Can RI Democrats hold 2nd District seat? Five contenders make their case to primary voters

It’s a sweltering morning in early August, and a hazy Narragansett Bay is visible from Sarah Morgenthau’s Saunderstown home. Past the oyster cages off Fox Island, a sailboat idly tacks back and forth. In an ordinary summer, Morgenthau and her family might be out there on their Hobie Cat, or swimming from the sandy beach that sits at the bottom of their sprawling property.

Morgenthau hasn't had time for any of that lately: She’s vying to succeed U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin in Congress. Over the weekend, amid a crushing heat wave, she went from shaking hands at the Dominican parade in Providence to singing karaoke at the Charlestown Seafood Festival to chatting up voters at a meet-and-greet in a Johnston backyard. 

Now, as the humidity bears down, she’s giving a tour to a nosy reporter who has far too many questions about the sheep that are grazing near the tennis court. (There are four of them, and 13 more on the way — but that’s her husband’s domain.) 

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It’s hard not to wonder why she’s putting herself through this. The front-runner in the Democratic primary, state General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, seems poised to cruise to victory on Sept. 13. He’s raised the most money, maintained a roughly 30-point lead in polls, and collected the most endorsements — including one from Langevin, who said in June that it was time to "unite behind the strongest candidate in the race.”

Yet despite the steep odds, rival Democrats have steadfastly refused to bow out. 

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Along with Morgenthau, who’s held high-powered jobs in Washington, D.C., but only recently registered to vote at her family’s home in Rhode Island, the field includes David Segal, a cerebral populist focused on reining in corporate special interests; Joy Fox, who has served as communications director for both Langevin and Gov. Gina Raimondo and claims the deepest ties to the district; and Omar Bah, an African refugee with a compelling personal story.

Until recently, Spencer Dickinson, a former lawmaker with conservative views, was also in the race. His friend John Carlevale said on Tuesday that Dickinson was experiencing serious health issues and was "suspending the active part of his campaign."

If you’re just tuning in, a quick recap: Back in February, Langevin unexpectedly announced that he would not seek reelection. It briefly felt like every politician who’d ever set foot in Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District, which covers the western half of the state, was floating the idea of running for the open seat. One week later, Magaziner announced that he would be exiting the crowded governor’s race in order to run for Congress.

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To observers, it seemed clear that Democratic insiders were worried about losing the seat and wanted a nominee who was already a known quantity with strong name recognition. But if the goal was to clear the field, that didn’t happen: After Magaziner entered the race, other candidates continued to join.  

Political forecasters believe that Republicans have a chance of winning the seat in November's general election for the first time in decades. While Magaziner has focused on campaigning against Allan Fung, the Republican nominee, his rivals within his own party are trying to make the case that they’re better-positioned to keep the seat in Democratic hands. 

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“I think I’m the strongest candidate to go against Allan Fung,” Morgenthau says. “I think I draw the greatest contrast.” 

Says Fox: “I’m only in this race. It’s not like I was running for governor and decided to jump in because it looked easier, and maybe the powers that be convinced me to change my mind. … I’m in this because I believe that I can make a difference.”

Magaziner: A believer in using financial systems for social good

The first time that Seth Magaziner’s name appeared in The Providence Journal, he was 12 weeks old. His father, Ira Magaziner — a campus radical turned wildly successful management consultant — had proposed an ambitious plan to revive Rhode Island’s economy. 

“When my son grows up," the elder Magaziner told The Journal, "and when he's 15 or 20 years old and beginning to go out in the world, I'd like to be able to sit down and say that I was part of an effort that made Rhode Island a place where he can find a good job in this state if he wants to.” 

The economic plan never came to fruition, but Rhode Island nonetheless proved to be a good place for the young Magaziner to find a job. 

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At 31, he was elected state treasurer, a role that has become a springboard for ambitious politicians. Now, at 39, he has a good chance of becoming the newest member of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation. 

Magaziner grew up to be an affable nerd whose career has centered around the notion that financial systems can be leveraged to create positive social outcomes. He’s now a father himself and often says he’s running to make a better world for his 10-month-old son, Max — who periodically causes chaos at campaign events. 

“As soon as I start my stump speech, he goes nuts and he starts screaming,” Magaziner jokes. ”Hopefully, he’s not going to grow up to be a Republican.”

