Gov. Gina Raimondo faces a challenge in the Democratic primary from Matt Brown

Brown is a former Rhode Island secretary of state who has positioned himself to Raimondo's left. Brown has collected support from an eclectic bunch of activist groups and personal critics of Raimondo, including Our Revolution, a group aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and former Gov. Lincoln Chafee, a Republican-turned Democrat who has sniped at his successor since leaving office.

The race may test some of the national crosscurrents of Democratic politics in 2018, including the power of the ideological left and the role of gender in primary elections. Raimondo, a 47-year-old former venture-capital executive, is one of just two female Democratic governors, and the only one who originally won the governorship in her own right. (The other, Kate Brown of Oregon, became governor in 2015 when her male predecessor resigned in a scandal.)

But the gubernatorial primary is also a distinctively local affair, channeling the state’s insular political culture and its persistent economic unease, and some of the specific challenges Raimondo has faced in office. She has tangled with powerful leaders in the state Legislature, a body led by old-school machine Democrats whose cultural attitudes and approach to politics differ greatly from those of the Yale- and Harvard-educated governor.

Raimondo is favored to prevail and then face a competitive general election dominated by many of the same themes. Republicans are choosing between Allan Fung, the mayor of Cranston who opposed Raimondo in 2014, and Patricia Morgan, the party leader in the state House, in their primary. A third candidate, Joe Trillo, a Republican-turned-independent who was President Donald Trump’s state chairman in 2016, is also running.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Alexander Burns © 2018 The New York Times