David Morales, a 27-year-old Rhode Island state representative running as a democratic socialist, defeated incumbent Providence Mayor Brett Smiley in Wednesday’s Democratic primary, winning roughly 54% of the vote to Smiley’s 46%. If he wins November’s general election in the heavily Democratic city, Morales would become Providence’s youngest mayor.
The result quickly drew a reaction from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who pointed to Morales’ win as evidence of a broader shift within the Democratic Party ahead of the midterms.
“I think it comes back to what I’ve said before, which is what is the Democratic Party, if not its voters?” Mamdani said Thursday morning during a news conference marking the first day of school in New York City. “We’re seeing that the voters across this country are eager for not only a change, but also for a vision of something that we are fighting for.”
Mamdani, who has previously argued that democratic socialists can win in cities across the country, used part of the same appearance to tout a new free early education program for 2,000 low-income New York families, alongside Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s pledge to add $425 million to next year’s state budget for early childhood services, including support for families with disabilities.
Asked specifically about the Providence race at the end of the news conference, Mamdani credited Morales’ campaign focus on rent stabilization and affordability.
“The little that I do know about this soon-to-be new mayor is that one of the central issues in his race was around rent stabilization and around the importance of delivering on affordability, not just as a goal, but as a result,” Mamdani said. “And what we’ve seen is that his constituents agreed with exactly that.”
Morales, who was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., campaigned on rent control, while Smiley argued the policy would discourage new housing development. Rents in Providence have climbed sharply since 2020, and the affordability question dominated the primary.
In his victory speech, Morales framed the win as a defeat of entrenched money in local politics.
“Few believed that a 27-year-old democratic socialist could ever, few believed that we could ever take on big money, corporate real estate interests and endless attack ads — and we took them on and we won,” Morales said.
Morales also used his victory speech to pledge resistance to federal immigration enforcement in the city.
“The city of Providence must use every tool that we have at our disposal to defend our immigrant community and protect us from the fascist ICE agents,” Morales said.
Republicans currently hold no seats on the Providence City Council, and Democrats make up a majority of the city’s registered voters. Kamala Harris carried Providence by 51 points over President Trump in 2024, underscoring how one-sided the general election contest is likely to be.
The Providence primary is the latest flashpoint in an ongoing debate inside the Democratic Party over how much influence democratic socialist and progressive candidates should have over its direction, a debate that has intensified as Mamdani’s own rise in New York continues to draw national attention.
