PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha prepared two statements — one launching a campaign for governor and one announcing he will “step away from politics” after his term ends next year.
On Friday, Neronha released the latter statement, saying he will not jump into the 2026 Democratic primary challenge to face off against Governor Daniel J. McKee and former CVS executive Helena Buonanno Foulkes.
Neronha made the announcement eight years to the day after he took his first step into politics by running for attorney general.
“I am grateful to Rhode Islanders for electing me twice as their attorney general, and for the encouragement to run for some other office in 2026,” he wrote. “But attorney general is the only elected office I have ever been truly interested in, and politics for me was a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.”
“After much discussion with my wife and sons, who stood with and spoke for me on that beautiful Jamestown morning eight years ago, we’ve decided it will be time for me to move on at the end of 2026,” he wrote.
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Neronha, who has filed or joined in dozens of lawsuits challenging the Trump administration, added that a lot of work remains to be done in the remainder of his term. “The fight for Rhode Islanders continues, and it will continue to have all my energy, focus, and commitment,” he wrote.
Neronha suggested the governor’s job was not one that he longed for, telling the Globe, “I like being the hunter, not the hunted.”
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On Sept. 15, the University of Rhode Island released the results of a poll testing a hypothetical four-way Democratic primary for governor. It showed McKee leading with 18.5 percent of the vote, Neronha with 15 percent, Foulkes with 14.3 percent, and House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, who has not entered the race, with 7.3 percent.
On a recent episode of the Rhode Island Report podcast, recorded soon after the poll, Neronha talked about the possibility of running for governor in 2026.
“The public has seen me in action for 15 years as US Attorney and as attorney general, and there’s at least a portion of them that would like me, I guess, to go do something else,” he said on the podcast.
Neronha noted his office has recovered nearly $650 million that would’ve been lost had legal action was not taken against the Trump administration. And he said he could run for governor based on his office’s “record of achievement.”
If he had entered the race, Neronha would have started in the back of the fund-raising pack: After the second quarter of this year, Shekarchi had $3.85 million in his campaign account, while Foulkes had $2.1 million, McKee had $879,207, and Neronha had $119,203.
On the podcast, Neronha insisted that he would have been able to raise enough money to compete in the governor’s race. He said he hadn’t wanted to ask supporters for money when he wasn’t certain if he’d run. “If I turn the lights on, I’ll get them on fast,” he said.
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But, Neronha, who is 61, said that he and his wife had to figure out “what do we want to do together in that important decade of the 60s?” And he said emphasized that he has two sons who live in Dallas and Chicago.
“They’re not down the street, like I am from my parents, and I know that if I want to see them on a regular basis, I’m gonna have to travel,” he said. “And it’s hard to do that in a job like this one or the governor’s job.”
Neronha said his closest first cousin, who was about his age, had recently died in a highway accident in Germany. “You just realize that time is not guaranteed you,” he said. “So I want to choose really carefully how I spend the next decade.”
Shekarchi, a Warwick Democrat, issued a statement Friday, thanking Neronha for “his many years of outstanding service” as attorney general and US attorney. “I have always enjoyed a great working relationship with him, and I know he has plenty to contribute to our state in the years to come,” he wrote.
As to whether he will enter the governor’s race, Shekarchi said, “I will make my decision not based on who is running for governor, but rather on who is the best person to lead Rhode Island in the next four years.”
In an interview, Shekarchi said Neronha would have been a strong candidate in a Democratic primary for governor. But he said his calculus is not based on who is in the race. Rather, it’s a personal decision, he said, and he sees no reason to rush to make that decision.
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This story has been updated with comments from K. Joseph Shekarchi.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @FitzProv.