No Republican has won a statewide election in Rhode Island since 2006. No Republican has been elected to the U.S. House in Rhode Island since 1992. No Republican has won a presidential election in Rhode Island since 1984, and even with Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory nationwide, he only won Rhode Island by 3.64 points. No Republican has even broken 40% in a presidential race in Rhode Island since 1988. On average, Rhode Island’s congressional delegation only votes with Donald Trump 26% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight. Democrats hold a 33-5 majority in the Rhode Island State Senate and a 66-9 majority in the State House. Yet the Rhode Island State Democratic Party is one of the most conservative in the nation, with state Democratic lawmakers opposing everything from reproductive freedom to LGBTQ equality to fair taxation to public school funding to gun safety. As Alex Seitz-Wald wrote in NBC News, the conservatism of Rhode Island Democrats doesn’t even match the ideology of the electorate:

The last stronghold of anti-abortion Democrats is not in the conservative South or moderate Midwest, but in the true blue New England state of Rhode Island. […] Rhode Island received an “F” grade from NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2016 and has a General Assembly run almost entirely by Right to Life-backed Democrats. […] Six-in-10 Rhode Islanders think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a Pew survey of all 50 states — a higher percentage than Washingtonians, New Jerseyans and even Californians.

The situation is so dire for Rhode Island progressives that the Rhode Island Democratic Party tried to unseat one of its own members, State Representative Moira Walsh, by endorsing a Donald Trump supporter.

Unsurprisingly, progressives are not particularly happy about the state of the Rhode Island Democratic Party. Therefore, many launched primary campaigns against conservative Democratic incumbents. One of the greatest primary victories was that of activist Sam Bell, who unseated a state senator who had served in the state legislature since 1985.

Bell has already made waves as the only state senator to abstain from supporting Senate Democratic leadership at the November Democratic Caucus meeting. Bell listed a plethora of concerns about leadership’s opposition to civil rights and liberties. As a member of the LGBTQ community, he was personally insulted by the Senate President’s vote against marriage equality, which Bell said “still stings members of the LGBTQ community today” in a comment to Uprise Rhode Island.

State Senator Sam Bell joined us on the podcast to discuss the future of progressive politics in Rhode Island and how to push the Democratic Party to the left as we inch closer to the 2020 Democratic primary. Listen on iTunes or in your browser below: