Kim Ahern wins Democratic primary for Rhode Island AG

Former state cannabis regulator Kim Ahern on Wednesday won the Democratic nomination to be Rhode Island’s next attorney attorney general, defeating three other candidates including the chosen successor of the outgoing AG.

Ahern received 37% of the vote in the Democratic primary, according to preliminary, unofficial results from the Rhode Island Board of Elections. Keith Hoffmann, a former policy director and senior counsel in Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office who won the term-limited incumbent’s endorsement, received 33%.

Rep. Joe Solomon Jr. of Warwick received 20% and Rep. Jason Knight of Barrington, received 10.4%.

If elected in November, Ahern will be only the second woman to serve as Rhode Island attorney general. Republican Arlene Violet was the first, serving from 1985 to 1987.

Ahern served nine years as a special assistant AG under three attorneys general: Neronha, Peter Kilmartin, and Patrick Lynch. Her campaign notes she prosecuted more than 1,000 cases as a member of the office’s Special Victims Unit. 

She then went on to serve as deputy counsel for former Gov. Gina Raimondo and went on to become the deputy chief of staff for Gov. Dan McKee.

Ahern most recently served as the head of the three-member Cannabis Control Commission, a position she held since the panel’s inception by the state in 2023. Hoffmann has critiqued Ahern’s tenure as a cannabis regulator, using social media to promote how no new retail shops have been licensed since recreational weed was legalized in the General Assembly in 2022.

Hoffmann maintained a significant financial edge in the crowded race, raising over $1.5 million since launching his campaign last August. That included $760,000 in loans to his own campaign.

Ahern in the closing days of the race loaned herself $295,000, which her campaign said was needed to respond to Hoffmann’s paid attacks.

Speaking to supporters and volunteers at his watch party in Pawtucket, Hoffmann acknowledged that elections do not always produce the outcome candidates hope for.

“I think that we can all hope that the next attorney general be a person of integrity who is going to fight for everybody in the state and not insiders,”  he said.

Hoffmann told Rhode Island Current he does not expect to seek elected office again.

“I think I’m somewhat disillusioned with politics,” he said. “People should be seriously leery of the person that they’ve elected, and they should watch them very closely.”

He said that should include scrutinizing an attorney general’s staffing decisions, positions on health care and energy, willingness to stand up to powerful interests and, perhaps most importantly, the cases the office chooses not to bring.

Solomon, who was first elected to the House in 2014, sought to capitalize on his more moderate profile and relied primarily on his support from police and firefighter unions. Polls consistently ranked him third.

Knight, a U.S. Navy veteran and former state prosecutor who now works as a criminal-defense attorney, tried to emphasize his credentials as a “progressive fighter” thanks to his tenure in the state’s House of Representatives.

Ahern will face Republican Alan Gordon, who ran unopposed in the GOP race for the office, in the Nov. 3 general election.