Spiking Rents Power a Socialist Win in Providence Mayor Race

In April, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley vetoed an ordinance capping annual rent increases for most apartments. The Providence City Council fell one vote short of overriding the veto, and for a short time the measure seemed dead.

But it wasn’t. Last month, its backers defeated Smiley in the Democratic primary and are poised to take a majority on the City Council. That’s due partly to the lefty wave that has boosted socialist candidates for local office from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and partly to the growing power of tenants and tenant unions in Providence.

David Morales, a 28-year-old Rhode Island state representative who grew up in Providence public housing, is the first candidate in the city to ever defeat an incumbent mayor in a primary. His campaign was centered on housing issues and the high cost of rent, along with investing in public schools and protecting immigrants. Hispanic and Latino residents account for 45 percent of Providence’s population, its largest single demographic. Most of Providence’s 200,000 residents are also renters, and the average cost of rent

has risen

by more than 40 percent since 2020. Morales is facing a Republican opponent, Dave Talan, in the November general election, but he is favored to win in the heavily Democratic city. He has promised to sign a rent stabilization ordinance in his first months in office if he wins.

Morales was elected to the state House in 2019 and began putting his mayoral campaign together early last year. At that time, Zohran Mamdani had not yet won the New York City mayoral primary and provided a playbook for left-wing municipal campaigns. But progressive groups in Providence, like Reclaim Rhode Island, had been advocating for renter-friendly housing policies and investments for years, forming new tenants unions and tapping into

a history of tenant organizing

in the city. The campaign and those groups saw an opportunity in each other.

“When we found out that [Morales] was planning to run for mayor, the question wasn’t really if we would endorse him,” says Daniel Denvir, co-chair of Reclaim RI. “It was more like, how are we going to be reorganizing our whole operation around supporting this campaign?”

Reclaim and other groups began pushing for a rent stabilization ordinance, limiting annual rent increases to 4 percent with exceptions for newly built apartments. When Smiley opposed the bill, they pushed for a veto override. That helped illustrate the stakes of the race. They also organized volunteer canvassing. Denvir says residents were keenly aware of the “economic crisis” facing renters, but many had to be convinced it was a political issue.

“You have to have organizers out there talking to people and saying, ‘This really bad thing that’s happening to you: It doesn’t need to happen to you. It’s not right. Here are the people that are doing it,’” he says.

Morales won the primary with 53 percent of the vote, pulling in

huge margins

in neighborhoods with lots of renters, a vindication of the campaign’s focus on housing affordability.

“What was not difficult was focusing on the cost of rent as the central issue. We knew that we could keep coming back to that issue over and over again throughout the campaign,” says Ben Shanahan, a senior campaign adviser who joined the Morales campaign in the summer of 2025 after working on socialist campaigns in New York City. Progressive candidates of the recent past have tended to prove their bonafides by taking “the most left-wing position” on a whole array of issues, from climate change to taxation and gender politics. Those campaigns tended to easily get knocked off message, Shanahan says. And they risked focusing on issues well outside the influence of a mayor or city council member.

“What was challenging was convincing a left-wing ecosystem — that had not seen a big executive win like this in the past — that we didn’t actually need to talk about every single issue,” Shanahan says. “That it was actually valuable from a campaign perspective to keep the campaign focused on the issues that mattered most.”

The focus on tenants helped keep the campaign disciplined. It also helped build a sense of solidarity among the city’s renters.

“I think the tenant organizing demonstrated, especially to some of the most vulnerable populations, that people had the ability to stand together and demand better,” he says. “It demonstrated to people their own power. It was a foundational piece of building out the volunteer operation and the broad coalition that David was able to build.”

The race isn’t won yet. Smiley, the outgoing incumbent, has declined to endorse Morales,

saying

that while he remains a Democrat, “the Democratic socialists are a different thing.” He has stood by his veto of the rent stabilization ordinance, but

acknowledged its importance

in the primary campaign. Dave Talan, the Republican candidate, is

hoping

that there are enough moderate Democrats in Providence who feel the same way to outnumber Morales voters in November.

Morales’ campaign took cues from Mamdani’s success in the primary and general elections last year. But it’s also taken cues from Mamdani’s focus, since taking office, on running basic city services, filling potholes and sharing the city’s work through an aggressive communications operation. If Morales and other municipal socialists are going to make real change in office, Shanahan says, they need the continuous support of the voters who put them there.

“In order to maintain that ability to mobilize people, they have to be able to see and believe that government is delivering results for them,” he says.