Rhode Island 2nd District

The 2nd Congressional District is the western half of Rhode Island. Most of its population is concentrated in towns like working-class Cranston and more upscale Warwick, which, despite their British names, are inhabited mostly by people with Irish, Italian, French, and Portuguese surnames. The 2nd also includes the fastest-growing part of the state: South County, which is not an official place but the common name for Rhode Island south of East Greenwich. This area takes in the affluent suburbs and beachfront communities along Narragansett Bay, the Kingston home of the University of Rhode Island, and the area around Westerly, where many residents work at the Electric Boat shipyards in Groton, Conn. The district also includes Rhode Island’s rolling farmland, although there is not that much acreage, and the communities along the bay and the ocean, where many people still make their living building boats and catching fish. Although this remains a heavily Democratic district, George W. Bush cut the Democratic margin from 60%-33% in 2000 to 57%-41% in 2004. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama won the district with 61% in 2008.