House Speaker Joe Shekarchi hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll run for governor next year, but he is ready to answer a different question about his political future: He intends to begin the 2026 legislative session as the speaker.

That’s a significant – and risky – play: It either means he’s planning to push off his decision to challenge Governor Dan McKee in a Democratic primary until early next year, or he plans to control the gavel while simultaneously running for governor.

It could also mean he’s going to keep glowing from all the attention he’s getting for openly flirting with a run for governor before announcing that he won’t enter the race.

The upside: As speaker, Shekarchi controls the State House agenda – including McKee’s proposed budget that will come in January – and he earns free media attention that allows him to delay spending his $3.8 million (and growing) in campaign funds on advertising. He also gets to aggressively raise money from every lobbyist and all their clients.

The downside: Stuff happens. Every decision Shekarchi makes will be viewed from the lens of him running for governor, there will be more scrutiny of who is donating to him and how that connects to legislation that gets passed, and his colleagues will start to get itchy as they leverage their own interests against his political ambition.

The bigger picture: McKee is struggling through another brutal news cycle, and at least some of his 2022 supporters view Shekarchi as a better option to defeat former CVS executive Helena Foulkes in the Democratic primary next year. But McKee is showing no signs that he’ll step away to pave the way for Shekarchi – if anything, he’s doubling down on his reelection bid.

Meanwhile, Foulkes is flying high with a corporate-populist approach that projects competence while also telling everyone what they want hear: she’ll fire DOT director Peter Alviti, she’ll fire Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, she wants an inspector general, and she’ll fully fund RIPTA. Oh, and she’s raising boatloads of cash.

Supporters of McKee and Shekarchi are betting that there will be a day of reckoning for Foulkes because of the Justice Department’s ongoing lawsuit against CVS – but there is no guarantee that it will come. And right now she’s got a free lane to paint herself as an outsider as the two insiders are circling each other.

The other prominent elected official who is flirting with a run for governor is Attorney General Peter Neronha, although he told a group of doctors this week that he is leaning against entering the race. He is expected to make his final decision this month.