David Segal Announces Run for Congress

David Segal Announces Run for Congress

It's official. State Representative David Segal is running for Congress.

“We need to do more for working families in Rhode Island,” Segal explained. “For the last eight years, I've been fighting for regular people against powerful interests. Working with grassroots coalitions, we've won some important victories for local families. Now more than ever, Rhode Island working families need someone in Congress who will stand up to powerful interests and win victories for working families."

Segal joins two other prominent Democrats in the race: Providence Mayor David Cicilline and former Democratic Party chairman Bill Lynch (Anthony Gemma is also seriously considering a run). The conventional wisdom is split about who would be hurt more by Segal's entrance into this race: some think that liberals supporting Cicilline would move to to the more progressive Segal thereby hurting Cicilline while others think that Cicilline has a strong base of supporters and Segal's entrance would only divide the anti-Cicilline vote thereby huring Lynch.

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In a tumultuous political climate both nationally (see Scott Brown) and locally (see North Providence), you can't rule out a Segal victory in the September 14th Democratic Primary. Segal has been one of the top environmental champions in the legislature, a consistent voice for open and transparent government, and a strong voice on middle class issues, such as the foreclosure crisis.

From his strong progressive foundation, you can bet that Segal will be building a large grassroots organization to get his message out. Witness, for example, the growth of his Facebook campaign site in just a week of being live.

The real question is whether Segal can raise the money to be competitive against the well-funded campaigns of Cicilline and Lynch. The conventional wisdom is that you need $500k to run a competent race and Cicilline already has $725k in the bank and Lynch has $225k in the bank. In this regard, Segal is raising money on the progressive Act Blue website and he will be banking on the national organizers at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee who have endorsed Segal and made his race one of the top 5 races that they will focus on this cycle. In fact, you may have seen the online poll that they are sponsoring on local and national websites.

Even if Segal can raise the money, the clear favorite in this race is Cicilline, who has the base of his capitol city, strong name recognition statewide, the support of the Democratic establishment, the likely endorsement from the Democratic Party and a huge fundraising lead.

The winner of the September 14th Democratic Primary will take on Republican John Loughlin in the November 2nd General Election.