Four years ago, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee was basking in the triumph of his narrow Democratic primary victory, surrounded by jubilant supporters, when a phone was thrust into his hands — it was his opponent, calling merely to concede.

“That eventuality is scarcely conceivable,” he remarked, dismissing the phone with a dismissive gesture.

“Terminate the call forthwith.”

Now, the woman he had cast aside, Helena Foulkes, is demanding a rematch.

And McKee is desperately seeking to avert not merely the ignominy of becoming the first U.S. governor to fall in a primary since 2018, but also the first Rhode Island governor to suffer such a defeat in over three decades.

Foulkes, a former executive at CVS Health, has amassed a campaign war chest surpassing that of the incumbent and saturated the airwaves with a relentless barrage of advertisements.

And unlike the electoral landscape of four years prior, Democratic voters this cycle have evinced an increasingly pronounced readiness to depose sitting incumbents.

McKee, 75, must likewise contend with the smoldering discontent engendered by a bridge rehabilitation endeavor whose protracted timeline has far exceeded initial projections.

“What I have come to appreciate most profoundly over the past four years is the extent to which citizens perceive state government as beholden to a privileged coterie,” Foulkes, 62, remarked in an interview.

“They observe the state’s chief executive proclaiming that all is well, while they themselves harbor deep anxieties about securing remunerative employment.”

The individual who emerges victorious from the September 9th primary in the staunchly Democratic-leaning enclave of Rhode Island will be positioned as the overwhelming frontrunner to clinch the general election.

Beyond Foulkes, McKee’s principal adversary in the contest is a pivotal bridge in Providence, Rhode Island — New England’s third most populous metropolis.

In 2023, McKee shuttered the westbound thoroughfare of the Washington Bridge subsequent to state officials flagging a “critical failure,” with repairs projected to span several months.

The partial closure's repercussions propagated swiftly throughout the region.

The bridge conveys Interstate 195 over the Seekonk River from Providence to East Providence, in addition to the south coast of Massachusetts and Cape Cod.

Nearly 100,000 vehicles traverse it daily, all of which must now proceed exclusively via the reoriented eastbound carriageway.

The remedial works have since overrun their projected timelines by a considerable margin, as expenditures have escalated well beyond the initial outlay estimates, thereby furnishing Foulkes with an abundance of ammunition with which to excoriate McKee’s stewardship.

McKee has launched a formidable counteroffensive, asserting that he safeguarded the public and that the bridge's construction is slated for completion by 2028.

He frequently invokes Maryland as a case in point, contending that the Washington Bridge will reach completion ahead of the reconstruction of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge—a project slated for finalization in 2030, following its catastrophic collapse in 2024, which claimed the lives of six construction workers when a colossal container vessel struck the structure.

Yet bridge sagas possess a peculiar capacity to haunt governors, observed Adam Myers, a political scientist at Providence College.

Intractable quandaries—crime, immigration, the cost of living—often resist facile resolution, ensnared as they are within labyrinthine systems of causation.

"In the case of a bridge, people know that state government is responsible for that," Myers said.

"And so there appears to be a very clear place on which to put all the blame."

While fending off criticisms over his handling of the bridge, McKee has assumed the offensive, denouncing Foulkes as a detached corporate executive endeavoring to purchase her way into the election.

Foulkes possesses formidable political lineage, her grandfather and uncle—Thomas and Chris Dodd—having each served as Democratic senators from Connecticut.

She spent 25 years at CVS, ultimately ascending to the presidency of the company’s pharmacy division from 2014 to 2018, before assuming the role of chief executive officer at the Canadian retail conglomerate Hudson’s Bay Company, a position she vacated in 2020.

McKee has contended that Foulkes played a pivotal role in exacerbating the opioid epidemic during her tenure at CVS, a charge she categorically refutes.

"Who is the viable option here? It is a corporate figure whom the Democrats find utterly unpalatable," McKee remarked in an interview.

"She has repeatedly demonstrated a propensity to prioritize profits over people, time and again."

When pressed on her tenure at CVS, Foulkes contends that the company curtailed its opioid distribution by 40% during her presidency of CVS’ Pharmacy division.

In 2022, subsequent to Foulkes’ departure from CVS, the corporation consented to remit $5 billion to resolve nationwide litigation concerning the deleterious impact of opioids, while eschewing any admission of culpability.

Foulkes has further cautioned that McKee’s assaults have incensed the thousands of personnel employed at the Woonsocket, Rhode Island-headquartered CVS, asserting that his barbs directed at her are frequently construed as indictments of the retail behemoth.

“The business leaders of this state’s fifty largest corporations have addressed a missive to you, entreating you to desist from your censure of CVS,” she remarked during a debate in August.

“Your actions are poised to expel them from the state.”

McKee asserts that he represents the interests of the working-class electorate, underscoring the multitude of labor endorsements he has secured along the campaign trail, notwithstanding the conspicuous absence of endorsements from Rhode Island's Democratic Party and the state AFL-CIO in this particular race.

Foulkes, for her part, adduces her burgeoning constituency, encompassing Democrats hailing from McKee’s native Cumberland — a municipality over which he once presided as mayor.

“This is a propitious juncture to occupy the position of the outsider,” Foulkes remarked.