Chafee campaigned for President Obama in both 2008 and 2012. Lincoln Chafee to switch affiliation

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee will formally switch his party registration Thursday, abandoning his status as an independent and joining the Democratic Party, the governor’s office told POLITICO.

Chafee quietly informed President Barack Obama of his intention to affiliate as a Democrat after reaching that decision in private, Chafee spokeswoman Christine Hunsinger said. The governor’s office confirmed Chafee’s plans after POLITICO reported that the governor had notified national Democrats that he’d be joining the party.


A former Republican who served with Obama in the Senate, Chafee has struggled with perilously low job approval ratings and faces a difficult reelection fight in 2014.

( PHOTOS: Lincoln Chafee's career)

Hunsinger said politics had nothing to do with Chafee’s decision to sign up with Obama’s party.

“What you’re seeing in him affiliating as a Democrat is a recognition that there’s strength in numbers – that the Democratic Party and the president, he shares their agenda and the policy beliefs of the party,” she said. “It really is a matter of conviction with this governor. It’s been a long road from when he first left the Republican Party to here.”

The senior Chafee aide said the switch in registration would not change Chafee’s governing agenda.

“He’s fairly progressive on social issues. He’s about efficient and honest government and every move he’s made when in elected office has been to achieve that on behalf of the taxpayer,” Hunsinger said. “For anybody to imply that affiliating as a Democrat is simply about politics or about winning an election, doesn’t know Gov. Chafee.”

( Also on POLITICO: Lincoln Chafee DNC speech)

Chafee’s party switch increases the odds that the Rhode Island governorship will be in Democratic hands after 2014, though not necessarily his. His polling numbers are weak and multiple up-and-coming Rhode Island Democrats have already stepped up to challenge him.

In an encouraging sign for Chafee, the White House publicly embraced him as a soon-to-be-minted Democrat on Wednesday, issuing a statement from Obama praising Chafee as “an independent thinker and leader” who hasn’t been constrained by party labels.

“I enjoyed working with Linc when he was a Republican in the United States Senate, and I look forward to continuing that collaboration on the issues that matter not just to the Democratic Party, but to every American,” Obama said. “I’m thrilled to welcome Linc to the party of Jefferson and Jackson, Roosevelt and Kennedy – and I look forward to working with him in the years ahead.”

( PHOTOS: Pols who’ve switched states)

It’s no surprise that Chafee would win a warm reception from Obama: The ex-Republican campaigned for the president in 2008 and 2012 and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte last summer.

Obama has returned the favor: he declined to endorse a Democrat for governor in 2010, when Chafee was running as an independent in a three-way race. And when Chafee ran TV ads featuring archival footage of the president praising him, Obama and his aides did not object.

In fact, despite being officially neutral in 2010, Obama was perceived as so Chafee-friendly that the Democratic nominee that year, Frank Caprio, told Rhode Island radio station WPRO that the president could “take his endorsement and really shove it.”

Chafee ultimately won with 36 percent of the vote, while Caprio fell into third place.

While Chafee’s party switch is likely to avert the possibility of another messy three-way race, it is unclear whether other national Democrats will embrace Chafee as ardently as Obama has.

Both Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and state Treasurer Gina Raimondo are likely candidates in a Democratic primary. The Democratic Governors Association is not expected to take sides in a competitive nomination fight; in a statement, DGA Chair Peter Shumlin said he’s “excited” about Chafee’s switch but that the DGA will support “whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee” in 2014.

Taveras reacted to the news of Chafee becoming a Democrat with a wry rejoinder: “I have been a Democrat and a Red Sox fan my whole life, and I don’t intend on changing either.”

A January survey from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found that Chafee would struggle in a nomination fight against those two candidates, drawing 22 percent of the vote to Raimondo’s 35 percent and Taveras’s 19 percent.

The same poll found Chafee’s approval rating at 33 percent. A Brown University poll published in February pegged that figure at just 26 percent.

Though any GOP candidate would face long odds in Rhode Island, Republican Governors Association executive director Phil Cox said Chafee’s record had appropriately “saddled [him] with the worst approval rating of any governor and a difficult path to reelection.”

“Make no mistake, this was a decision based purely on politics, not policy,” Cox said of the governor’s new affiliation. “Lincoln Chafee’s record as Rhode Island’s governor is clear: fewer jobs and higher debt. With his inability to manage his state or create a jobs-friendly environment, he will fit right in with today’s group of Democratic governors.”