Democratic voter support for Gov. Dan McKee has fallen behind opposing candidate former CVS Pharmacy President Helena Foulkes, according to a recent University of New Hampshire poll that examined the popularity of several candidates for R.I. governor.
The poll was released on Feb. 24, just one day after the release of a poll by the Rhode Island AFL-CIO that also suggested low levels of support for McKee.
According to the UNH poll, which surveyed the 703 R.I. residents between Feb. 12 and Feb. 16, 18% of likely Democratic primary voters would cast their ballot for McKee if the election were to be held today, compared to 34% for former Foulkes. Forty percent of those polled stated that they were undecided.
In another poll, the AFL-CIO surveyed 400 registered voters in Rhode Island by telephone between Jan. 22 and Jan. 26, and found that 27% would vote to re-elect McKee. About only 30% of the registered voters responded that “he is doing an excellent or good job.”
Assistant Professor of Political Science Paul Testa told The Herald that because many constituents are currently “dissatisfied with the political system,” incumbents may be facing a “stronger test” for reelection.
“We’re in a period of uncertainty, anxiety sort of anti-incumbent bias,” he added.
Smith said that the lack of support for McKee in both polls “is not a campaign issue.” The UNH found that 88% of Democrat respondents supported McKee’s proposed “millionaire’s tax.” According to Smith, this support should be “helpful” to his campaign.
On Thursday, R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha P’19 P’22 endorsed Foulkes’ bid for election.
Christina Freundlich, a spokesperson for McKee’s campaign, wrote in an email to The Herald that “polls come and go, but Governor McKee’s focus remains the same: lowering costs, building Rhode Island’s economy and standing up to Trump’s chaos.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Foulkes’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Andrew Smith, the director of the UNH Survey Center, said in an interview with The Herald that the fact that 40% of those polled reported being undecided is “troubling for any incumbent.”
But Testa believes this statistic shows that “there’s a lot of room for movement” before the primary election in September.
Testa identified two distinct characteristics of poll predictions: the outcome and the margins.
While 2022 polls correctly predicted McKee as the winner of the gubernatorial race, they consistently had former R.I. Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea trailing most closely behind McKee. But on election day, Foulkes earned the second-largest share of the vote, while Gorbea fell to third.
McKee’s victory over Foulkes was by a much smaller margin than predicted, Testa added.
For pollsters in general, declining response rates to telephone polls have made it more challenging to accurately predict election results, Smith said, citing observations of “systematic nonresponse” in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections.
As of February 2026, polling company Gallup had a 5% response rate — in the late ’90s, the company recorded a 28% response rate. Smith described that 5% rate as “pretty typical,” citing new telephone technology like call forwarding as a cause of the “plummet” in “response rates to random digit telephone surveys.”
The last ten years have marked a “dramatic change in how we do our work,” Smith said.
He shared that the UNH Survey Center has used “probability-based web panels” for the last decade, where people can participate in surveys online.
But response rates aren’t the only roadblock to polling accuracy — the recent gubernatorial polls are coming out several months before the R.I. primary and general election will take place.
Smith said that “these findings right now are not predictive of much of anything,” and that he “would not bet any money” on these results.
“The state of the world today in February will not be the state of the world in September,” Testa said. “Most citizens aren’t quite thinking about Democratic primaries yet.”
But the decision Rhode Islanders make in September will carry a lot of weight, according to Testa. “In a blue state like Rhode Island, the election is the primary,” he said.
Annika Melwani is a metro senior staff writer covering state politics and justice. She is from New York City and plans on concentrating in English and International and Public Affairs. In her free time, she can be found reading or drinking an iced vanilla latte.
