1199NE members endorse candidates who understand the challenges healthcare workers and working families face every day. Each of the candidates featured here has shown a commitment to protecting essential services, strengthening workers’ rights, investing in healthcare, and making housing and everyday life more affordable. Here’s who our members are backing.
Ned Lamont is a husband, father, grandfather, former small business owner, and Governor of Connecticut. Before serving as governor, he built a successful Connecticut business, creating jobs and learning firsthand what it takes to make a payroll and grow an economy. As governor, Ned has helped restore fiscal stability, deliver the largest middle-class tax cut in state history, fund public education, expand affordable childcare, and protect the rights and freedoms that make Connecticut a great place to live. Now, he’s running for re-election to build on that progress and continue to lower costs, expand opportunity, and keep Connecticut moving forward by building a stronger, more affordable future for every family.
Rep. Larson defends collective bargaining, fights for good union jobs, and stands up for retirement security for every worker. “Rep. Larson is always a champion for the hardworking citizens of our state,” says Stephan Bobb, 1199NE member and Mental Health Assistant II at Connecticut Valley Hospital.
Maryam Khan is a Pakistani-born American politician. When she won her special election in 2022, she became the first Muslim elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives. She was a high school special education teacher in Hartford and East Hartford for six years, and as a teacher was a union member of AFT and CEA. She considers labor unions her allies and partners in her legislative work and wants to build collective power with SEIU to pass better policies for workers. She cares deeply about investment in strong public education, equitable tax policy, increased funding for Medicaid and a public option, and criminal justice reform, and does not believe state workers should make concessions.
Jack is a dad, a lawyer, and a fierce advocate for increasing affordability for middle- and working-class families. He’s also supportive of our immigrant communities and wants to protect due process and access to justice. If elected, he wants to champion investment in quality public education, affirm dignity for our immigrant neighbors, and protect against dangerous federal cuts.
Angie is a 26-year public educator who has served on the East Hartford Town Council since 2019. A proud union member, she believes electing union members is the best way to protect workers and ensure they have a decent life, a livable wage, affordable health care, and a retirement they can depend on. She wants to see a public option created in Connecticut, full funding for public education, and taxes on the wealthy to fund critical services.
Moise Carelus is a first-generation Haitian American, a sports administrator, coach, and former teacher. His wife is a primary care physician and also a child of immigrants. He wants to focus on affordability and education policy and funding if elected, and supports legislation to grow the public sector workforce and expand defined benefit pensions to more workers.
Pat Dillon is a longtime State Representative from the New Haven area and a trained health care worker. She has shaped much of Connecticut’s policy on AIDS, family violence, addiction, and mental health, and has been a consistent advocate for school-based health centers and the disabled. If re-elected, her priorities are making health care more affordable, making taxes more equitable, and protecting renters through Just Cause legislation. She supports taxing the wealthy, including a capital gains tax and adjusted income tax brackets and rates.
Leland Moore is a current New Haven Alder, a career public servant, and a proud union member. He’s an Assistant Attorney General in Connecticut and went to work for the AG’s office because he cares how policy impacts everyday people. He believes solving the problems created by a lack of services, opportunities, and resources is crucial to the well-being of our state. If elected, he wants to focus on good jobs, affordability, expanding lifesaving services, and directing more resources to young people.
Toni Lombardi is a current Alder in Milford and works as a school secretary in the Milford Public Schools. She’s a mom, a union member, and a worker just like us. With experience in both local and state government, she wants to fund education and address neighborhood concerns and cost-of-living challenges if elected.
1199NE is a proud affiliate of the RI SEIU State Council. Together, we’re backing candidates who will fight for working families across Rhode Island.
Helena Buonanno Foulkes is a lifelong Rhode Islander and former business executive. She spent 25 years at CVS Health, rising to become President of CVS Pharmacy, where she oversaw the company’s retail division and helped lead the decision to remove tobacco products from its stores. She later served as CEO of Hudson’s Bay Company. Foulkes earned her bachelor’s degree and MBA from Harvard University. She has also served on nonprofit and corporate boards and has worked with organizations addressing homelessness, domestic violence and public education.
Sabina Matos has served as Rhode Island’s Lieutenant Governor since 2021 and was elected to a full term in 2022. She is the first woman of color to hold the office and the first Dominican American elected to statewide office in the United States. Before becoming Lieutenant Governor, Matos represented Ward 15 on the Providence City Council from 2011 to 2021 and served as Council President. Born in the Dominican Republic, she immigrated to Rhode Island in 1994 and earned a degree in communications and public relations from Rhode Island College.
David Morales is a candidate for Mayor of Providence and has represented the city’s House District 7 since 2021. Raised by a single immigrant mother, Morales experienced housing insecurity and worked in agriculture as a teenager. He earned a bachelor’s degree in urban studies from the University of California, Irvine, and a master’s degree in public affairs from Brown University. Before entering the legislature, he worked in education, workforce development, college admissions and community programming. His legislative work has included raising the minimum wage, lowering prescription-drug costs, strengthening immigrant protections, banning rental application fees and increasing funding for Providence schools.
Keith Hoffmann is an attorney and former senior leader in the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office. Born in Newport and raised in Portsmouth, he earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with honors from Fordham Law School. Hoffmann began his legal career helping veterans obtain healthcare and housing. In the Attorney General’s Office, he served as a unit chief and member of Attorney General Peter Neronha’s executive leadership team. His work included healthcare oversight, consumer protection, civil-rights enforcement, police training, opioid-settlement policy and legal challenges against unlawful federal actions.