Magaziner spent his own early years on Bristol’s desirable Poppasquash Neck; later, his father became a top adviser to President Bill Clinton and temporarily moved the family to Washington, D.C. He attended Milton Academy and Brown University, where he was president of the College Democrats.

Afterward, he followed a popular path for idealistic graduates: joining Teach for America.

His two years teaching third and fourth grade in Opelousas, Louisiana — “Cajun country, out in the swamps” — were a formative experience, he said. The majority of his students were Black and qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, and many lived in public housing.

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After a year, he recalled, the Home Depot in town shut down. “Then, the one nice restaurant — and by nice I mean the one restaurant with tablecloths — closed. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the start of the Great Recession.” 

Students vanished from his classroom as their parents lost their jobs and moved away. Soon, Magaziner had also moved on — to get an MBA at Yale. 

He’d had a realization that there were “decisions being made in boardrooms a thousand miles away that were impacting the lives of my kids and my parents,” he said. “And the people in those boardrooms making those decisions had no concept of what was going on in communities like the one I was working in.”

He didn’t know what he wanted to do with a business degree, he said. “But I just knew that I wanted to try to understand both ends of the spectrum. I wanted to understand how the financial world worked” — with the goal of making it work better in places like Opelousas.  

After Yale, Magaziner got a job at Trillium Asset Management, which positions itself as a “socially responsible” investment firm. While living in Providence and commuting to Boston by train, he got involved with local causes like the campaign for marriage equality, then launched his bid for state general treasurer in 2013.

Magaziner defeated Frank Caprio, a veteran politician who had previously served as treasurer, in an upset. As treasurer, Magaziner seized on the fact that the state pension fund has the ability to push for changes at companies that it invests in. Recently, for instance, he urged Mastercard to crack down on sellers of “ghost guns.” When Pinterest faced allegations of discrimination, he initiated a lawsuit that resulted in a number of reforms. 

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But he sees a school construction initiative that led to “a majority of school buildings in the state” being repaired or replaced as his biggest accomplishment. 

When he entered the race to succeed Langevin, Magaziner didn’t live in the 2nd Congressional District — which, legally, is not required — but pledged to move there. This month, just before the deadline to register to vote in the primary, he and his family relocated to a rental in the Edgewood section of Cranston. The house that they own on the East Side of Providence has been listed for rent.

Critics contend that a candidate with deeper roots in the district would fare better in the general election. In response, Magaziner tends to cite his work helping to finance infrastructure projects in West Warwick and Westerly. As treasurer, he says, he’s spent “real time” in every part of the district. 

He also notes that he was living in the 2nd District when he was first elected, “so it’s not that I’m moving there for the first time.” (Certain pockets of Providence, including parts of downtown, are in the district.)

“I have the deepest experience of working in communities all across the district to solve problems and get things done,” he said. “And I think that will allow me to be the most effective representative for the community in Congress.” 

Segal: A progressive prepared to work across partisan lines

The heat index is already at 100 degrees by the time David Segal begins canvassing a neighborhood of split-level ranches near Aqueduct Road in Cranston. 

It’s a Sunday afternoon, so it seems safe to assume that everyone has decamped for the beach. But at the first house, the door swings open. The homeowners, both trained social workers, nod appreciatively as Segal — somewhat apologetically — runs through his biography and explains that he’s spent the last decade “pushing back on corporate special interests.”

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“If you know The American Prospect, it’s a progressive publication, they just profiled me,” he says. “Maybe there was a little bit of exaggeration, but they called me the singular figure at the center of the most important cross-partisan coalitions over the last 10 years.” 

Sold, the couple ask what they can do to help. Segal promises to drop off a yard sign.

“All right, just need to do that 20,000 more times,” he says as he and state Rep. Brandon Potter walk to the next house. Then he corrects his math: There were two voters, so the exchange only needs to be repeated 10,000 times. 

Segal, a lanky 42-year-old who livesin Providence's West End, doesn’t have a typical politician’s demeanor. Instead of speaking in sound bites, he frequently interrupts himself to add more nuance. And he often seems embarrassed to bring up his own accomplishments.

His populist pitch appeals to supporters of U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. (Warren has endorsed him; so has Our Revolution, the organization that Sanders founded.) But his concerns about Big Tech and corporate monopolies allow him to find common ground with conservatives, and he describes himself as someone with a history of working across ideological divides.

