McKENNA

Thousands of Rhode Island voters will head to the polls Tuesday to help decide a familiar question in Rhode Island politics:

Will Democrats continue to dominate the General Assembly for the next two years, as state leaders grapple with budget deficits, a weak state economy and ideological battles over labor unions and illegal immigration?

The answer won’t be known for sure until the November elections. But this week’s primaries will set the stage for a general election in which all 113 legislative seats –– 38 in the Senate and 75 in the House –– are open. Democrats currently hold more than 84 percent of those seats.

There are contested primaries in just 28 races.

Still, the stakes are high for some lawmakers –– including some leaders of both parties –– in the Sept. 9 primary that may offer some challengers their best opportunity to knock off a powerful incumbent.

In contests that traditionally have drawn low voter participation, primary outcomes are largely decided by voter turnout. Victories in recent years have been decided by a handful of votes.

“The whole key to primaries is getting your people out to vote,” says Stephen D. Alves, Senate Finance Committee chairman, who must survive a three-way Democratic primary to earn his ninth consecutive term. The winner has no general election opponent. “In the primary anything can happen.”

For most legislative candidates, the cost of running for a General Assembly seat is not high. It requires only a couple of thousand dollars for a good pair of walking shoes, lawn signs and a fruit-and-cheese fundraiser or two.

But there are exceptions.

One embattled candidate ran a TV ad late last week touting his anti-illegal immigrant credentials. Another eviscerated his opponent’s attendance and voting record in half-page ads in their hometown newspaper. A third sparked a state police investigation of his opponent’s mail-ballot tactics.

Interest groups from the NEA to the NRA to the gambling and antiabortion lobbies have funneled money into key races.

Altogether, voters on Tuesday will decide 9 Senate Democratic primaries, 16 House Democratic primaries and 3 House Republican primaries.

In 14 districts, the candidates are fighting for open seats. And in at least eight races — seven in the House and one in the Senate — the Democratic primary will decide the ultimate winner because there is no General Election opponent.

Candidates are talking about the same issues that dominated the legislative campaign two years ago: jobs, energy costs, housing, the need to adopt a “fair and equitable” education-financing formula and the never-ending state budget crisis, while promising to bring home grant money for local Little Leagues and senior centers.

In many races, unions and other interest groups give money, make phone calls and send out thousands of mailings to help influence the outcome.

Since January, for example, the National Education Association of Rhode Island has made $15,000 in political donations. The NEA has also launched a $54,978 TV ad campaign that asks voters to “support candidates who support public schools.”

The ad does not name candidates, but the teachers’ union has followed it up with mailings to thousands of potential voters in the 10 House districts and the 4 Senate districts where the NEA has endorsed candidates, based on their responses to survey questions that touch on funding formulas, pensions, worker health-care benefits and collective bargaining.

At least one lawmaker has made illegal immigration the centerpiece of his campaign: Rep. Peter Palumbo, the leader of a failed legislative drive to crack down on illegal immigrants.

First elected to the House in 1994, Palumbo is being challenged for the District 16 seat by John C. DeGenova, 49, a retired Cranston deputy fire chief.

Heading into the final stretch, Palumbo had $16,860 in his campaign account from an array of contributors that included both the NEA and National Rifle Association PACs — and the promise of more from the state Right-To-Life Committee.

Newcomer DeGenova wasn’t far behind with $15,292, and a list of backers that included state AFL-CIO President Frank Montanaro, among others. Montanaro sent $200 — and an endorsement letter — in his capacity as president of the Rhode Island Association of Firefighters. DeGenova has also snagged endorsements from Local 1199, the New England Health Care Employees Union, the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Women and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers.

While the Cranston race is one of the more issue-driven, dividing the party establishment and organized labor, others bear watching.

In Warwick, for example, Democrat Jeffrey A. Gofton, 61, the state’s retired chief of municipal affairs, is challenging longtime Rep. Robert E. Flaherty, 58, of Warwick, who chaired the powerful House Judiciary Committee until he was ousted from that position by House Speaker William J. Murphy in late 2005, amid rumors that he was plotting a palace coup.

