Rhode Island presents a rather different choice from several of the Senate races we have examined this year.
Democratic incumbent Jack Reed won renomination with nearly 77 percent of the vote in the September 9 primary. He will face Republican Ray McKay and independent Michael Bahry in November. (Rhode Island Board of Elections)
Reed is unmistakably a liberal Democrat on many domestic issues. But on two questions to which CIVPAC has attached increasing importance—American leadership abroad and the willingness of Congress to exercise its constitutional authority independently of the president—his record is unusually strong.
Foreign Policy and Ukraine
Foreign and defense policy are not incidental interests for Reed. A West Point graduate, he served as an Army infantry officer with the 82nd Airborne Division and later taught economics and international relations at West Point. He is now the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. (Reed biography)
On Ukraine, Reed has consistently supported continued American assistance and a strong response to Russian aggression. In 2026 he joined a bipartisan group seeking additional sanctions against Russia and against major purchasers of Russian energy that help finance the war. (Reed Senate office)
That approach is substantially consistent with CIVPAC’s policy on Russia and Ukraine, which views American assistance to Ukraine as serving broader U.S. interests by resisting territorial aggression, strengthening deterrence and supporting the international order.
Reed also approaches American engagement abroad from the perspective of alliances and diplomacy rather than isolationism. His stated foreign-policy position emphasizes supporting allies, maintaining a strong military and using diplomacy alongside military power. (Reed Senate office)
Congressional Independence
Reed’s record is also unusually clear on the constitutional role of Congress.
He has repeatedly supported War Powers resolutions requiring congressional authorization for presidential military action. In January 2026 he voted to advance a bipartisan resolution challenging President Trump’s unauthorized military operations in Venezuela, arguing that the Constitution assigns Congress—not the president—the authority to decide when the nation goes to war. (Reed Senate office)
He subsequently voted to terminate unauthorized U.S. military operations against Iran and has continued to insist that Congress exercise its war-making authority rather than acquiesce in unilateral presidential action. (Reed Senate office)
Reed has likewise opposed President Trump’s use of emergency authority to impose broad tariffs, arguing that the president was circumventing both Congress and the courts. (Reed Senate office)
Whatever one thinks of Reed’s conclusions on particular issues, his record leaves relatively little doubt that he regards Congress as a separate constitutional institution rather than merely an adjunct of the executive branch. That concern is central to CIVPAC’s argument for divided government when institutional restraint is weak.
Where We Disagree
Reed remains substantially to CIVPAC’s left on a number of domestic economic questions.
Labor policy is one of the clearest disagreements. Reed is a strong supporter of the PRO Act, including provisions strengthening secondary-boycott rights, facilitating union organization and allowing unions to collect “fair share” fees. (Reed Senate office)
His tax policy also relies more heavily than ours on increasing taxes on high-income households and corporations. At the same time, Reed’s discussion of the federal budget is more serious than the usual promise that deficits can be eliminated simply by cutting waste. He acknowledges that restoring fiscal discipline will require difficult choices to align spending priorities with revenues. (Reed Senate office)
CIVPAC’s approach to taxation, spending and debt also assumes that additional revenue must be part of any realistic deficit-reduction program. We support, among other measures, a carbon tax and tightening the rules around the estate tax. But we would combine additional revenue with structural restraint on entitlement spending, including a gradual increase in the Social Security retirement age. Reed has explicitly opposed raising that age. The difference therefore concerns not simply whether additional revenue is necessary, but the appropriate balance between taxes and long-term spending reform. (Reed Senate office)
On health care, Reed’s current position is less sweeping than that of some Democrats we have examined. His published agenda focuses on preserving and improving the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid and reducing prescription-drug costs rather than replacing the existing system with Medicare for All. (Reed Senate office)
His immigration position is also comparatively pragmatic. Reed supports stronger border security together with comprehensive immigration reform, improved legal immigration and a pathway to earned citizenship, while opposing what he regards as abusive immigration-enforcement practices. That combination is reasonably close to CIVPAC’s approach to immigration, although we favor a pathway to legal residency rather than necessarily to citizenship. (Reed Senate office)
Ray McKay
Republican Ray McKay offers a substantially different domestic-policy approach.
