Walsh, who served as head of the Building and Construction Trades Council from 2011 to 2013, joined union leaders and top Democrats including Senator Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, US Representative David N. Cicilline, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, and Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio.
The group included McKee, who is facing Republican healthcare executive Ashley Kalus in the gubernatorial race.
The Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll showed McKee in the lead, 46 percent to 36 percent, with three independent candidates — Elijah Gizzarelli, Zachary Hurwitz, and Paul Rianna — each receiving less than 2 percent, and 14 percent undecided.
On Wednesday, Jill Biden plans to visit Rhode Island College’s Feinstein School of Education and Human Development, joined by Governor McKee and First Lady Susan McKee, according to a news release from the Office of the First Lady.
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While on campus, Jill Biden plans to meet with undergraduate students participating in a networking event for students interested in pursuing career paths in education, hosted by the college’s Career Development Center and Handshake, a career network for college students and recent alumni. Following the networking event, she will deliver remarks to students, faculty, and campus administrators.
As part of her visit to Rhode Island, Jill Biden “will join Governor McKee for a fundraising and supporter event benefiting the McKee campaign and the Rhode Island Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign effort that is working to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot, including Seth Magaziner in Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District,” according to a news release from the McKee campaign.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @FitzProv.
US Labor Secretary Walsh speaks at Magaziner rally in R.I.
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