US Midterms 2026
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Helena Foulkes, a former CVS executive and Hudson's Bay Company chief executive, won the 2026 Democratic nomination for governor of Rhode Island by defeating incumbent Dan McKee.
Live TruthIndex™ and prediction market consensus for races contested by Helena Foulkes.
Recent media coverage for Helena Foulkes.
The article discusses how political spending by the Laborers’ International Union has influenced Rhode Island elections and mentions Helena Foulkes as a target of returns to support her gubernatorial bid.
Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate Helena Foulkes is highlighted in coverage of early voting.
Helena Foulkes is the former CVS executive who won the Democratic primary for Rhode Island governor in 2024, defeating incumbent Dan McKee.
The article discusses how CVS Health's $315 million settlement of a federal opioid lawsuit has brought attention to former CVS executive Helena Foulkes and her involvement in the opioid crisis within the Rhode Island…
A new Emerson College/WPRI poll shows Helena Foulkes leading Ken Block 44-35 in Rhode Island's governor race as early voting begins.
The timing cuts close to Rhode Island politics. The conduct runs from 17 October 2013, through 2 December 2025, a window overlapping the years Helena Foulkes served as president of CVS Pharmacy, from 2014 to 2018.
DEMOCRAT HELENA Buonanno Foulkes holds a 9-point lead over Independent Ken Block in Rhode Island’s gubernatorial race, according to a poll released by WPRI-TV CBS 12 and Emerson College./ PBN FILE PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
Candidates for RI governor square off at first televised debate
“Helena Foulkes leads the election for Governor, with her strongest support among Democrats (77%), voters under 50 (59%) and women (53%).
No story this week names this candidate.
Helena Grace Buonanno Foulkes was born Helena Buonanno in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 18, 1964, the oldest of Bernard and Martha Buonanno's five children.
Through her mother she belongs to the Dodd family: she is a granddaughter of Connecticut senator Thomas J. Dodd and a niece of Connecticut senator Chris Dodd.
She attended Lincoln School in Providence, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1986 and later earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
After short stints at Goldman Sachs and Tiffany & Co, Foulkes joined CVS in 1992 and rose to executive vice president and chief marketing officer, overseeing the launch of the ExtraCare savings card and creating the Pharmacy Advisor program for customers with chronic conditions.
In 2011 CVS named her chief health care strategy and marketing officer, a position created for her, and she helped bring about the company's decision to end its sales of cigarettes and tobacco.
Hudson's Bay Company, the owner of Saks Fifth Avenue, appointed her chief executive effective February 19, 2018, and she left in March 2020 after shareholders agreed to take the company private. She sat on the Harvard Board of Overseers from 2016 to 2022 and was its president from 2021 to 2022.
In the 2022 Democratic primary for governor of Rhode Island, which she entered on October 13, 2021, she finished second to incumbent Dan McKee, trailing him by just under 3,900 votes.
Foulkes announced a second campaign for governor on September 9, 2025, again challenging McKee for the Democratic nomination.
In the primary on September 9, 2026, she defeated him and carried every municipality in the state; McKee became the first elected incumbent governor in the country to lose renomination since 2014 and the first in Rhode Island since 1994.
Her platform includes a millionaire's tax to fund housing construction, an audit of rising energy bills, higher Medicaid reimbursement rates and an employer-matched child care fund. She is the Democratic nominee in the November 3, 2026, general election.
