David Morales

Because we have a housing crisis in our city, and it’s not being treated with urgency.

We need a mayor that’s serious about working with the city council to pass rent stabilization and a city budget that is going to properly equip a rent stabilization board.

We need a city budget that actually meets the needs of our neighbors. Right now we have large industrial facilities near the Port of Providence that are polluting the Lower South Side, which is predominantly black and brown community members. The Shell Terminal Station down in South Providence should be paying significantly more in property taxes to contribute to our city services and our schools. The mayor has taken thousands of dollars from the industrial facilities that operate near the Port of Providence. I’m proud to say that I never have and I never will.

I have also made a pledge to cancel our existing contract with [the surveillance camera company] Flock and make sure that Flock cameras are immediately turned off, whereas the mayor has received thousands of dollars from Flock’s registered lobbyists and instead is doubling down and extending our agreements and contracts with them.

David Morales

It’s a question of making sure our neighbors feel safe when it comes to their privacy rights not being violated — the same way that immigrant neighbors do not feel comfortable calling Providence home, because we have seen a spike in ICE activity over the last several months.

There has been a lack of urgency coming from the administration to take real action. I’ve been very consistent in saying that real safety is ensuring that all of our neighbors feel comfortable calling Providence home. And for that reason we’re going to equip our city solicitor’s office with the resources to work with our local deportation defense network so we can gather evidence of when our sanctuary city laws are being violated, when the rights of our immigrant neighbors are being violated, so we can pursue a case with the attorney general and start prosecuting fascist agents that are terrorizing our neighbors.

David Morales

Providence has gotten more and more expensive. Many of our neighbors have found themselves price-gouged, and a lease renewal essentially serves as an eviction notice. Earlier this year, the Providence City Council passed an ordinance, a reasonable ordinance, that would cap rent hikes at 4 percent.

Unfortunately, we have a mayor who has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate real estate interests and developers, and he vetoed it. And the city council attempted to override the veto but came one vote short.

David Morales

Rent stabilization has been successfully adopted across over 180 cities and towns all across the country. My opponent’s opposition to rent stabilization parrots talking points from corporate real estate interests that want to maximize profit.

We know that with reasonable exemptions in place, like we have within Providence’s proposal, you still see new development coming online. Look at Portland, Maine, or Newark, New Jersey — different parts of the Northeast that have successfully had stabilization in place for years. My perspective has always been that it’s the government’s responsibility to intervene and protect our neighbors when they are victims of price gouging, when there are unreasonable hikes that are being expected of them, whether it’s regarding rent or utilities. I think we have to make sure there’s a reasonable stabilization of the rent while also ensuring that landlords are obeying the law and maintaining safe and habitable homes.

Our campaign has been actively supporting other city council candidates, including those running for reelection and for open seats. We’ve been actively involved in about five different races. We’re building a coalition, not just to win on election day but to govern.

We’ve built a movement with organizations like Reclaim Rhode Island and the Working Families Party. We’ve been hosting joint canvases as a part of this effort, so if a neighbor is knocking out in the Elmhurst neighborhood for David Morales, they’re also knocking for [city council candidate] Jackie Goldman and vice versa.

David Morales

I always enjoy seeing Rhode Island DSA members at the picket line. They’ve had a consistent presence, whether it has been with our Service Employees International Union at Butler Hospital or some of our physician assistants working toward being unionized — they show up for labor. That’s a very important element of the movement that they’re working on building, which is an independent movement. Their independent approach is a unique model; I am not opposed to it, because I believe it’s important for working people to hear different alternatives as to how we can build a government that actually represents working people.

They do not engage in Democratic primaries, and for that reason, I am not an endorsed candidate.

David Morales

I certainly believe that it would be important for our DSA chapter to be engaged in local Democratic primaries, because it helps us to better shape overall what it actually means to be a democratic socialist within every level of government, between the city council, the state legislature, and the executive offices.

And I believe that there are missed opportunities that exist when we don’t engage within the party primary. We have a lot of neighbors who agree with the core principles of democratic socialism but feel tied to their identification as a Democrat. To ignore that is to overlook what a working person cares about. Some people feel very strongly about being a Democrat, and they also feel strongly that health care is a human right. So for that reason, I think it’s important that there is engagement within Democratic primaries.

David Morales

I think neighbors have recognized that candidates that identify as democratic socialists have their interests in mind, and that they’re not going to sell out to corporations or some of the dominant special interests that have dominated the state house.

When I got elected in 2020, I got elected alongside State Senator Sam Bell, who also identifies as a democratic socialist and was a part of Providence DSA at the time. We both had taken a pledge to never take any corporate PAC money or money from a registered lobbyist that did the bidding of corporations, and neighbors saw very quickly that that influenced the way we approached policy, which is always centered around merit and always centered around putting working people first.

Especially in this moment, there is an appetite from working people in Providence to have a mayor who is going to put them first and will never sell them out to any corporate interest or large campaign donor.

And that’s what I’m committed to doing, which is why I continuously emphasize the importance of capping rent hikes, because it is the most pressing issue right now in our community, and people want to see action.

David Morales

As a state representative for six years, I’ve been really proud of the relationships I’ve built with my colleagues in the House, Senate, and governor’s office. My approach toward receiving the necessary state aid to deliver for our neighbors in Providence will be centered around making improvements around our education funding formula and mobilizing our delegation to all have the same priority when it comes to our state budget.

We have fifteen members in the Providence delegation in the House and an additional eight in the Senate. There’s a lot of power that we can leverage in state budget negotiations.

David Morales

Organizing our field team to make a visit to New York City and support Mayor Mamdani and the get-out-the-vote effort was a very special moment for our volunteers who have been with us since the start of this campaign, to see that we can build a similar grassroots movement that inspires working people in our own backyard. We learned about how you sustain a field lead program where neighbors are taking charge of their respective communities.

Seeing all of that firsthand went a long way for making sure that our volunteers, who have been with us since we started, felt that sense of motivation as to what we can build. Nearly a year later, we have built exactly that, knocking over fifty thousand doors, making over a hundred thousand phone calls, and gathering support all across the city.

David Morales

I think a victory for us would demonstrate that our ideas are popular. Our neighbors want to see systemic change; they want candidates and public officials who are going to speak truth to power and never buckle to corporate interests but [who] will always remain consistently on message about the importance of making sure we have cities that we can afford to live in and feel safe calling home.

I hope [the campaign] creates a ripple effect all across our state. I don’t want a democratic socialist mayor to be limited to just Providence. I want to ensure that we have a movement that can go beyond just a capital city.