State Representative David Morales is poised to pick up his most significant individual endorsement later today in his campaign to become Providence’s next mayor.
Former mayor Jorge Elorza is expected to endorse Morales, siding with the 27-year-old Democrat over incumbent Mayor Brett Smiley, according to a spokesman for Morales’s campaign.
The move is notable because Smiley served as one of Elorza’s top aides during his first term, and because Smiley’s decision to drop out of the 2014 mayoral race and endorse Elorza was crucial to Elorza’s victory.
But that was then. This is now.
Smiley, a moderate, is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars warning voters that electing his Democratic socialist challenger would increase crime. His campaign has labeled Morales “Defunding David,” and its latest television ad paints Providence as out of control before Smiley took office. The ad begins with a Latina woman saying, “Before Brett Smiley was the mayor, I didn’t feel safe being in the city of Providence.” Another person adds, “We can’t afford to forget what it was like before Mayor Smiley.”
For Morales, Elorza’s backing amounts to a significant validation from one of the city’s most recognizable Democratic figures, undercutting Smiley’s effort to portray him as too far outside the political mainstream to lead Providence.
The bigger picture: Elorza occupied the mayor’s office for eight years and will forever be remembered as the only person to defeat Buddy Cianci in a mayoral election. But many of the biggest decisions affecting Providence during his tenure flowed through the State House. During Gina Raimondo’s time as governor, she drove much of the city’s economic development agenda and, with Elorza’s backing, took over Providence’s public schools. Smiley ultimately left Elorza’s administration to become Raimondo’s chief of staff and later her director of administration.
This will be the second time Elorza has endorsed a candidate over his former ally. He backed Gonzalo Cuervo over Smiley in 2022, but Smiley won the three-way Democratic primary with nearly 42 percent of the vote.
What makes Elorza’s endorsement of Morales even more surprising is that the two are far apart on education policy. Elorza now runs Democrats for Education Reform and has been critical of Rhode Island lawmakers for stripping the governor of the power to decide whether to opt into President Trump’s school voucher program and for placing a moratorium on new charter schools. Morales voted for both bills and is endorsed by the Providence Teachers Union, a longtime political adversary of Elorza’s.
Dan McGowan can be reached at dan.mcgowan@globe.com. Follow him @danmcgowan.