Projo Politics Blog

PROVIDENCE -- “I really, really like Chafee,” said Lenny Long, 56.

But Long, who works at the Rhode Island School of Design, said he didn't vote for the incumbent Republican U.S. senator.

“We’re looking for change,” said Long, after voting at Martin Luther King School in the Mount Hope neighborhood of Providence.

So his vote for Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, he said, was a “heartbreaker.”

Maria O’Connor, 56, a substitute teacher in Providence, said she would have liked to be loyal to Chafee and his father, a former U.S. senator and Rhode Island governor. But, she like Long, voted for change yesterday and voted for Whitehouse, not Chafee.

Over at Temple Beth-El on the city's East Side, physician Marilyn Weigner, 41, said she was very concerned about the direction of the country.

“The Senate race was key for me,” she said. “I definitely want to support Sheldon Whitehouse. That was a difficult decision because I think Lincoln Chafee is a good man and has done a good job for Rhode Island, but I believe that we need to send a message to Washington and keep the Republicans in check, and I think a better balance will do that.”

Also at Temple Beth-El (where Whitehouse cast his vote this morning) New England Tech admissions officer Norma Taylor, 54, said the whole shift of the country lies in balance today.

"The Republicans have been in control for six years,'' Taylor said, "and I don’t really like how our country is going.”

-- Kate Bramson, projo.com staff writer

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