PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island yesterday returned to Congress all three legislators whose seats were at issue this year, re-electing U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and U.S. Reps. James R. Langevin and Patrick J. Kennedy by landslide margins.
Reed drew 297,006 votes, defeating Republican challenger Robert G. Tingle, a casino pit boss, by 73.4 percent to Tingle’s 26.6 percent. (U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was not up for re-election this year.)
Langevin drew 149,776 votes, or 70 percent of ballots in the District 2 congressional race, trumping Republican challenger Mark S. Zaccaria’s 30 percent. And Kennedy drew 132,079 votes, or 69.2 percent of District 1 ballots, outshining Republican Jonathan P. Scott’s 23.7 percent and independent Kenneth A. Capalbo’s 7.1 percent.
In the presidential race, Democrat Barack H. Obama drew 275,488 Rhode Island votes, or 63.3 percent – nearly twice the 152,502 votes, or 35.0 percent of Rhode Island votes, cast for his chief rival, Republican John McCain – putting the state securely in the “blue” on election-night maps. Among third-party candidates, independent Ralph Nader drew 4,514 Rhode Island votes, or 1.0 percent; Libertarian Bob Barr drew 1,289, or 0.3 percent; Green candidate Cynthia McKinney drew 727, or 0.2 percent; the Constitution Party’s Charles O. “Chuck” Baldwin drew 627, or 0.1 percent; and Socialism and Liberation candidate Gloria La Riva drew 115 votes statewide, or about 0 percent.
The nation’s first African-American president-elect proceeded to call on the nation to pull together.
“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” Obama, 47, said in his acceptance speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, before an emotional audience of more than 125,000.
“We are not a collection of Red States and Blue States – we are the United States,” Obama said, reprising his comments after his Iowa caucus victory this January.
His comments followed a concession speech by McCain, 72, who told his Phoenix audience that Obama “has achieved a great thing for himself and his country.” The senator from Arizona called on his own supporters to “find ways to come together” for the good of the nation, Bloomberg News said.
Among other key contests across Rhode Island yesterday:
• Voters in state Senate district 17 unseated R.I. Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano of North Providence, who drew 46.8 percent of the vote to independent challenger Edward J. O’Neill’s 53.2 percent.
• Cranston voters elected the state’s first Asian mayor – Republican Allan W. Fung, who as a former city councilman had been the state’s first Chinese-American elected official. (READ MORE) He also is the first Providence Business News 40 Under Forty honoree to be elected mayor of any Ocean State community.
Fung won 62.9 percent of the mayoral vote to Democrat Cynthia M. Fogarty’s to 37.1 percent.
• Republican Scott Avedesian was returned as mayor of Warwick, by 73.7 percent to 26.3 percent, over Democratic challenger John T. Kirby.
• Both bond issues on the state ballot – Question 1: Transportation and Question 2: Open Space – also attracted overwhelming majorities. The transportation bond was approved by 289,705 voters, or 76.6 percent. The open-space bond was approved by 254,687 voters, or 68.0 percent.
The bond-issue votes echoed the trend in other states: Nationwide, early returns show that taxpayers approved about 83 percent of the $66.4 billion in bond-issue proposals put before them on yesterday’s ballot, according to Bloomberg News.
“Voters generally – under most circumstances and in most elections – tend to be overwhelming receptive to bond proposals,” said Jennie Drage Bowser, a policy analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Additional election results from across Rhode Island are available from the R.I. Board of Elections at www.ri.gov. The Mass. Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Elections Division is also expected to post statewide results, at www.mass.gov.
