Connor Burbridge, who calls himself a 31-year-old working-class Rhode Islander, is challenging Senator Jack Reed, who has held the seat for almost as long as Connor has been alive. I spoke with Connor, an Army veteran, small business owner, elder-care worker, and community organizer at the Seven Stars Bakery on Hope Street, on Thursday morning.
Connor Burbridge: I’m running for U.S. Senate in the Democratic Primary because I’m deeply worried about the direction that our country is going, and the Democratic Party’s ability to stop it. The way I see it, there’s this unfolding one-two punch that I know most of your readers, and probably most folks in the state, are worried about. On the one hand, we see Trump normalizing chaos and cruelty, as the Iran war is the most recent example, but it keeps happening again and again. But on the other hand, we’re losing working-class voters who no longer trust Democrats to deliver economic security. That is the key idea of this campaign: What happened in the 2024 loss. We saw that working-class voters shifted towards Donald Trump or didn’t vote at all, but a majority of people who make under $100,000 a year voted for him. Our campaign is about delivering policies: a vision for politics that wins back the working class, brings them back into the Democratic Party, and turns the Democratic Party into the party of the working class again.
Steve Ahlquist: Where is Senator Reed dropping the ball?
Connor Burbridge: We get this a lot on the trail: people ask, “How are you different from Senator Reed?” To me, it’s night and day. From my perspective, Senator Reed has the politics of the 1990s. He’s still fighting the Cold War. Activists will tell you that when they try to talk to him, he says things like, “We need to invest more and more into the military because what about Russia?”
Sure, security has its place in the conversation about our national politics, but healthcare is security. How many of those people on January 6th would have done what they did if they had healthcare and were able to take care of themselves? A lot of those people have medical debt. Across this country, so many Americans are struggling with medical debt.
The heart of what we are putting forward, this idea of working-class politics, is something you’ll never hear Jack Reed talk about. Universal healthcare, taxing the greedy billionaires who have rigged the system against the working class, and having a government that is responsive to the needs of working people and is willing to throw its weight around to make the lives of regular hardworking Americans better. That’s the heart of this campaign. It’s a politics that isn’t on offer from Senator Reed, and that’s why I decided to run in the primary.
Steve Ahlquist: None of our four delegates to Washington will say, “I support single payer. I support Medicare for All.” Your thoughts on that?
Connor Burbridge: Why don’t they support Medicare for All? That’s a huge mystery to me because when we talk to people, and I’ve talked to thousands of people across Rhode Island at this point, it’s a popular idea. And so is taxing the billionaires, by the way. No member of our federal delegation is bullish about the need to tax billionaires.
We need to improve our healthcare through Medicare for all. It’s not like we can’t do it. People want it. The Democratic base in our state wants it. That’s what makes this campaign super easy: it speaks to what the Democratic base in our state wants. On the question of how to get Medicare for All done, we have our working-class agenda, which consists of our six core policies. They’re largely novel and new to the national conversation, and one of those policies is universal elder care. While that isn’t Medicare for All, per se, we see it as an administrative first step towards building a Medicare for All system.
The Trump Administration has gutted the federal government, and we’re going to need to rebuild state capacity. If we have programs like Medicare for All, we want to make sure the government can deliver them efficiently and that we have the people in government who can do that. Right now, there’s a dearth of people; many have left. Since we already have Medicare, doing something like universal elder care is a good first step. Medicare doesn’t cover assisted living, home care, or care by a family member. A universal elder care system will deliver significant care to regular, hardworking Americans and help build the administrative muscle we need to transition to a Medicare for all system.
Steve Ahlquist: I also think that post-Trump, we will need to rebuild the capacity of the federal government. A lot of people talk about getting it back. to the status quo, but the status quo brought us Trump. Why can’t we build something better instead?
During COVID, everybody talked about getting back to normal, as if the status quo were so great. We didn’t have enough houses. People are living on the streets in tents, and billionaires exist. The status quo sucks.
Steve Ahlquist: Why is taxing the rich necessary?