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Segal grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., with doctors as parents. He arrived at Columbia University with a conservative worldview, and worked on John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign before embracing the progressive movement that had coalesced around the Green Party. After graduation, he moved to Providence. 

“A couple of my best friends were here, and I wanted to figure out what to do with my life,” he explains. “It seemed like a good place to do it.”

It didn’t take him long to find a direction. At 22, still new to the city, Segal became the first Green Party candidate to win election in Rhode Island. He spent four years on the Providence City Council championing causes like police oversight, renewable energy and a living wage, and went on to serve in the state House of Representatives for two terms as a Democrat.

At the General Assembly, Segal was part of a relatively small group of progressives. He notes that he sponsored a bill to codify abortion rights back in 2007 — more than a decade before it finally passed. A major accomplishment, he says, was leading a coalition that prevented “tens of millions of dollars” in aid for communities from being cut at the height of the financial crisis. 

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In 2010, he ran for an open seat in Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District. At the time, The Journal observed that Segal was known “as a kind of willing monkey wrench who threw himself into the workings of established political machines when he found it necessary.” 

Segal lost to David Cicilline, whom he now praises as an “extraordinary” leader on antitrust issues. He went on to co-found a grassroots group named Demand Progress with Aaron Swartz, an advocate for internet freedom who had worked on his congressional campaign.

The organization was just getting off the ground when Swartz was arrested. Federal prosecutors alleged that he had illegally downloaded millions of articles from academic publishing site JSTOR — a charge that members of Congress would later describe as “ridiculous" and "trumped up.” 

In 2013, facing the likelihood of prison time, Swartz committed suicide. His death sparked a massive outcry.

“It was just extraordinary to see how many people he’d touched,” Segal said. “I don’t know how much he realized that the whole world would come to appreciate what he stood for, and recognize overwhelmingly that what was happening to him was unjust.”

Segal remained at the helm of Demand Progress, though he’s on leave for the final stretch of his campaign. The organization has a base of more than 1 million people, he said, and mobilizes them to contact elected officials about topics ranging from surveillance to the war in Yemen. 

He argues that keeping the 2nd Congressional District from falling into Republican hands requires more than “half measures.” The district “fundamentally has an anti-establishment bent to it,” he said.

“I think people rightly are concerned that the way government has been operating for decades clearly has not worked in our favor,” he said. 

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Morgenthau: Making the case for experience, and a woman’s perspective

Before taking a seat, Sarah Morgenthau pours black coffee into a “Votes for Women” mug. The suffragist slogan matches the theme of her campaign — that it’s time for Rhode Island to send a Democratic woman to Congress.

“I look into women’s eyes and in 10 seconds, we get it,” says Morgenthau, 59. “We know we have that ability to get things done, and there’s just a different way of looking at things.”

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The district was represented by a Republican woman, Claudine Schneider, in the 1980s. But no Democratic women have held the seat. Ruth Morgenthau, Sarah’s late mother, ran in 1988 and lost. 

Morgenthau’s family legacy is also a theme of her campaign. Her mother fled the Nazis and went on to become an expert in world hunger who served as an adviser to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Carter. Her grandfather, Henry Morgenthau Jr., was treasury secretary under Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Her great-grandfather served as Woodrow Wilson’s ambassador to Turkey, and was “responsible for the public outcry about the Armenian genocide,” she said. And her uncle was Robert Morgenthau, the longtime district attorney for Manhattan. 

Morgenthau’s parents, who had been living in Cambridge, built the Saunderstown house on 17 acres of land in the 1980s. Located south of Rome Point, it now belongs to Morgenthau and her husband, Carlton Wessel. A barn on the property serves as her campaign headquarters. 

From the back deck, you can cut across a meadow and follow a tree-lined path down to the beach, where two paddleboards and the Hobie Cat are waiting. The small sailboat recently “ran away,” Morgenthau says, but a neighbor who happened to be out on their own boat quickly spotted it, jumped on board, and piloted it back to shore.

Until recently, Morgenthau wasn’t living here year-round. She grew up in Boston and New York, spent years working in Washington, and registered to vote in North Kingstown shortly before launching her campaign this February. At the time, she said that the last time she'd voted in Rhode Island was probably her mother's 1988 campaign. 

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Morgenthau often notes that she and her husband were married in their Saunderstown backyard. “This has been home for us for 40 years,” she says. “It’s been a constant in our lives.” 

But questions about her ties to Rhode Island have dogged her campaign.