Dawn Euer has represented Newport and Jamestown in Senate District 13 since winning a 2017 special election. An attorney and longtime organizer, she helped lead Rhode Island’s marriage-equality campaign before entering the Senate. Euer was the lead sponsor of the 2021 Act on Climate and Senate sponsor of the Let RI Vote Act, Student Loan Bill of Rights and Health Care Provider Shield Act.
Meghan Kallman has represented Senate District 15 since 2021 after serving two terms on the Pawtucket City Council. A professor, sociologist and community organizer, Kallman earned degrees from Smith College and the University of Chicago and a doctorate from Brown University. Her legislative work has focused on affordable housing, public transportation, climate policy and workers’ rights. She is also a founding member of Climate Jobs Rhode Island.
Alana DiMario has represented Senate District 36 since 2021. She is a licensed mental-health counselor and serves as Vice Chair of the Senate Housing and Municipal Government Committee, a member of the Finance and Environment and Agriculture committees, and co-chair of the Permanent Joint Legislative Commission on Child Care. Her legislative work has included behavioral health, special education, childcare, renewable energy and worker protections.
Amy Santiago is a Mt. Pleasant community activist, educator and social worker running to represent portions of Mt. Pleasant, Elmhurst and Valley. Santiago has spent approximately a decade working directly with people experiencing homelessness and currently works with Better Lives Rhode Island. Her experience includes helping open a women’s shelter and transitional housing program in Providence. She is a working-class mother of Puerto Rican and Kanien’kehá:ka heritage.
Matthew B. McCoy is a member of the North Kingstown Town Council running for the open House District 31 seat, which includes portions of North Kingstown and Exeter. McCoy has professional management experience involving the Department of Defense and the aerospace industry. His municipal experience includes addressing town budgets, infrastructure, development and constituent concerns.
Robert Craven Jr. is a third-generation North Kingstown resident, attorney and public-policy professional. He serves as Director of Policy and Intergovernmental Relations for the Rhode Island General Treasurer. Craven previously practiced banking, land-use and commercial litigation and taught legal studies at the Community College of Rhode Island, where he was a member of the faculty union. He earned his bachelor’s degree from George Washington University and law degree from Villanova University.
Zakary Pereira is a first-generation Portuguese American and higher-education professional running for the open District 22 seat in Warwick. The son of a grocery-store worker and a public-school teacher, Pereira has worked in admissions, transfer services, prior-learning assessment and support for military-connected students. He previously ran for District 22 in 2022.
Tina Spears has represented House District 36 since 2023 and has served as a Deputy Majority Leader since 2025. She is Executive Director of the Community Provider Network of Rhode Island, representing organizations that provide services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A longtime family and disability-services advocate, Spears helped advance paid family leave before entering the legislature. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public administration from the University of Rhode Island.
Annajane “AJ” Yolken is a public health advocate, organizer and longtime Providence resident who lives in Federal Hill. She has worked for more than a decade at the intersection of public health, criminal justice reform and racial equity. Yolken currently serves as Director of Strategy at Project Weber/RENEW, which provides harm-reduction, recovery and support services to people experiencing homelessness and substance-use challenges.
Jackie Goldman is a public health researcher and community activist. Goldman, who uses they/them pronouns, is a program director with the People, Place and Health Collective at Brown University’s School of Public Health. Their professional work focuses on overdose prevention, HIV and hepatitis C prevention, and reducing other harms associated with drug use. Goldman previously ran for the Ward 5 seat in 2022.
Yulyana Torres is a lifelong Rhode Islander and Providence native who grew up in Washington Park. The daughter of Dominican immigrants, she graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 2018 with degrees in communications and gender and women’s studies. She earned her law degree from Roger Williams University School of Law in 2023. Torres is the first staff attorney at Sojourner House, where she helped establish a program providing free legal representation to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Miguel Martínez Youngs is a lifelong Rhode Islander, Ward 1 renter and former Providence City Council policy staffer. Raised in Warwick and educated in Rhode Island public schools, he attended Rhode Island College. Youngs worked for approximately three and a half years inside Providence City Hall. As Deputy Director of Policy for the City Council, he helped draft ordinances, analyze contracts and budgets, prepare legislative testimony and advise council members.
Ron Crosson was born and raised in South Providence and continues to live in his family home on Dudley Street. A graduate of Penn State University with a degree in finance, Crosson is Executive Director of Urban Ventures, where he has supported minority-owned businesses and helped entrepreneurs create nearly 1,000 jobs. He co-authored the 2016 Rhode Island Micro-Business Act and has chaired both the Providence Public Buildings Authority and Rhode Island Cannabis Advisory Board as an unpaid volunteer.
Juan Pichardo is the incumbent Ward 9 councilor and President Pro Tempore of the Providence City Council. He previously represented Senate District 2 from 2003 through 2016, becoming the first Latino elected to the Rhode Island Senate and the first Dominican American elected to a state senate anywhere in the country. Pichardo served in the Rhode Island Air National Guard from 1988 to 2010, retiring as a master sergeant. He is a graduate of the Community College of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College.
Jonathan Jacobs is a lifelong Rhode Islander who grew up in East Providence’s Ward 1 and later returned to raise his family near his childhood home. He is a career state employee working for the Department of Labor and Training’s Temporary Disability Insurance program. Jacobs is a member of SEIU Local 401, serves as the union’s political director and coaches youth soccer in East Providence. He has served on the East Providence Zoning Board of Review since 2023.
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