Courtesy David Segal for Congress
David Segal appears in a campaign photo from 2022.
It’s not exactly a secret that the midterms are likely to lead to divided government. Should that happen, opportunities for progressive advances narrow to a handful of discrete issues with transpartisan support. I’m not talking about the usual bipartisanship that reveals itself as a stalking horse for corporate interests. There are some issues—like war policy, Big Tech dominance, taking down the ocean shipping cartel—where the divide is not necessarily left vs. right, but populist vs. establishment.
The singular figure at the center of practically all previous transpartisan coalitions in Washington over the past decade, and more in his home state before that, is running for Congress. David Segal, a candidate for the open seat in Rhode Island’s second congressional district, is one of the few Democrats campaigning on his ability to be effective no matter who controls the House.
“A moment like this is one where it’s all the more important to elect people with a demonstrated track record on issues,” Segal said in an interview in May. “I got legislation on renewable energy and criminal justice [in Rhode Island] with one of the most right-wing governors in the country. I stopped cuts to city and state government. I’ve been able to forward an agenda on war powers reform even with Republican majorities in the House. The monopoly issue I’ve been working on is one with some genuine cross-partisan esteem.”
Segal is running in a field of six to replace retiring Rep. Jim Langevin; the primary, one of the nation’s last, is September 13. The current front-runner is Rhode Island state treasurer Seth Magaziner, the son of Ira Magaziner, policy advisor and architect of the ill-fated Clinton health care plan. In addition to having run statewide, Magaziner has outraised the field and holds several major endorsements.
But Segal believes he is better positioned for the political moment in a seat that, while solidly Democratic since 1991 (Biden won the old version of the district by 13 points and it got more Democratic in redistricting), has shown signs of being competitive this year. His unique blend of legislative experience and outside advocacy, building support across the aisle, rallying factions in both parties to block unfavorable bills, and highlighting executive branch appointments, could serve him well in the next Congress, he says.
“I have worked almost literally every day for the last 20 years to build the sorts of broad coalitions that you need to build to make progress for people,” Segal said. “There are moments of common concern, even among a broad, diverse electorate. That’s a more compelling story to tell rather than presenting the notion that we will be able to nibble around the edges.”
(Full disclosure: Segal has been quoted in several articles I’ve written in the past. He also co-edited a book to which I contributed a chapter, and has written or co-written five stories at the Prospect.)
DESPITE BEING ONLY 42 YEARS OLD, Segal really has been involved in high-level politics for two decades. In 2001, after college at Columbia, he moved to Providence, Rhode Island, getting involved in a living wage fight and tackling police department dysfunction. By 2002, he was elected to the Providence City Council on a Green Party ticket—the first Green to win an election in Rhode Island history, and one of the state’s youngest elected officials ever. A photo from that era at a rally for local custodians shows exactly how young Segal was when he got started.
On the city council, Segal often pushed David Cicilline, who at the time was the city’s somewhat moderate mayor (he is currently representing Rhode Island’s other congressional district and has become a stalwart Progressive Caucus member). The council advanced elements of the living wage ordinance and other measures, like ensuring eviction notices for tenants were in multiple languages.
Segal switched parties to the Democrats and won a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 2006, spending two terms there. He was part of a small group of progressives in a Democratic-dominated but largely establishment caucus. At the time, Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri, and Democratic House Speaker William Murphy and Senate President Joseph Montalbano, were all pro-life. But in 2007 Segal was one of four co-sponsors of legislation to codify Roe v. Wade into law. “It was not an issue with a lot of energy behind it,” Segal said. “Over the decade it became more salient.” In 2019 the measure finally passed.
During his tenure, Segal passed a renewable-energy bill in 2007 before the Green New Deal was a thing, and passed criminal justice reform in Rhode Island before that rose to prominence. In 2009, at the height of the Great Recession, he led a coalition to block substantial cuts in funding to cities and towns, and restored what would have been the end of the state’s capital gains tax. A story in the now-defunct local alt-weekly The Phoenix in 2007 entitled “The Hippest Guy in State Government” noted Segal’s inside-outside game, marveling at the fact that he was the only elected official who was a blogger, and that he’d amassed an online army of “433 Facebook friends.”
This is his second try for a House seat; Segal lost to Cicilline in 2010. In between then and now, he co-founded (with the late Aaron Swartz) the national advocacy group Demand Progress, which works on issues of militarism, surveillance, tech censorship, net neutrality, and monopoly power.
Stew Milne/AP Photo
David Segal campaigns for Congress in Providence, Rhode Island on July 29, 2010.
The Demand Progress work built on Segal’s tendency to gather unusual coalitions. The first major effort was a transpartisan protest in 2011 against two bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (SOPA/PIPA), that would have been a giveaway to entertainment and software companies and seemed destined for passage. Opponents argued they would block online free speech. Segal helped rally thousands of websites against the bill, from Google to Etsy, from progressives to the Tea Party, all of which participated in an “internet blackout” that generated millions of contacts to Congress. The bills were eventually dropped in early 2012.
