Rep. Patricia Morgan is seen speaking at on the House floor during a debate on May 28, 2024. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
She served 12 years in the Rhode Island General Assembly representing communities in the state’s second most populous county. She even ran for governor.
Yet Republican Rep. Patricia Morgan faces an uphill battle in her bid to unseat three-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse in the Nov. 5 general election. More than a third of likely voters don’t know who she is, according to a new Rhode Island Current poll.
Whitehouse led Morgan 52% to 37% in the survey of 800 likely voters conducted by MassINC Polling Group between Sept. 12 and 18. Only 5% of respondents said they were undecided.
The poll also asked likely voters how favorably they viewed the two U.S. Senate candidates. And if they never heard of them or were undecided, voters were instructed to just say that. In the case of Morgan, 34% of respondents said they never heard of her. By contrast, only 3% of likely voters said they had never heard of Whitehouse.
Morgan’s lack of familiarity echoed the results of a poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released Sept. 19, which found 41% of respondents reported they didn’t know enough about her to have an opinion of her.
“She’s a little bit underwater,” Richard Parr, senior research director for MassINC, said in an interview Monday. “To be able to get yourself out there in a positive way in the time that remains is going to be a real challenge.”
A former House minority leader, Morgan was first elected to the General Assembly in 2010, where she has represented parts of West Warwick, Coventry, Warwick. She lost the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary to 56.4% to 40.1% to then-Cranston Mayor Allan Fung (who went on to lose to Gina Raimondo in the general election). Morgan returned to Smith Hill in 2021, where she has not caucus with the eight other House Republicans.
Morgan beat former Warwick city administrator Raymond McKay 64.5% to 35.5% in the Sept. 10 Republican primary.
Morgan, 74, is one of six Republican women across the country running for U.S. Senate in the November election, a number lower than in the three previous election cycles. The record for GOP women Senate nominees is nine, set in 2020; there were 8 GOP women Senate nominees in 2018 and 7 in 2022.
Fifteen Democratic women are running for the U.S. Senate in 2024, up from 13 in 2022. The number of Democratic women’s Senate nominations this year matches the record high of 15 first set in 2018.
The Morgan and Whitehouse campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Rhode Island Current poll.
Following the release of the University of New Hampshire’s poll, Morgan issued a fundraising email saying that Whitehouse “is clinging to his lead only because he has a massive financial advantage.”
A reelection campaign ad for U.S. Sen. Sheldon, (D-R.I.), appears on a television screen during the Summer Olympic Games on July 30, 2024. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
During the most recent reporting period, Whitehouse’s campaign had more than $3.6 million on hand. Morgan reported around $144,000. The next filing deadline is Oct. 15 — the final day for Rhode Island voters to request their mail-in ballots and one day before early voting kicks off.
“His name may be familiar, but the people of Rhode Island are tired of his out-of-touch Washington games,” Morgan wrote.
Whitehouse going for gold in Olympic ad spending with his U.S. Senate reelection campaign
Her fundraising appeal also stated “Whitehouse is flooding the airwaves with ads.” Indeed, Rhode Island’s junior U.S. senator re-election campaign spent $165,000 toward 458 ads since the Sept. 10 primary — with the last spots airing Tuesday, according to filings with the Federal Communications Commission.
The campaign for the 68-year-old Democratic incumbent spent more than $304,000 on broadcast TV ads leading up to the primary election — a third of which went toward spots airing during the Olympics.
Morgan has not made any recent ad purchases. Her campaign paid $25,127 for 447 ad spots on cable TV during the latter half of April when she launched her senatorial bid.
But Morgan may have a chance to appear on TV soon. She confirmed in an email Tuesday morning that she accepted a debate invitation sent to both campaigns by WPRI-12. Following the primary, Morgan called on Whitehouse to a public debate before early voting kicks off Oct. 16.
The Whitehouse campaign had previously indicated he was willing to face off, but did not immediately confirm Tuesday whether he had accepted WPRI’s invitation.
The general election will be held on Nov. 5.
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