East Greenwich, RI: Jay Gotra, Democratic candidate for Governor of Rhode Island, formally announced his candidacy for the 2026 gubernatorial race, introducing his GRIT platform — Grow Rhode Island Together — as a blueprint for fiscal accountability and economic leadership in the state.
"Every great movement starts somewhere small," said Gotra. "Rhode Island is the smallest state in the nation. I believe it can become the biggest proof of concept — that you can lead with fiscal discipline, protect individual freedoms, and never once ask people to choose between their prosperity and their values."
A registered Democrat, Gotra publicly acknowledged voting for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election — not out of ideology, but as a verdict on leadership. "I want to be honest with the American people, because I think that is rare enough to mean something. When I stood in that voting booth in 2024, I was not choosing between Republican and Democrat. I was choosing between two leadership failures. Leadership has to come first. Always."
Gotra is emphatic that his Democratic registration is not a technicality. "The Democratic Party does not need me to abandon it. It needs people like me to strengthen it. Somewhere in the last decade, we accepted tribalism as our fate. I refuse to accept that."
His campaign runs on the GRIT platform — Grow Rhode Island Together — built on five pillars: fiscal accountability, business freedom, energy independence, housing access, and open government. The full policy platform is published at governorgotra.com/plans. And he is staking his political future on results.
"I am making a commitment no career politician would dare make: when I am elected, if Rhode Island is not fiscally profitable by the end of my first term, I will not run for a second. That is not a talking point. It is a personal commitment — the same kind I made when I started a company with nothing and promised my employees I would make payroll."
Gotra is a first-generation American entrepreneur and Democratic candidate for Governor of Rhode Island. Born in Mumbai, India, he came to the United States as a teenager and built multiple companies generating over a billion dollars in lifetime revenue, including Alliance Security Inc., which grew to $105 million in annual revenue and 700 Rhode Island jobs. He lives in East Greenwich with his three daughters and a son.