McKay is an Army veteran and longtime Rhode Island political activist who worked for 26 years in information technology for the City of Warwick. His campaign emphasizes balancing the federal budget, protecting Social Security and Medicare, enforcing immigration laws and restoring what he describes as constitutional limits on government. (McKay campaign)
Those objectives are not necessarily inconsistent. But McKay provides little indication of how spending reductions based largely on eliminating waste, fraud, redundant agencies and unspecified government programs would be large enough to balance the federal budget while simultaneously protecting Social Security and Medicare. At present, they read more as campaign rhetoric than as a developed fiscal program. (McKay campaign)
Nevertheless, McKay’s general economic orientation places him closer to CIVPAC than Reed on several conventional questions of taxation, spending and regulation.
McKay and Trump
McKay’s relationship with President Trump raises a separate concern.
This is not simply a case in which a Republican candidate supports the president of his party. McKay’s own campaign communications have repeatedly embraced MAGA branding and strongly pro-Trump language. Fundraising messages paid for by McKay for Senate have described Trump as an “incredible president who saved our country,” referred to MAGA supporters as “warriors,” and argued that Trump needs more fighters in the Senate. (Archive of Political Emails)
Repeated use of MAGA branding by McKay’s own campaign is meaningful evidence of the political identity he has chosen to present to voters. We have found little comparable evidence that he has sought to establish independence from Trump when their views might diverge.
That matters more in 2026 because President Trump himself has made clear that he wants the midterm elections to be a referendum on his presidency. At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, he urged voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot”, part of a broader effort to make himself the central figure in Republican congressional campaigns. (Associated Press)
To the extent President Trump wants this election to be about him—and he clearly does—we should take him seriously. For the Centrist Independent Voter, that has to count against a candidate who has chosen to identify himself so closely with the President. It does not resolve every question about McKay, but it adds weight to our concern about whether he would provide the kind of independent legislative judgment we believe the Senate requires.
The difficulty is compounded by McKay’s published platform, which provides much less information on several issues that have become central to CIVPAC’s Senate evaluations. We have found relatively little developed discussion of Ukraine, NATO, America’s broader international role, presidential war powers or the circumstances in which a Republican senator should oppose a Republican president.
For a candidate seeking to replace the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, those are important omissions.
Michael Bahry
Independent Michael Bahry supplies considerably more detail on foreign policy, but much of it points in a direction quite different from CIVPAC’s.
Bahry argues that NATO expansion crossed a Russian “red line” and says that Europe should seek peace with Russia while the United States withdraws from NATO. He explicitly says that Putin’s invasion is not thereby justified, but his proposed American withdrawal from the alliance would represent a fundamental change in U.S. foreign policy. (Bahry campaign)
Bahry also identifies himself as pro-life and speaks broadly of protecting both mothers and unborn children. His campaign does not appear to specify what federal abortion restrictions, if any, he would support—including a gestational limit, exceptions or a national prohibition.
On questions involving gender identity, Bahry opposes biological males competing in women’s sports. CIVPAC’s position is that these difficult questions are better handled by the institutions responsible for particular sports rather than through a broad federal rule. Bahry also favors restricting gender-transition medical care for minors. CIVPAC has opposed government bans on such care, leaving difficult medical decisions primarily to families, patients and medical professionals.
His immigration position combines border security with a comparatively humane approach toward immigrants already living and working in the United States. (Bahry campaign)
The Choice
The Rhode Island race therefore presents an unusual balance.
McKay’s domestic economic orientation is in several respects closer to CIVPAC’s, although the policy necessary to implement many of his stated objectives remains unclear. His close identification with President Trump adds a separate concern about the degree of independent judgment he would bring to the Senate. Significant questions also remain about his foreign-policy outlook.
Bahry offers a more developed foreign-policy position, but his support for U.S. withdrawal from NATO conflicts directly with CIVPAC’s view of America’s international responsibilities. We also have significant disagreements with him on other social-policy questions.
Reed is substantially to our left on labor policy, taxation and the appropriate scope of government. But he also brings unusual experience in national security, a strong record of support for Ukraine and American alliances, and a demonstrated willingness to assert congressional authority over tariffs and the use of military force.
That leaves a relatively straightforward question for CIVPAC to weigh: how much weight should Reed’s strengths on foreign policy, Ukraine and institutional responsibility carry against our significant disagreements with him on domestic economic policy?
On balance given the importance we place on support for America’s role in defense of the world order, institutional independence of the Senate, and the value of divided government Centrist Independent Voter endorses Senator Jack Reed for re-election to the U.S. Senate from Rhode Island.This is not a particularly hard call, but Donald Trump has made it easy for us by making himself the central issue in the campaign.