In Lincoln, a retired state sheriff, Leo T. Donovan, is challenging 10-term Rep. Rene Menard, a former House majority whip who was also ousted from his leadership post by Murphy after backing a losing candidate for speaker.

While Republican primaries are a rarer spectacle, House Minority Leader Robert A. Watson, R-East Greenwich, is facing a primary opponent for the first time in the two decades since he first ran for a legislative seat.

A lawyer in private practice and House Minority leader since 1998, Watson, 47, faces Robert B. Bolton, 59, who operates an Allstate Insurance Agency and serves on the town’s zoning board of review.

In Providence, the locus of what little excitement this campaign season has contained so far has been on the South Side, where incumbents Rep. Thomas Slater and Sen. Juan Pichardo challenged the tactics of their opponents, Wilbur Jennings and Maryelyn Alba-Acevedo, respectively, in securing mail ballots.

Alba-Acevedo and Jennings denied accusations of filing false mail ballot applications, but after a state police inquiry, the Providence Board of Canvassers rejected Alba-Acevedo’s applications. Slater plans to challenge Jennings’ ballots on primary day at the state Board of Elections.

IN THE STATE SENATE, two former Democratic lawmakers are seeking a comeback: former Rep. Keven McKenna and former Sen. Catherine Graziano.

McKenna wants to oust incumbent Maryellen Goodwin, a key member of Senate President Joseph Montalbano’s leadership team who chairs the Senate Committee on Constitutional and Regulatory Issues and the General Assembly’s Lottery Oversight Committee.

A lawyer, former Providence municipal court judge, former state prosecutor and political activist for more than three decades, McKenna has challenged the legality of Goodwin’s employment with the city Planning Department, questioning whether her job is funded federally, and, thus, illegal because of laws that prohibit federal grant money recipients from partisan activity. Goodwin has denounced the inquiries as a “smear” tactic and insists that she asked city lawyers for advice before taking the job, to make sure she wasn’t breaking any laws.

Another committee chairman is trying to save his seat as well. In the District 35 race, Senate Government Oversight Committee chairman J. Michael Lenihan is seeking a 10th term, but Steven A. Campo stands in his way.

Campo, 50, a landscaper and North Kingstown Town Councilman, is pushing for change on Smith Hill as the legislature continues to struggle with massive budget deficits.

“It took a long time to dig us in the hole we are in,” Campo said recently. “We need some new blood.”

Lenihan, 65, a retired high school English teacher, says, “You are not going to see any immediate radical improvement. You will see improvement steadily.”

In Senate Dist. 7, which includes parts of Providence and North Providence, Graziano is mounting a second challenge to incumbent Frank A. Ciccone III. Graziano, a former state senator whose seat was eliminated by redistricting in 2002, ran against Ciccone in 2006 and lost.

A field representative for an arm of the Laborers’ International Union, Ciccone has touted his prowess in winning more than $2.9 million in “grants” for local organizations, including Cub Scout Pack 76, the North Providence West Little League and a Providence Weed & Seed Program.

Graziano’s response: “When you see his total claims, you realize why the budget is so much in deficit.”

In the South County district that overlaps Narragansett and North Kingstown, Phillip F. Fiore, a firefighter, is challenging incumbent Sen. James C. Sheehan, a teacher at Warwick Toll Gate High School. The winner will face Republican William J. Connelly.

The two seem to agree more than not, but Fiore says Sheehan has been in the Senate long enough: “The voters always need a choice. Politicians shouldn’t have an easy ride.”

Sheehan said “change for change sake is not necessarily a good thing.”

Sheehan’s endorsements include Common Cause of Rhode Island, which recently gave him the highest score of any state lawmaker for voting records on issues such as judicial reform, open government and separation of powers. Fiore’s backers include the Rhode Island State Association of Firefighters.

speoples@projo.com