If We Try to Win Like the National GOP, We’ll Lose Like the National GOP

We don’t need a new script. We need a new spine.

Rhode Island Republicans can’t keep reinventing ourselves every time a different Republican sits in the Oval Office. We have to be bigger than a hat, bigger than a viral clip, and bigger than whatever national drama is trending this week. We’re Rhode Islanders. We’re New Englanders. We work hard, we argue hard, and then we still have to live next door to each other. That should shape who we are here.

This is not about abandoning conservative principles. It’s about applying them in a way that can actually win in Rhode Island. If we try to win like the national GOP here, we’ll lose like the national GOP here. Rhode Island has different voters, different pressures, and a different political culture. We need a party rooted in this state, not one that borrows its whole identity from somewhere else.

If we keep copying the national food fight, we’ll keep losing. Not because our values are wrong, but because our approach is lazy. In this state, you don’t win by yelling. You win by showing up. You win by going to the union hall, the senior center, the church basement, the neighborhood bar. You listen first. Then you talk about what people are actually dealing with: rent, roads and bridges, school quality, small business survival, public safety, and the electric bill that keeps climbing.

Being a Rhode Island Republican should mean this: conservative in principle, grown-up in tone, and focused on real life. It means work, responsibility, safe streets, strong borders, and a government that respects every dollar it takes from families. It also means decency. It means you can disagree without turning your neighbor into an enemy. And it means you can work with people you don’t vote for when it helps Rhode Island. That’s not weakness. That’s leadership.

And I say all of this because I see a party here with real potential. We already have good people serving in the General Assembly, and we have strong candidates getting ready to run in 2026. Now we have to keep growing. We have to flip seats, build real momentum, and start rebuilding a Rhode Island Republican Party that can compete, govern, and earn people’s trust again.

To my fellow Republicans: we won’t win this state by shouting at it. We win by doing the unglamorous work. Clean up waste and corruption. Fix what’s broken. Fight for workers and small businesses. Protect seniors and defend Social Security and Medicare so our parents and grandparents aren’t left behind. Then look independents and soft Democrats in the eye and say, I’m not asking for blind loyalty. I’m asking for a chance to earn your trust.

And for me, I don’t look at myself as a politician. If I ever run, I’ll still see myself the same way: a working-class Rhode Islander willing to get up every day and fight for the people of this state, even when they don’t agree with me, even when they don’t like me. I want a party that fights for the middle class, the workers, and the seniors who built Rhode Island.

So I’ll leave my fellow Republicans with one question: who are we in Rhode Island? Not in Florida. Not in Texas. Not on cable news. Here. In this state. In these communities. Are we a serious party for workers, seniors, taxpayers, and families trying to get by, or are we just borrowing somebody else’s identity every four years and wondering why nobody here buys it? Until we answer that honestly, we are not rebuilding anything.