Connor Burbridge: At the heart of our campaign is taxing the billionaires. Taxing the rich is everything. We want to talk about coalitional politics and how to build a coalition. Every good story needs an enemy - an antagonist - and the working people of this country versus the billionaires is a compelling story that can help bring people together and build a new coalition - a durable national majority for the Democratic Party - for generations to come, like what happened during the New Deal. FDR wasn’t afraid to call out the fat cats of his time.
Steve Ahlquist: He was one of them.
Connor Burbridge: Yeah. But he called them out almost every week during his fireside chats. We need to bring the Democratic Party back to its roots of saying, “You can be a part of our tent, but we are against the billionaire class. We stand for working people.” That is the heart of what our party’s about. That’s what we stand for. That’s our litmus test for what a Democrat is...
If you ask somebody, “What does it mean to be a Democrat?” you’d get a million different answers.
Steve Ahlquist: A “big tent” doesn’t really serve as a definition.
Connor Burbridge: Exactly. I mean, a working-class party is still a big tent. There are so many different types of working-class people working different jobs. You have a nurse who’s working in healthcare. You have an Amazon delivery driver. You have a retail worker at Target. The working class is a myriad of people with different jobs and experiences. You can still have this big tent, but our defining vision of the party is that we are a working-class party and we are against the billionaire class and big corporations who are screwing people over.
Steve Ahlquist: I think you meant it somewhat as a metaphor, but when we talk about a story that unites us against the billionaires, is it more than a metaphor? What the billionaires are doing to the country is pretty startling. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Connor Burbridge: If you look at the last 50 years of governance in this country, it’s been unfettered capitalism. Whatever’s good for the billionaire class is good for America. After 40 years, that story has been hollowed out, and people realize it’s not true. Wages are stagnating. Good factory jobs have left this country, and good, stable union jobs are gone. The people who have benefited from that are the billionaire class. They’ve grown richer, and there are more and more of them. Life’s good for them. They have good healthcare. They have multiple homes. Some of them have second homes in Rhode Island.
And regular working people can’t find a primary care physician. Our hospitals are closing or at risk of closing. You can’t afford your home, and your kids can’t afford to buy a home. They have to move out of state because it’s hard to find a good quality job in our state. Our children are leaving the communities they grew up in. This is what regular people have to deal with every day: getting evicted, not being able to afford rent, and having to decide between groceries and rent. This is the reality that regular Americans are facing.
I feel it because I live with it every day. It started during the pandemic. I worked at Shaw’s, and now I work in elder care and help manage a large organization in our state.
This struggle of regular Americans -I feel it in my bones. My friends talk about it every day. My fiance and I talk about it when she gets home from school. She’s a public school teacher. The multiple crisis that we’re experiencing in this country - that working-class people are facing the brunt of - comes from billionaires who have hollowed out our society.
Steve Ahlquist: Should billionaires even exist?
Connor Burbridge: They should certainly pay their fair share to support America’s future.
Steve Ahlquist: What other items are on your six-point checklist?
Connor Burbridge: I talked about universal elder care. Next are public utilities, and that hits hard in Rhode Island. I don’t think there are many fans of Rhode Island Energy right now. They’re increasing energy bills by up to 20%.
Steve Ahlquist: You’re talking about the public ownership of utilities?
Connor Burbridge: Yes, public ownership of utilities. And we already have that. Burrillville has the Clear River Electric and Water, which is a municipal utility district. [Clear River Electric & Water District (CREW) is a quasi-municipal utility serving the Burrillville, Rhode Island area (Pascoag and Harrisville), providing electricity and water on a not-for-profit basis.] We can use that scaffolding and strengthen that program to allow states or communities to buy back their grids from these utility monopolies that are basically screwing over regular, hardworking families.
Our next idea is capping corporate landlords. We’re going to stop out-of-state corporations and private equity from buying up single-family homes and housing units.
Steve Ahlquist: There are bills to do that right now in both the Providence City Council and General Assembly. It seems a popular idea.
Connor Burbridge: Exactly. And it’s pretty simple. I don’t think people want their neighbors to be an out-of-state corporation or a giant hedge fund. They want their neighbors to be regular people.
