America’s Democratic governors have elected Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo as chairwoman of the Washington-based Democratic Governors Association, which sees itself as a ground-level fighting force, in the states, against President Donald Trump’s agenda.

NEW ORLEANS — America’s Democratic governors have elected Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo as chairwoman of the Washington-based Democratic Governors Association, which sees itself as a ground-level fighting force against President Donald Trump's agenda in the states.

Voting Saturday morning at the DGA's winter meeting in New Orleans, Raimondo's fellow governors elevated her from vice chairwoman this past year — when Democrats flipped seven governor's seats from Republican to Democrat — to the more prominent role, which began immediately. The new vice chairman: New Jersey Gov. Philip D. Murphy.

In an interview this past week, the 47-year-old Raimondo — who, in 2015 became the first female governor of the smallest state in the nation — talked about her new, unpaid role, how much time she expects it will take, what she hopes will come of it, and where she expects it may lead her in the future.

Asked if she plans to seek a U.S. Senate seat at some point — or any other post that would take her to Washington — her answer was an emphatic "no."

"I will go on the record as saying I am never going to run for the U.S. Senate, Congress. Don’t want to go to Washington," she said.

Asked what she expects the DGA chairmanship to entail, she said some travel and a lot of fundraising to help the DGA assist other candidates — just as it helped her this past year, with $2 million in "Trump fanboy" attack ads against her GOP challenger, Allan Fung.

"It is primarily a fundraising job,'' said Raimondo, whose skill at raising money has made her a standout.

She also channeled the DGA chairman she succeeds, Jay Inslee, the governor of the state of Washington, on the stakes heading into the midterm elections and beyond.

As midterm elections approached, Inslee told The Atlantic: "People are thinking about health care, and they know their health care can be protected by governors, and they know that effectively Donald Trump cannot stop governors from providing health care for people in their states. And they know that Donald Trump cannot stop governors from fighting climate change and creating clean-energy jobs. And they know that Donald Trump can’t stop Democratic governors from building roads and bridges and public transit."

"He can create anxiety and tweets,'' said Inslee of the president. “He can’t stop us."

The results: Before the 2018 elections, only 16 states had Democratic governors, and only two of them were women: Raimondo and Kate Brown of Oregon.

Next year, there will be 23 Democratic governors — six of them women.

Or as Inslee trilled the day after the election: “No party has flipped more than six seats in the last 24 years. And yet last night, we flipped SEVEN GOP seats to Democrats — a record ... We made major strides to rebuild the so-called 'blue wall' of Midwestern states that Trump won in 2016. We flipped a critical open seat in Michigan, defeated a well-known incumbent in Wisconsin and re-elected a Democratic incumbent in Pennsylvania."

The Democratic pickups went to: Tony Evers in Wisconsin, J.B. Pritzker in Illinois, Steve Sisolak in Nevada, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Laura Kelly in Kansas, Janet Mills in Maine and Michelle Lujan Grisham in New Mexico. Pritzker — who reportedly poured millions of his own fortune into the race — moved the biggest state currently under GOP control back to the Democrats.

According to the DGA, Mills will be the first woman governor of Maine, Colorado's Jared Polis will be the first openly gay man elected governor, and Lujan Grisham will be the first Democratic Hispanic woman governor in American history.

"After last night’s results, 38 million more Americans will have a Democratic governor. That means that Democratic governors now represent a majority of Americans — more than 175 million people,'' Inslee rejoiced the day after the Nov. 6 elections.

"I am thrilled about that and had a part in it,'' Raimondo said last week. "I worked very hard last year to help raise money for the DGA, help my colleagues around the country ... We didn’t lose a single incumbent. Every one of us won... and they were tough elections."

Of the DGA chairmanship, she said: "I feel honored to be asked to do this role because at this moment in time, Democratic governors matter probably more than ever in our nation’s history."

Amid recurring attempts by Republicans to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, she said: "We have to have Democratic governors who operate their own [health-care] exchanges, stand firm around Medicaid expansion... Immigration. Climate change. Funding for higher education... Women's health care... The list is fairly endless of ways that I feel that we have to fight back against the president."

"So I want to help get [more] Democrats elected,'' she said.

"My job as the chair is to convince governors to have [fundraising] events... I am hopeful that Murphy and [New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo and I can do something great in New York… Salt Lake City, Utah is the National Governors' Association meeting this summer. We will all be there so it is a great opportunity to have a DGA fundraiser… I haven’t figured out the exact schedule, [but] to be good at this, I have to get all of those governors to have events that raise money all around the country, so I am assuming that’s where I will be ... for the DGA."

Another focus, she said: idea-sharing.

"Already [Connecticut Gov.-elect] Ned Lamont has reached out to me to say: we want to do what you did with truck tolls. And already my staff is talking to his transition team around truck tolls. Gretchen, who is the newly elected governor in Michigan, has already reached out to me ... She wants to talk about all the stuff I am doing in higher education."

"We [also] have to continue to recruit candidates for 2020," she said. "The three races this year are hard races. They are all in the South ... Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi ... tough places to win as a Democrat. One of them already is a Democrat: [John Bel] Edwards in Louisiana. So of course we have to make sure he gets reelected. And then we’d love to have a pick up in both of those other states."

"So it’s work. It’s raising money ... being involved in those campaigns, finding good candidates to run in the year following, helping governors to be successful ... This is something that I plan to put a lot of my time into."

Asked if this time commitment will come at the expense of Rhode Island, Raimondo said: "It does not. It is one year. Last year, I had two full-time jobs, campaigning for governor and being governor, and this won’t be anything close to that sort of a commitment ... So, no, it will come out of my hide."

She envisioned making most of her fundraising calls from outside the State House, in Rhode Island, and traveling once a month and most likely on weekends to events hosted by other governors, the DGA or the National Governors' Association. One of her key State House aides, Jon Romano, is moving over to the DGA payroll to help her.

She said her travels and fundraising appeals to out-of-state individuals and companies provide "an opportunity for Rhode Island ... I’ll be expanding my network ... which allows me to put Rhode Island front and center in all of those meetings."

Raimondo is the second woman to chair the DGA. The first was former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who was elected the top DGA role in 2006. Sebelius went on to serve as the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services under President Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2014.