U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), left, campaigns with Rep. June Speakman, a Warren Democrat seeking reelection to her House District 68 seat, outside the Mary V. Quirk School, in Warren early Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 5, 2024. (Ken Castro/Rhode Island Current)
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has secured a fourth term on Capitol Hill after claiming an easy but vital victory over Republican state Rep. Patricia Morgan for Democrats as the party fights to maintain control of the upper chamber. The Associated Press called the race for Rhode Island’s junior senator when polls closed at 8 p.m. because results from AP VoteCast showed he was leading by at least 15 percentage points.
“It’s an honor to fight every single day on behalf of Rhode Islanders, and I’m deeply grateful for the trust you’ve placed in me,” Whitehouse said in a statement. “I will spend the next six years working hard to make our government and economy work for all Rhode Islanders.”
Whitehouse, 69, was among 47 Senate Democrats serving in the 118th Congress and was widely expected to hold onto the seat he has held since 2007. Four Senate independents caucused with Democrats, giving the party a slim but functional 51-49 majority.
But with a Republican primed to flip a seat in West Virginia, and tight races in Michigan, Montana, Ohio, and Wisconsin, the chamber could flip for the 119th Congress.
Morgan, 74, a former Rhode Island State House minority leader and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate, faced a steep uphill funding battle against Whitehouse, who had far and away the biggest campaign war chest out of any Rhode Island politician.
Heading into the final days of the race, Whitehouse’s campaign had $2.2 million on hand. Morgan reported around $62,000 — though her bid to unseat Whitehouse received at least $200,000 worth of help from the out-of-state Roosevelt Society Action PAC, which bought ad time during the two most recent Sunday Night Football games.
The super PAC also sought to persuade voters through mailers, including one critical of Portuguese immigrants. One mailer cites a Fox News report from February stating three women who overstayed their visas were charged in connection with the death of a 1-year-old child in Pawtucket.
Roughly 7% of Rhode Island’s population is made up of people with Portuguese ancestry, according to U.S. census data.
Matthew Ulricksen, an associate professor of political science for the Community College of Rhode Island, called the decision to attack Portuguese immigrants “mind boggling,” but he said he was not surprised the super PAC did so.
“That just shows the problem with independent expenditures,” he said. “If there is no obvious coordination from the campaigns, you’re going to have these super PACs out there promoting messages that undermine the candidates themselves.”
Morgan was first elected to the General Assembly in 2010, where she represents House District 26 covering parts of her hometown of West Warwick, and parts of Coventry, and Warwick. She served from 2011 through 2018 and then declined to seek reelection to run for governor. She lost the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary to then-Cranston Mayor Allan Fung to 56.4% to 40.1%. Fung then went on to lose to Gina Raimondo in the general election.
Morgan ran again in 2020 and returned to the House District 26 seat in 2021, where she has not caucused with the eight other House Republicans. She chose not to seek reelection to her seat this year to run against Whitehouse.
But even with her statewide resume, Morgan struggled to make a name for herself with Rhode Island’s electorate. A September poll by Rhode Island Current found a little more than a third of likely voters had never heard of her.
Rhode Island voters first elected Whitehouse to the U.S. Senate in 2006 and previously served as the state’s attorney general from 1999 to 2003 and U.S. Attorney from 1994-1998. As a senior member of the chamber’s Judiciary Committee, he has been an outspoken critic of the conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court and filed two high-profile bills to reform the high court. One bill would impose 18-year term limits on justices, who would be appointed every two years.
The other called for a code of conduct for justices and establishing procedures to receive and investigate complaints of judicial misconduct, along with adopting rules governing disclosure of gifts, travel, and income received by the justices.
In 2018, Whitehouse won 61.4% of the vote against Robert G. Flanders, Jr., a former Rhode Island Supreme Court associate justice.
Whitehouse serves as the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and the Caucus on International Narcotics Control. He is also a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Finance Committee.
About a third of the U.S. Senate is up for reelection in any election cycle. Senators serve six-year terms.
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