During an April interview with WPRI, Morgenthau admitted she’d never lived in the state for a full year, and that her children hadn’t attended school here. In June, the station reported that she was still claiming a homestead tax exemption in Washington, D.C. (Morgenthau’s campaign said she would correct that.)

And earlier this year, when The Journal called up candidates to see how they’d do on a pop quiz about the district, one of Morgenthau’s answers matched a Wikipedia entry almost word for word.

“I don’t think folks are really interested in a trivia quiz,” she said recently, when asked about the episode. “I think folks are focused right now on having the right congresswoman at this really critical moment in our history to go to Washington. I have been so excited about the enthusiasm and the conversations that we’re all having together to make sure that we get the federal resources for this great state.”

Sure, but it’s fair to ask how well candidates know the district that they seek to represent. So The Journal put her on the spot again — this time, in person. One question: What road is Allie’s Donuts on?

“We go there all the time,” Morgenthau answered. “I think it’s on Post Road, but most of the time my husband or my brother-in-law or my daughter goes.” 

Incorrect: Allie’s is on Quaker Lane, or Route 2. 

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Lately, Morgenthau been making the case that her years in Washington are an asset, giving her experience that other candidates lack. “We are losing seniority with Jim Langevin, and things could not be more urgent,” she said. 

After attending Barnard College and Columbia Law School — and helping manage her  mother’s congressional campaign — Morgenthau clerked for a federal judge in New Jersey, then worked as an attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

She worked on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and was later made a director of the Peace Corps. In that role, she helped evacuate volunteers from Crimea and Haiti, she said. She then spent two years at the Department of Homeland Security, heading the private sector office and the Homeland Security Advisory Council. 

She left when Trump took office and went to work at Nardello LLC, which describes itself as a “global investigations firm.” In 2017, then-Governor Raimondo named her to Rhode Island’s Homeland Security Advisory Board.

Known as a skilled fundraiser, Morgenthau served as a surrogate for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. In September 2021, she became deputy assistant secretary for national travel and tourism in the Commerce Department, under Raimondo. 

Her résumé, coupled with the fact that she’s a woman, offers the strongest contrast to Fung, she says.

“Anybody who knows me knows that I have the experience, that I will go to Washington and I will fight like heck,” she said. “But it’s hard in Washington. It’s divisive, it’s overly partisan. We need a congresswoman who has those relationships, who has the experience working on the issues so that we can deliver for folks here.” 

Fox: A lifelong resident tuned in to local concerns

Joy Fox has just arrived at Bagel Express in Pawtuxet Village when she overhears two women talking about the congressional race. 

Stopping to introduce herself, she quickly discovers that she knows one woman’s niece from elementary school. Over the next hour, as she sits for an interview, she spots her aunt and uncle on their morning walk, trades greetings with a family friend (“How’s Kirsten doing?”), and pauses to chat with an acquaintance who happens to be the brother of Cranston's mayor.

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The constant interruptions aren’t exactly surprising: Fox, 44, grew up less than half a mile from here. She now lives only a short distance down the road, in Warwick’s Gaspee neighborhood. Even when she was working for Langevin, she lived in Rhode Island full-time, and commuted to Washington, D.C., for important events like the State of the Union. 

Now, her local roots are a central theme of her campaign.

“My opponents could be running for Congress anywhere, if you listen to how they position themselves and talk about these issues,” she says. “And I am running in the 2nd District — where I grew up, where my family is, where I will always be.”

Like the other candidates, Fox cites gun violence, climate change and the erosion of abortion rights as major concerns. But she’s just as likely to bring up a hyperlocal issue like the decrepit state of Cranston's Budlong Pool. A strong focus on constituent services, she says, is critical “for people to feel like the government is working for them.”

Fox, 44, grew up in the Edgewood section of Cranston. Her grandfather was the founder of the P.J. Fox Paper Co., which sold toilet paper, among other things, and counted the PawSox and Rhode Island Hospital as two of its biggest clients.

Fox’s father took over the business, but eventually was forced to close it in the early 2000s “because bigger corporations would come in, and it just wasn’t competitive anymore,” she said. He now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and her mother, a physical therapist, is his primary caregiver. (One of Fox’s main priorities is increasing the amount of support available for family caregivers.)

The oldest of five children, Fox attended St. Mary Academy - Bay View and Rhode Island College. During summers in high school and college, she taught sailing at the Edgewood Yacht Club, waitressed at a restaurant in Narragansett, and worked for the Block Island Ferry. 

