Your Primary Source

We’ve long heard from readers that our “In Their Own Words” column, which we run every election season in November, is extraordinarily useful when they’re choosing how to cast their vote. In it, we ask candidates questions about topics important to our readers — questions about social justice, the arts, the environment — and phrase them to be as unspinnable as possible.

This election season, we changed things up a little and decided to run our popular “In Their Own Words” column in this special election coverage section in time for the statewide primary in order to help our readers make informed choices and encourage them to take part in an election that often sees woefully low voter turnout.

Rhode Island is a blue state with Democrats often winning state and local elections — whether they are true Democrats or Republicans in Democrats’ clothing. If Democrats are often the default winners, the statewide primary, where we select which Democrat will likely hold office, is an extremely important local election.

Although the Motif newsroom lacks the person power to contact every Rhode Islander running for election, we contacted those running in what we view as key elections, and printed the verbatim answers of those who responded, interspersed with news topics we’ll hope you find enlightening.

Make a plan, and vote!