Raymond Baccari
Anchor Staff Writer
The 2022 Providence Mayoral election is gearing up to be a competitive one. With current Mayor of Providence Jorge Elorza, and multiple Providence City Council members facing term limits, there will be a potentially packed 2022 Democratic primary in Providence’s Mayoral election.
Who will run? This is a tough question to answer a year and a half out, but some fundraising data can give early indications of who is running and who isn’t. Data released in early February by Dan McGowan of the Boston Globe predicted candidates for Providence’s Mayor are: City Council President Sabina Matos, Rhode Island Director of Administration Bret Smiley, City Councilwoman Nirva LaFortune and Gonzalo Cuervo. Out of all the potential/declared candidates on that list, Gonzalo Cuervo is the only one so far to announce he is running. Everyone else on the list is rumored due to either being term-limited or based on the fundraising data that was recently released.
With a long time to go before the primary in 2022 and even longer before the general election, there are still a lot more potential candidates that could throw their hat in the race. Other potential candidates are Dylan Conley, who ran for Congress against Congressman Jim Langevin in 2020, Councilman John Igliozzi, Councilman David Salvatore, State Senator Sam Bell, and Kobi Dennis, a community activist, and 2018 Providence Mayoral candidate.
While it is unlikely there will be any Republican candidates running for Mayor of Providence in 2022, potential candidates could be David Talan, Co-chair of the Providence GOP, and Dr. Daniel Harrop, 2014 Providence Mayoral candidate.
It is possible to see someone run as an independent in the general election, but so far, no one has come out yet with any intentions. However, it happened before when Dianne Witman ran against Mayor Elorza in 2018 as an independent in an unsuccessful bid and declared her candidacy very late in the race.
2022 is without a doubt going to be the most interesting year politically in Rhode Island since 2010. Who will be the next Mayor of Providence? How will the makeup of the City Council look as a number of members are term-limited? What issues will be the central focus of the race? As 2022 gets closer, so will all of the answers to those questions, but this data gives the voters and political observers a start to answering these questions.
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