Mayor will face challenger Al Brien again in Nov. Primary voters favor Mayor Baldelli-Hunt
WOONSOCKET – Despite some visibly heavy campaign spending, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt eked out a narrow plurality against former City Council President Albert G. Brien in Wednesday’s non-binding primary, besting the challenger by a margin of less than 8 percent.
The unofficial final tally was 1,759-1,491, giving Baldelli-Hunt 49.9 percent to Brien’s 42.3 percent, according to the state Board of Elections. The balance, or 278 votes, went to Albert Beauparlant, who withdrew from the race in July, which means that Baldelli-Hunt and Brien both advance to the general election on Nov. 6
In a phone interview from the Broaster House Restaurant, where he was celebrating with family members and friends, Brien said he may have come up short, but the results had him feeling like a winner.
“Am I unhappy with the results? No,” said Brien. “Am I surprised? Not at all. Can we build from this base? I am encouraged and motivated by it, absolutely.”
The two candidates don’t see eye-to-eye on much, but they’re both forecasting a much higher turnout in the general election. Where
they clash is on the question of how much of a share of the voter windfall they’ll take.
Brien thinks he’s the bigger beneficiary and will outpace the incumbent; Baldelli-Hunt says she’ll widen the gap of victory at the finish line.
Addressing a small crowd of campaign workers, family members and supporters in the Flatiron Building at Arnold and Main streets – her campaign headquarters for the season – Baldelli-Hunt said Brien’s support came from a core group of detractors who were voting against her rather than for Brien. She said she also faced an uphill battle against “negative radio” and “negative social media,” as well as a sense of complacency among supporters who felt their vote was unnecessary for her to win a spot on the November ballot.
She said “I can’t tell you
how many people I spoke to today...” who approached her with some version of the same disclaimer: “We knew you were going to be on the November ballot.”
Campaigning for a third term, the former state lawmaker vowed to pull out all the stops in coming weeks to spread the word about her record of accomplishments.
“The record I have over the last five years is a record we can all be proud of and it’s the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of people,” Baldelli-Hunt said. “We’re just going to have to keep trucking and see what happens.”
As the mayor’s poll workers were returning with the results from various polling places, the mood was rather subdued – but Public Works
Director Steve D’Agostino put things in perspective. At one point he unexpectedly cried out, “Why are we so quiet? We’re winning!”
Like a boxer, D’Agostino said, Brien’s showing in the primary was likely to be “his best shot.” From here on out, he said, Brien’s support would be unlikely to grow, as the primary was largely a forum for the mayor’s detractors to weigh in.
A former state-lawmaker, Baldelli-Hunt, 56, is portraying herself as the mayor who yanked a city on the brink of bankruptcy up by its bootstraps to stabilize finances, modernize departments and repave crumbling roads – all without borrowing a dime.
But Brien has says Baldelli-Hunt is the “my-way-or-the-highway” mayor who shows little ability or inclination to seek political consensus. His campaign motto says as much about her as it does his vision for the future: “It’s We, Not Me.”
Going forward, says Brien, the message isn’t going to change much.
“It’s going to be the same message I’ve been giving you right along,” he said. “It’s we, not me. Tax relief, tax relief, tax relief. Open, transparent government. Collaboration and working collectively with our branches or government.”
In the run-up to primary, Baldeli-Hunt, who started the campaign cycle with a war chest in excess of $50,000 – a possible high water mark for any mayor, ever – clearly
used a good deal of it on radio time, newspaper ads and other publicity efforts. By contrast, Brien ran what he calls a “grassroots” campaign that was built largely on free media coverage of his candidacy as a news event and word-ofmouth publicity.
Brien says he’s planning at least one big fundraiser before the general election, but he admits there’s no possible way he’s going to catch up to the incumbent in the fundraising department.
“I will not make up the funding gap because I’ve got $30, and she’s got $49,000,” he said. “But we will shore up the funding gap to the extent we’ll be able to bring our message forward.”
A former state lawmaker who worked as the city’s finance director in the 1980s – ironically in the administration of former Mayor Charles Baldelli, the incumbent’s uncle – Brien, 77, actually outpolled Baldelli-Hunt in three of the city’s 12 polling places. At Globe Park Elementary School, for example – not far from Brien’s home on South Main Street – he took 139 votes to Baldelli-Hunt’s 132.
He also beat Baldelli-Hunt at Woonsocket High School, 205-187, and at Bernon Heights Elementary School, 186-158. Baldelli-Hunt beat Brien in every other polling place, though in some of them the margin consisted of just a handful of votes.