In addition, Segal’s group has brought together Democrats and Republicans to fight government surveillance through the PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and to re-establish congressional supremacy in declarations of war. Demand Progress was at the forefront of a bipartisan War Powers Act resolution to end U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen, which passed Congress in 2018, and another limiting President Trump’s ability to strike Iran, which passed in 2020. The Yemen vote was the first War Powers resolution to pass in the Senate since the War Powers Act became law in 1973. “Congressional power over warmaking should be respected,” Segal said. “Regardless of what people think of the potential of military action, we agree that there should be function of democratic process.”
While the Yemen war has not formally ended (it’s in a somewhat fragile cease-fire at the moment), a new War Powers resolution has been introduced in both chambers on a bipartisan basis, something Demand Progress helped to organize.
Demand Progress has also been out front on confronting monopoly power, initially in the tech sector but eventually encompassing corporate control more broadly. The organization initiated the No Corporate Cabinet campaign which played a major role in shaping personnel in the Biden administration, and it has been active in promoting net neutrality, which was briefly the law of the land under President Obama’s FCC.
“Sitting on top of all that, they want a Democratic Party that is going to do things. They want to elect people that understand how important this moment in time appears to be,” Segal said.
IN SEVERAL INTERVIEWS over the past few months, Segal has told me about an unusually eclectic mix of priorities (for congressional candidates, anyway): constraining the runaway military budget; using international mechanisms like the IMF to fund poor and developing countries through special drawing rights; taking on concentration in agriculture, energy, and baby formula markets; responding to inflation through crackdowns on price gouging (like an excess profits tax, with the proceeds returned to the public); improving supply chain functionality; plus filibuster reform, climate policy, and much more.
We last talked as President Biden was wrapping up his visit to the Middle East. “I was pleased during the campaign when he said Saudi Arabia would be recognized as a pariah,” Segal said. “Obviously this was a step backward.” He said that it would push him more to organize bipartisan support for the War Powers resolution on Yemen, where the Saudis have been an interventionist force.
War Powers resolutions are privileged, which means they can be brought up for a vote even if leadership doesn’t favor them. Similarly, Segal talked about discharge petitions, which can be used in the House to get votes on bills not backed by leadership if a majority of members sign. This creative thinking on how to work within the structures of Congress to make change is critical.
When I asked Segal what he was picking up from voters in the district, as he knocked doors and gathered petitions to qualify for the ballot, he ticked off some specifics—abortion, inflation—and then added, “Sitting on top of all that, they want a Democratic Party that is going to do things. They want to elect people that understand how important this moment in time appears to be. They need people in office who are not there to push half-measures and appease corporations while purporting to do something.”
Segal has earned endorsements from green groups and leaders like Bill McKibben. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) endorsed Segal and held an event with him about corporate power. “We need leaders like David making decisions at policy tables,” she said at the event.
But Magaziner, who was initially running for governor before switching to the House seat when it came open, has assembled a formidable war chest, raising over $2 million for the race, only $27,000 of which is from small-dollar donors (contributing $200 or less). Segal has raised about $469,000, which is the third-most in the race. There’s been no outside spending thus far.
Magaziner also holds endorsements from several traditional labor unions, like the building trades, SEIU, UNITE Here, and the state AFL-CIO. The state Democratic Party and outgoing Rep. Langevin endorsed Magaziner as well, along with House Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), and most recently Seth Moulton (D-MA).
Auchincloss, in his endorsement, warned that the district was a swing seat, pointing to a poll showing Republican Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, a two-time candidate for governor, defeating all Democrats by 6-10 points in hypothetical matchups. “We have got to fight every congressional race as though it’s the deciding margin,” Auchincloss, a former Republican, cautioned.
That poll was taken in June, right before the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe, which has led to a slight move back to Democrats in the generic congressional ballot. More to the point, Fung’s name recognition relative to most everyone on the Democratic side could have driven some of the results. The last Republican to hold the 2nd district seat in Rhode Island was Claudine Schneider more than 30 years ago.
The framing of electability as the main factor in the race would absolve Magaziner from having to compete over issues. Magaziner’s top priorities are fairly mainstream Democratic Party ideas.
Other candidates in the race include Joy Fox, a former spokesperson for Langevin, Rhode Island’s previous governor (and current Commerce Secretary) Gina Raimondo, and the state Department of Corrections; Sara Morgenthau, who worked in the National Travel and Tourism office of the Commerce Department; and Omar Bah, founder of the Refugee Dream Center.
While polling shows Magaziner in front, his support tops out around 30 percent. Segal’s pollster explained in June that internal polling showed Segal at 17.5 percent among voters who could name all the candidates, within 11 points of Magaziner. “While Seth has been a known quantity for seven years, the polling clearly shows that voters are not sold on him and, even with just a minimal amount of campaigning from other candidates, the numbers will be very different, very fast,” the pollster, Dan Cohen, told local radio.
If Segal can make it to Washington, there’s no question that it won’t be politics as usual. “There’s real populist grassroots energy in this district,” he told me. “People know the government can do more for them.”
