From article:

Fung started as the lone Republican on his council in Cranston, but eventually was able to bring in more people who shared his vision and within a few cycles, as mayor, he had a governing majority. After a 12 year term-limited tenure, he left office with a virtually unheard-of 82 percent approval rating.

His wife, Barbara Fenton Fung, ran in 2020 for the state house, and ended up beating the Democratic incumbent speaker of the house, a feat not achieved by a Republican in more than 114 years. This, in a year, when Biden won the state by a bigger margin than Hillary did in 2016. Barbara also won in a landslide, 60-40, a testament to strong community roots.

Here are some key moments from my two recent interviews:

“I was first-generation born to this country living the American dream. [Now] this country is going the opposite way. I want to turn it around [to] when my parents came here, [with ample] opportunities for the next generation.” On his work ethic instilled at a young age, he credits it to working in the family’s Chinese restaurant as a child, bussing tables and washing dishes at nine years old:

“Probably violated a few [modern day] child labor laws, but those are the values I carry with me to this day. My parents didn’t want anything from the government. We need to aspire to not asking for handouts. Government should be there to help people that can’t help themselves, giving that hand up, but not be this lifeline.”

On the COVID mandates:

“More mandates coming down impacts not just our individual liberties, but documented learning loss on the next generation. [Kids were] passed onto the next grade when they were fundamentally not ready. [There are also] mental health issues caused by policy makers’ [poor decisions made not] based on data but on what they wanted to impose on all of us. I am a constitutionalist and a liberty person. Past the pandemic, they still want to keep the states of emergency going so they can impose a lot of different mandates [even] when that emergency is gone.” On law and order and fighting back against Antifa:

“My city is the second largest next to our capital city, which is run by a Progressive mayor. Antifa came into Providence, burned police cars, destroyed and vandalized the Downtown capital city’s mall. The next night, they threatened to come into our city. I stood by our police officers. We even had an Apache helicopter flying overhead to send a strong message. [Thankfully] not a single thing happened in our city. They ended up going up to Massachusetts and burned down a Dunkin Donuts and destroyed a couple businesses.”

https://redstate.com/redstate-guest-editorial/2022/07/25/republican-allan-fung-leads-polls-in-rhode-island-a-testament-to-community-roots-and-toxic-national-environment-for-democrats-n601366