Steve Ahlquist: I want families on my street, but young families can’t afford to buy a house because they pay $3,000 a month in rent.
Connor Burbridge: We would cap corporate ownership at about 0.1%, which is about 75 units in Providence. They would be able to own 75 units in a city like Providence, fewer in other towns.
The next three items on our checklist are more aspirational. We’re talking about building a national wealth fund that would deliver a $1,000-per-year stipend to Americans from the fund’s capital returns. We call it a baby UBI [Universal Basic Income] or Burberge Bucks.
A national wealth fund is a key strategic investment tool for countries across the world (and Alaska). We can use a national wealth fund to invest in the economy of the future. And we can seed that fund with money from taxing billionaires, so we’re tying Americans’ well-being directly to taxing billionaires.
The next one is the Climate Super-Fund Law. Obviously, climate change will impact all of our communities. But our communities and families shouldn’t be responsible for paying for the mess of climate change. It should be the companies that have lied to the public time and time again, like the big energy companies. They should be responsible for paying for that.
Steve Ahlquist: I think they’d be out of business if we did that to them. They don’t have enough money to make it right, but I’m all for doing it anyway.
Connor Burbridge: The last item is our big swing. We’re proposing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Equal Education for All. Simply put, your zip code shouldn’t determine the type of education you get. So many small towns, including those in Rhode Island, are facing ever-heavier tax burdens to maintain high-quality public education. This amendment would make the federal government a guarantor that all of our students have a high-quality education. I was in Richmond the other day, and they said they have a $2 million budget gap. And so they have to decide what school sports to cut.
Steve Ahlquist: That’s happening all over.
Connor Burbridge: It’s a tragedy. We’re not talking about expanding after-school programs. Communities are having to decide what programs to cut. It’s a tragedy that our schools are in that position. The American public education system used to be one of the world’s shining beacons. In the early 20th century, our investments in education gave us a big boost on the international stage. The fact that education has been so hollowed out over the last 50 years is a massive tragedy that our teachers, students, and families have to live with. This amendment is speaking to that and saying, “We see the struggle, and we’re going to go to bat for you and fight as hard as we can.”
Steve Ahlquist: To my mind, we’re not defending public schools against attacks from the right to defund and destroy them. There’s literally a plan to undo the public education system in America by advocating for things like school choice and vouchers, which are stalking horses for those who would destroy our schools.
I want to ask about some subjects you might not have mentioned, like immigration, which is a huge issue. I don’t need you to come up with a brilliant solution on the spot, but what are your thoughts?
Connor Burbridge: We believe in making it easy for people who are already working in this country to become citizens, especially those who have been working here for years. It’s a tough issue because it’s been used to divide working-class people. There are a lot of working-class people, of all different races, who believe that immigrants are driving down our wages. They’ve bought into this narrative from the right, so part of fighting back is pointing out that it’s not the immigrants who are driving down your wages, it’s the billionaires and the big corporations. They want to pay you as little as possible, and if they can’t get what they want, they move the factory or the business out of the country.
So first, we need to fight back against that narrative. Then we need to give the people who work here a legal path to citizenship so that no one benefits from an underclass of workers who can’t organize, join unions, and join with their other coworkers because they’re afraid of being deported. Giving those people a path to citizenship and helping to build working-class solidarity with people from different countries of origin, and allowing the people who work here, who want to build a life here, a path to citizenship, and then helping them to build that solidarity with their fellow workers, build unions, and increase wages across the board.
Steve Ahlquist: Should ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) be abolished?
Connor Burbridge: Yes. 100%. ICE has become an extrajudicial police force for this administration. You can look to history for a bunch of analogies. When a strong executive or an executive overreaching their power creates an extrajudicial police force, it’s a bad formula for what’s to come. ICE’s hiring practices are in question, and so are the resources they’ve received. It’s incredibly scary, and we can’t allow them to continue to exist. It’s too dangerous.
Steve Ahlquist: Your opponent, Jack Reed, seems to have never seen a military increase that he hasn’t loved. In fact, during the first Trump Administration, when the President asked for X number of dollars, Senator Reed authorized an increase! Speaking to that, what is a proper military budget? Does it need to get bigger? Does it need to stay the same? Should it go down?
