On a cold evening last November, a handful of activists along with a state senator and gubernatorial candidate pitched tents in front of the Rhode Island state capitol in Providence. “I shouldn’t have to do this at all,” Senator Cynthia Mendes told a local news site that night. “But when we’re sure that the homelessness crisis has been resolved and no one is going to freeze to death, the protest will end.”

The encampment was organized by a new progressive insurgency in Rhode Island, which has announced plans to challenge dozens of incumbent lawmakers in the upcoming primary elections, citing the failings of the state’s Democratic establishment.

For Mendes, the insurgency’s tactics were already working. She was one of over a dozen progressives who ascended to the state house in 2020 after ousting Senate Finance Committee chairman and Working Families Party ally Billy Conley by over twenty points in a primary. Mendes had challenged Conley due to his tight relationship with the establishment forces in senate leadership.