Today, she retains the briskly methodical and relentlessly upbeat demeanor of a sailing camp counselor. Even after several hours of greeting voters in 93-degree heat, she refuses to complain. “Some of the issues that people face, they don’t get a day off from,” she says. 

After RIC, Fox became a reporter and editor for the Cranston Herald, then worked full-time at the Providence Business News while simultaneously spending weekends as an assignment editor for Channel 10. 

She left journalism to work as a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections. Ashbel T. Wall, the prison system’s widely respected chief, “recognized that he needed to help inform the community” about what happens behind the walls and fences at the Adult Correctional Institutions, she said. 

Her work there attracted the attention of Langevin’s office, and in 2005, she was hired as the congressman’s press secretary. She worked her way up to director of communications and community relations before leaving in 2011 to handle communications for then-General Treasurer Gina Raimondo, whom she would later follow to the governor’s office.

Fox is currently the CEO of the Clarendon Group, a public relations agency. Although she has the résumé of a political insider, she’s an underdog in the race and has trailed behind Magaziner, Morgenthau and Segal in fundraising and polling.  

“I didn’t grow up with a trust fund,” she often reminds people. 

Fox argues that her deep local ties give her the best understanding of what the district needs, and also make her the best candidate to keep the seat in Democratic hands.

“It’s no secret that Allan Fung will likely use that ‘I’m from here’ line frequently and often,” she said. “You don’t have that with me. You can take that right off the table.”

Bah: A refugee who faced the unimaginable 

Omar Bah, a 42-year-old native of Gambia, undoubtedly has the most harrowing life story of anyone in the race. 

As a 21-year-old journalist, he reported on a clandestine trial and was beaten and tortured by soldiers until he lost consciousness. Later, he began publishing stories under a fake name that were critical of the country’s repressive dictatorship. When the site was hacked, exposing his identity, he had to flee the country that same night or face certain death. 

Bah hopped on a bus that would take him close to the Senegalese border, only to discover that soldiers were stopping each vehicle in order to search for him. When a soldier climbed aboard his bus and shined a flashlight in his face, he put up his hands to surrender, certain that his time was up.

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Then he looked at the soldier and, in an instant, recognized him as an old friend from middle school. The soldier, clearly realizing the same thing, jumped off the bus and yelled at the driver, “Move! Move!”

After Bah safely made it across the border, he sought asylum and was eventually resettled in Rhode Island as a refugee in 2007. He went on to get a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Rhode Island, a master’s degree in public administration from Roger Williams University, and a master’s and doctorate in psychology from William James College. 

Bah also published a memoir, “Africa’s Hell on Earth: The Ordeal of an African Journalist.” In 2015, he founded the Refugee Dream Center in order to help other refugees adjust to American life. 

Recent polling from WPRI and RWU shows Bah with 3% support, less than any Democratic contender besides Dickinson. He said he’s skeptical that the pollsters are reaching the people who will turn out for him on Election Day.

“I haven’t gotten any proof that they’re calling people from my base, because I haven’t met anyone who was called,” he said. 

Bah has never held elective office before, though he has served on various boards and commissions. He said that some people have suggested that running for Congress is an “overreach.”

“I’ve heard statements like that, and I think it’s racist,” he said. “You’re going to tell the Black male with a Ph.D. not to run against a white male with a bachelor’s degree?”

What do political experts say about the 2nd District race?

With the primary election rapidly approaching, Magaziner has a “very significant lead” in all the metrics that count, said Providence College political science professor Adam Myers. 

“To be sure, there are a lot of undecided voters remaining, but the polling results we have suggest that nearly all those voters would have to break for only one of the other candidates to give someone else a genuine shot,” he said. 

Given that reality, Myers added, it’s hard to see how any of Magaziner’s opponents can win, “absent a big change in the dynamics of the race.”

“My guess is that’s what his opponents are hoping for: some sort of late-breaking development that casts Magaziner in a negative light and opens up space for someone else,” he said. “But the possibility of that happening is very remote, since Magaziner is a known quantity.”

Brown University political science professor Wendy Schiller notes that all the candidates have some connection to Rhode Island politics, “with the exception of Morgenthau.” 

“They may see an opportunity here to establish broader name recognition and campaign experience for future races,” she said. “And as we have learned in recent elections, anything can happen on primary day.”