Connor Burbridge: Rhode Islanders need to know that in this Democratic Primary race for U.S. Senate, I am the only peace candidate. Jack Reed has never stood for peace. He stands for continuous war, preparing America for a future of endless conflict. He’s continuously expanded the military industrial complex. He throws more and more money at it, while the Pentagon can’t even pass an audit. That was big news a couple of years ago, but it was no issue for him. In this time of an affordability crisis for regular hardworking Americans, he continues to increase funding for the military. America is strongest when we invest in regular people here at home.
We need to invest in education and bring good-quality union jobs back to our country. We are strongly positioned, with federal government investment, to become the Wind Capital of the United States. We have a lot of space at Qonsett Point. We have deep-water ports. We have a strong, talented workforce.
New York is trying to do this, Connecticut is trying to do this. We have some interstate competition, but if we have leaders at the federal level who are fighting for these investments and fighting to bring that money here, rather than continuing on our path of building vehicles and things for World War III...
That’s not a future I want to see for my children. Things are unstable here domestically. Anybody who reads the news even once a month can see that. Our politics are very unstable. People’s lives are unstable. When we talk about security, let’s talk about stabilizing our people here.
I stand against the military-industrial complex and for de-investing and making strategic investments in other industries, like green energy, and people say, “Jack Reed’s for that too.” You need to really do your research.
There are legitimate questions about the industry we have now. I’m not saying we should eliminate Electric Boat. It’s a phased approach. We can plan it. Maybe there’s a percentage of Electric Boat’s facilities that continue the work they do now. There might be a need for that, and we don’t want to affect anyone’s job. But there’s a lot of space at Quonsett Point that’s currently underutilized, so we can have a phased-in approach where we’re growing our wind and green energy industries and maybe downsizing the bloated weapons contracts...
Steve Ahlquist: There are a lot of people who work at Electric Boat who would hear what you’re saying and be very concerned because their jobs are now on the line, or could change in ways they’re not ready to adapt to. That’s a tough sell in Rhode Island, where Electric Boat employs around 7,000 Rhode Islanders and is planning to hire many more.
Connor Burbridge: That’s because they got $18 billion that Jack Reed delivered to them.
Steve Ahlquist: Right, and that goes right into family-sustaining jobs. I appreciate your ideas here, but the messaging is tricky.
Connor Burbridge: I want to emphasize that I’m not for eliminating anybody’s jobs. It’s a phased approach. We can do this in a smart way, and in conversation with the workers and unions, because I know there are many good union jobs at Electric Boat. But working people understand that a future of endless conflict is not one we want for our children. I mean, Trump is considering a national draft!. Nobody wants to see their children deployed to a pointless war in Iran.
Steve Ahlquist: A national draft is a nightmare scenario for America.
Connor Burbridge: I agree.
Steve Ahlquist: Maybe giving the largest military budget in the history of the world to Trump and his nihilistic end-time fascists is a mistake.
Connor Burbridge: I want to challenge Rhode Islanders. The Democratic Party used to be the party of anti-war. I want to challenge us all to consider dreaming again. Dreaming of an economy of abundance where, instead of weapons of war, we’re building tools of abundance: green energy, wind energy, new housing, and heat pumps here in the United States. Teenagers can get a good union job at a factory building the technology of the future, instead of looking forward to endless conflict.
Steve Ahlquist: Changing it up: You’re young, you’ve never held elected office.
Connor Burbridge: That’s correct. I’m a political outsider.
Steve Ahlquist: So it’s your first election, and you’re going for the Senate. It’s a big leap. There are current and former mayors, other elected officials, and maybe even a governor who could challenge Reed. Why this big leap, and what does it feel like?
