Dan's in trouble
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
Three weeks and a day out from the primary, Gov. Dan McKee has failed to narrow a 20-point gap with his Democratic gubernatorial challenger, Helena Buonanno Foulkes, a survey published Tuesday by The Pell Center at Salve Regina University finds. 
McKee needs almost all the undecideds to go his way
The poll of 857 likely primary voters echoes surveys by other organizations, which also showed Foulkes with a 20-point or higher lead over McKee.
“There’s no strong surprises there,” said Katie Sonder, Pell Center associate director and fellow. “Helena Foulkes has been leading McKee over the last few months.”
The new survey is the Pell Center’s first 2026 election-specific poll, conducted Aug. 3 to 11 by Embold Research. The margin of error is 3.6%, with a 4.2% error margin for Democratic primary-specific questions.
Survey results were shared with Rhode Island Current in advance.
More than 1 in 5 voters were still undecided at the time of the survey, which ended one day before the first televised gubernatorial debates.
“With those undecideds, we could see it swing in either candidate’s direction,” Sonder said.
And the governor is “running strong,” said Sophie Mestas, a spokesperson for McKee’s campaign.
“Public polling has been notoriously inconsistent this cycle, and in the final weeks of the race, Governor McKee is running strong – going 2-0 in debates against his opponent, earning the backing of Rhode Island’s labor unions, and delivering an Affordability for All agenda that lowers costs for working families while protecting the health care and food assistance Donald Trump is trying to take away,” Mestas said in an emailed response Monday.”
Foulkes’ campaign was equally assured of her chances.
McKee trails Foulkes in nearly every demographic group: age, gender, race, education level and county of residence, according to Pell’s survey. Foulkes, 62, of Providence, had the strongest margin among voters ages 18-34, white voters, and those who live in Bristol and Newport counties.
McKee, 75, of Cumberland, came closest to Foulkes among voters 65 and older and in Kent County, where he trailed by just 1 point. Sonder declined to speculate about the support for McKee in Kent County, which leans more conservative than the state as a whole. McKee had more support than Foulkes among people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024, though Foulkes was still favored by registered Republicans, according to the survey results.
McKee’s campaign has repeatedly tried to link Foulkes to conservative causes and candidates, noting her past political donations to the political action committees for CVS, her former employer, and The Home Depot, where she served on the board. CVS gave $35,000 to the Trump Victory Fund in 2017, while The Home Depot has donated to GOP candidates, and its late cofounder was a vocal Trump supporter.
Foulkes responded that she never made personal donations to Trump, and that her contributions to company PACs were spent without her personal input.
A new conservative political group, The League of RI Businesses, has publicly encouraged Republican voters to disaffiliate to participate in state Democratic primaries. Yet data from the Rhode Island Department of State shows few GOP voters have left the party in the last three months.
Turnout in the Sept. 9 primary will be the biggest factor in the outcome, and margin, of the gubernatorial race, Sonder said. Nearly 17% of voters cast ballots in the 2022 state primaries, in which McKee defeated Foulkes by 3 points in four-way race. Just under 10% of voters participated in the 2024 primaries, which did not include state general offices.
‘Undecided’ voters loom large in down ballot races
This year’s primaries also feature close contests for lieutenant governor and attorney general. Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos maintained a 2-point edge over her top challenger, Newport City Councilor Xay Khamsyvoravong, according to the Pell Center survey. But nearly half of Democratic voters surveyed were undecided in the five-way primary, which also includes Providence City Councilor Sue AnderBois, former state Sen. Cynthia Coyne, and science teacher Ross McCurdy.
“Down ballot races tend to have a much higher number of people who are unsure,” Sonder said, noting that despite Matos’ incumbency, her challengers include several other sitting or former officeholders with name recognition.
Yet Matos’ campaign remained confident.
“Rhode Islanders are seeing the difference between someone who talks about affordability and someone who’s actually done something about it,” Christa Thompson, a campaign spokesperson, said in an emailed response. “Sabina has a coalition of working-class Rhode Islanders who are with her in her fight against corporate greed and who know that she is the only politician in this state with a plan to lower people’s grocery bills. Sabina will continue to work hard to earn their vote on September 9th.”
Josh Block, a spokesperson for Ahern’s campaign, called the poll results “encouraging.”
“With three weeks left until the primary, we’re not taking anything for granted, and Kim will continue working hard in every community to show why her unparalleled experience uniquely prepares her to take on the big fights and protect Rhode Islanders’ fundamental rights as our next Attorney General,” Block said in an emailed response.
Keith Hoffmann, Neronha’s former policy chief, had the next most support at 13%, followed by Rep. Joe Solomon Jr. at 10% and Rep. Jason Knight at 5%.
Across the political aisle, Republican gubernatorial candidate Elaine Pelino maintained a commanding 20-point lead over Aaron Guckian, with more than 4 in 10 voters undecided. Pelino, a retired comedian first-time candidate and self-proclaimed MAGA Republican, also outperformed Guckian in prior public polls despite having less name recognition, less money and having lost the state GOP endorsement to Guckian. Guckian previously worked as an aide to Gov. Don Carcieri and ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2022.
The survey also took the temperature in the rare Republican Congressional primary for the 2nd Congressional District seat, held by U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner. Party-endorsed challenger Stephen Skoly, a Cranston oral surgeon, led Marine Corps veteran Vic Mellor by 7 points, just outside the 5.6% margin of error for questions specific to Republican voters.
On the U.S. Senate side, Rhode Island’s senior Democratic senator, Jack Reed, had the backing of more than 6 in 10 voters, compared with 12% support for primary challenger Connor Burbridge. One in 5 Democratic voters were undecided.
The survey was more heavily weighted toward registered Democrats and Republicans than independents to better gauge the feelings of those most likely to participate in party primaries, said Erin Barry, a Pell Center spokesperson. Of the 857 respondents to the survey, 46% were registered Democrats, while 26% were Republican voters, with 27% unaffiliated. State voter registration data shows more than half of the 691,000 registered voters are independent, with another one-third registered as Democrats, and the remainder Republicans.
Participants represented both genders and a range of ages and education levels. More than 8 in 10 survey respondents identified as white.
Early voting begins Thursday ahead of a Sept. 9 primary.
This story will be updated.
- 6:26 amUpdated to include comments from the campaigns for Helena Foulkes and Sabina Matos.
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