The Rhode Island Political Cooperative announced today that it is recruiting, training, and supporting a total of 50 candidates for the 2022 election cycle. The organization announced an unprecedented, multiracial group of 24 candidates including teachers, waitresses, retail workers, and nurses who come from every corner of the state and who have pledged to root out decades of political corruption in Rhode Island. In 2020, the RI Political Co-op helped to elect 10 progressive candidates to state and local office.

Below is the announced list of Co-op candidates running for office:

• Tarshire Battle – House of Representatives District 60, Pawtucket
• Jeanine Calkin – Senate District 30, Warwick
• Leonardo Cioe – Senate District 4, Providence
• Zachary Colón – To be announced
• Jen Douglas – Senate District 34, Charlestown, Exeter, Hopkinton, Richmond, West Greenwich
• Melanie DuPont – Senate District 22,  Smithfield, Johnston, North Providence
• Jackie Goldman – Providence City Council Ward 5
• Gregory Greco – Senate District 18, East Providence
• Marlene Guay – Woonsocket City Council
• Clara Hardy – House of Representatives District 55, North Providence
• Brianna Henries – House of Representatives District 64, East Providence
• Jennifer Jackson – Senate District 13, Newport, Jamestown
• Maggie Kain – Senate District 37, Westerly
• Alexander Kithes – House of Representatives District 49, Woonsocket
• Damián Lima – To be announced
• Jenna Magnuski – Senate District 12, Little Compton, Middletown, Newport, Tiverton
• Michael Niemeyer – Senate District 38, Westerly, Hopkinton
• Zak Periera – House of Representatives District 22, Warwick
• Geena Pham – Senate District 3, Providence
• Andrew Poyant – Providence City Council Ward 14
• Jennifer Rourke – Senate District 29, Warwick
• Harrison Tuttle – To be announced
• Adamaris Villar – Central Falls City Council Ward 2
• Charmaine Webster – Woonsocket City Council

“This is about a movement of people across this state taking our government back from the ultrarich and the corporate lobbyists,” said Jennifer Rourke, Co-Chair of the RI Political Cooperative who announced her candidacy against Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey today. “Next year, with 50 progressive candidates on the ballot, the people of Rhode Island will have an unprecedented opportunity to replace the corrupt establishment.”

If elected, the whole team of candidates have promised to enact sweeping climate legislation to put Rhode Island on track to become the first state in the country to achieve net-zero emissions. They have also promised to pass universal healthcare, restrict the influence of corporate lobbyists, fund large scale investments in green affordable housing, and implement a wide-ranging series of racial justice policies which include ending mass incarceration and shutting down corporate polluters in frontline communities across the state.

“This year, voters in Rhode Island can elect a whole government of people who are just like us – people who care for our community,” said Senator Jeanine Calkin, Co-Chair of the RI Political Cooperative, who defeated a powerful incumbent last year. “We can finally build a government that puts the people of Rhode Island first.”

The team of 50 candidates will be running alongside Matt Brown and Cynthia Mendes, who announced their campaign for Governor and Lieutenant Governor respectively, with the support of the RI Political Cooperative. Matt Brown co-founded the Co-op with Jennifer Rourke and Jeanine Calkin in 2019. In 2020, Co-op candidate Cynthia Mendes – a single mother working two jobs – defeated the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee in a landslide.

Every Co-op candidate has pledged to refuse money from corporate PACs, corporate lobbyists, and fossil fuel companies. The Co-op’s policy platform is attached.

More information about the Rhode Island Political Cooperative can be found here.