Connor Burbridge: That’s a normal question to ask. I was waiting for someone like David Cicilline to step up. At this time, Jack Reed’s leadership, what he has on offer, isn’t meeting the crisis of the current moment, and we need someone who will. David Cicilline embraced the Green New Deal. He’s willing to take big swings and go out on a limb to fight for hardworking people in the same way that Jack Reed isn’t. I was waiting for someone to step up, and no one did. Post-2024 election, these conversations need to happen. The Democratic Party needs to look in the mirror. To have one of our most important seats, the U.S. Senate, go uncontested again? Jack Reed has never had a serious primary challenger since he was first elected.
To have that happen again feels wrong, and it’s a disservice to the people of Rhode Island. It’s a disservice to Democratic primary voters not to have this conversation. I was involved in politics. I was very passionate about organizing for my local community. I started a small, climate-oriented business. I’ve served as an officer in the United States Army, so I’ve got leadership experience. These aren’t normal times, and we need regular people to step up. This is what Senator Sanders and his team are saying: People who work regular jobs, such as in elder care, healthcare, and construction, need working-class representatives to represent them.
Just because you’re not connected to the richest people in the state and haven’t held public office before, doesn’t mean you can’t fight.
Steve Ahlquist: Let me ask you this then: You’re not only running against Reed, but you’re also running against basically the entire Democratic Party, because the entire Democratic Party is going to, at least officially, encircle Senator Reed and protect him. You say you’re an outsider, but you’re very outside. One reason someone like David Cicilline won’t step up is that the Democratic Party wouldn’t be happy if he did.
Connor Burbridge: It takes courage. The three values of our campaign are grit, courage, and moral clarity. Part of why we’ve gotten where we are is that, at key times, some key people haven’t stepped up. If my running in this race can inspire people to have that courage. AOC dared to run her race. Zoran went up against the former governor of New York...
Steve Ahlquist: Zoran’s also endlessly positive, somehow. Not sure how he does that.
You mentioned your army experience. Reed is also an Army veteran. Can you talk about that?
Connor Burbridge: I’m 31. I grew up in America, which was pretty much at war my entire life. Like many Americans, I saw serving in the military as the right thing to do for my communities. So, throughout college, I was in ROTC. After that, I became an S1 officer on a battalion staff. We were a movement control battalion where we helped manage logistics for an entire theater of war.
Steve Ahlquist: Is that like a big Risk board where you’re pushing little armies around with a croupier?
Connor Burbridge: It’s a whiteboard and a lot of PowerPoints.
Steve Ahlquist: That’s a little different from my Cold War movie experiences.
Connor Burbridge: I learned a lot, worked with incredibly smart people during that time, and was inspired by many of our young leaders, especially their dedication to their jobs and their craft in serving this country. I took a lot away from that experience. I started my time in the military around 2013, towards the end of the surge, so there was a lot of cynicism in the ranks, and I lived with that too. People openly acknowledged that we fought the Iraq war for oil and said that openly in the barracks.
There are two ways to look at that. One is that we made some serious mistakes, and we need to question the military industrial complex and how we’ve gotten to where we are. The other side of that is that might makes right, and we can take whatever we want because we can...
Steve Ahlquist: That seems to be where we are today with Venezuela and Iran.
Connor Burbridge: And the Pete Hegseth quote, “...aximum lethality, not legality.” That’s saying we’re in Iran for resources, and there’s nothing wrong with that because we’re America.
Steve Ahlquist: It’s a war crime.
Connor Burbridge: There are two opportunities we have with our soldiers that aren’t talked about enough. Our response should be to take a step back from the international stage in terms of foreign conflicts and focus on the American people, healing the wounds that were wrought over a quarter century of war, versus this other side of “Let’s take whatever we want.”
Steve Ahlquist: Some people might interpret that as being isolationist or pulling back from the world stage. What about our allies, like NATO?
Connor Burbridge: The focus of this campaign is winning back the trust of regular, hardworking Americans here at home and, ultimately, delivering a durable national majority for the Democratic Party, as happened during the New Deal. If we can’t win back the tr’ trust and loyalty, the White House will flip every four to eight years. In that politics, we cannot guarantee any of our allies a stable domestic policy or domestic politics that will allow them to build the relationships that will help see an alliance through.
Steve Ahlquist: We’re seeing the distrust of foreign governments right now.
