The sharply fought First Congressional District race will likely be won through the ground game on Election Day since a new Channel 12 poll shows the contest remains very much up for grabs.
The poll by veteran pollster Joseph Fleming shows Democrat David Cicilline with a one-point lead over Republican challenger Brendan Doherty. The margin of error, meanwhile, is just under six percentage points.
On the same day that the National Republican Congressional Committee put out another attack ad targeting long-ago criminal-defense work by David Cicilline, Brendan Doherty’s campaign offers an upbeat spot with the candidate and his wife.
The once firmly Republican editorial page of the Providence Journal is going in a different direction after backing a string of Democratic candidates, throwing its support to Brendan Doherty in the down-to-the-wire race with David Cicilline.
Doherty’s campaign, via a news release, offers this commentary:
Republican 1st District Congressional candidate Brendan Doherty is fond of railing against big government Democrats in Washington, D.C., but he sure has done well by the policies of the Rhode Island Democrats who have dominated our State House for eons.
With less than two weeks until Election Day, Republican Brendan Doherty’s campaign is criticizing Democratic Congressman David Cicilline for having accepted what it says is about $12,000 in campaign contributions from people connected to strip bars and other adult entertainment businesses. Cicilline’s campaign calls the criticism “a new low” and a distraction from the bread-and-butter issues facing struggling Rhode Islanders.
A new spot by David Cicilline hits back against a recent attack by the National Republican Congressional Committee and similar messages from Brendan Doherty’s campaign, like this:
Meanwhile, Doherty and Cicilline will square off at 7 tonight in a one-hour debate cosponsored by ABC6, RI Public Radio and the League of Women Voters. It will be simulcast on RIPR.