Connor Burbridge: Exactly. Just because a Democrat gets back in the White House in 2028, do you think European allies are going to be eager to trust us? They’re going to say, “What about four years from now?”
Steve Ahlquist: They’re going to look for short-term deals and short-term gains only.
Connor Burbridge: They’re going to plan for America to step back or be chaotic. They’re going to expect America to be a chaotic mess from here on out, which is not wrong. If we can’t win back the loyalty and the trust of working-class voters in this country, then there’s no point in talking about that. Trump’s gone, but what about another Trump, or Marco Rubio, or JD Vance? Are these guys going to be much better than Trump at dealing with Europe? We can talk about geopolitics as much as we want. All of that to me is irrelevant if we lose the White House again eight years from now. And we do that by focusing on building a durable national majority, and by having policies and politics that speak to regular, hardworking people.
Steve Ahlquist: What happens if President Trump somehow seriously messes with the midterm elections?
Connor Burbridge: We received our first endorsement from a progressive leader in Woonsocket, former councilmember Alex Kithes. He said to me, “Elections are binary. Movements are not.” The answer to that isn’t in elections and candidates: it comes from the people who, across the state and country, are doing the hard work of organizing responses to a rising fascist threat.
I want to celebrate and say how much I respect and am inspired by the work of people like South County Rising and Indivisible Metro RI, who are preparing for a future in these United States where we no longer have free and fair elections. They are the people we look to for leadership in that situation.
Steve Ahlquist: Can I ask where you grew up?
Connor Burbridge: I grew up in Southern New Jersey. I moved to Rhode Island in my early 20s. I had a buddy who was moving here. He said Rhode Island is one of the greatest states in the country.
Steve Ahlquist: Not wrong.
Connor Burbridge: He told me to come check it out with him. I moved up here with my girlfriend at the time, but I recently got engaged in Rhode Island. It’s my chosen home. I’m trying to buy a house here. I’m trying to build my life here, like so many other people in this state. There are so many great things about this state, and maybe being a little bit of an outsider allows me to see the potential ways that we can make it even better.
Steve Ahlquist: How’s fundraising going, because Senator Reed theoretically has an infinite amount of money
Connor Burbridge: That is a great question, Steve. In terms of what direction we want the Democratic Party to go, Senator Reed takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and the merchants of death. These people make hundreds of billions of dollars from war and conflict.
We’re talking about Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. He was the chair of the Armed Services Committee.
Steve Ahlquist: And currently the ranking member...
Connor Burbridge: These companies are smart. They don’t give those donations without expecting some ROI (return on investment). We should expect more from our Democratic Party leaders. Nowadays, you can do a lot with grassroots fundraising, especially when you have a big platform like Senator Reed’s.
Our campaign is only taking small-dollar donations. We’re not taking any money from super PACS, we’re not taking money from AIPAC. That is another big difference between Senator Reed and me. That being said, fundraising is a challenge. If anyone reading this feels inspired by our message, and if we had 100,000 people across the state and across this country donate $10, we could have a very competitive race.
We have the story behind us. We’re the underdog. We’re bringing a new vision. We’re bringing a new face to politics. That is inspiring for a lot of people I talk to across the state. If everyone went into the voting booth with a list of our and Senator Reed’s key policies, we would win the Democratic primary. Providing everyone with that information when they walk in will require significant resources. It is an uphill battle, but the stakes have always been against freedom, liberty, progressive politics, and progressive ideas. The stakes are always against those types of ideas.
As Alex said, elections are binary, but movements are not. We are committed to staying organized, building, and pushing forward, year after year, until this dream of a government that delivers for the working class becomes a reality. Do you think
Steve Ahlquist: Last question: What’s your elevator pitch?
Connor Burbridge: We have the vision and policies for the future of the Democratic Party that focus on building a durable national majority, and help build a blueprint for nationwide wins that the Democratic Party and regular hardworking Americans need now more than ever.
Thank you Steve for another great interview in introducing us to what sounds. like a strong candidate to challenge Senator Reed. All the best Connor. You got my vote.
Thank you, Connor! We are already contributing to your campaign.