Delaware primary to decide governor’s contest and could pave the path for US House history
DOVER, Del. — Delaware voters will select the nominees for various political contestsincluding a closely watched campaign for governor and a potentially historic race for the U.S. House of Representatives.
The contest for the Democratic nomination for governor pitting Delaware’s lieutenant governor against the chief executive of the state’s most populous county, is the key race in Tuesday’s primary.
Democrats also vote in a race for the U.S. House of Representatives, where the favored candidate, if elected, would first openly transgender person in CongressThat would join another groundbreaking race in November, in which the only Democratic candidate for an open U.S. Senate seat next year could become one of two Black women in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. John Carney hopes to continue his long career in politics by winning his party’s nomination for mayor of Wilmington.
Polling stations are open from 7am to 8pm
Here’s a closer look at the key races:
Sen. Sarah McBride would move one step closer to becoming the first openly transgender person elected to Congress with a victory in the Democratic primary on Tuesday. Delaware’s sole U.S. House of Representatives seat is being vacated by Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who has no primary opponent as she seeks the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Tom Carper, who has held the seat since 2001.
McBride faces only token opposition in the primaries from businessmen Earl Cooper and Elias Weir, both of whom have not reported raising money for their campaigns. Cooper is a political newcomer, while Weir finished last in a 2016 congressional primary with less than 1 percent of the vote. McBride has since raised nearly $3 million in contributions from across the country.
McBride gained national recognition at the 2016 Democratic National Convention as the first openly transgender person to speak at a major party convention in the United States.
The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face Donyale Hall, a Dover businesswoman and U.S. Air Force veteran of the Gulf War, or James Whalen IIII, a retired police officer and construction company owner from Millsboro, who will face each other in the GOP primary. Democrats have held the seat since 2010.
Meanwhile, Blunt Rochester, with a win in November, would become one of two black women in the Senate next year, joining Angela Alsobrooks of neighboring Maryland if she also wins her campaign.
Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, who has held public office since winning a seat in the House of Representatives in 2002, is hoping to overcome a campaign finance scandal and succeed Carney, who cannot run for governor again because of term limits. Hall-Long has been endorsed by Carney and the Delaware Democratic Party.
But the two-term lieutenant governor faces a tough challenge in the primary from New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer, who has raised significantly more money and has repeatedly called attention to Hall-Long’s campaign finance violations. Former state Environment Secretary Collin O’Mara is also seeking the Democratic nomination but has been overshadowed by the other two candidates.
Hall-Long’s campaign finance scandal came to light last September, when she abruptly postponed a campaign meeting with Carney, saying she had to attend to “a personal, private matter.”
In reality, her campaign was in disarray after people hired to run it discovered major discrepancies when reviewing years of financial reports. The scandal led to a series of firings of top campaign staffers and prompted election officials to launch a forensic investigation. The investigation found that Hall-Long and her husband had received payments totaling $33,000 more than she had allegedly loaned to her campaign over several years — with many of the loans never reported in the first place.
It was also found that Hall-Long’s husband and former campaign treasurer, Dana Long, wrote 112 checks to himself or for cash. The checks totaled just under $300,000 and should have been reported as expenses. Instead, 109 were never reported in the initial financial reports, and the other four, payable to Dana Long, were reported as being made out to someone else.
Despite the violations, the Delaware attorney general and elections commissioner, both Democrat party members, declined to file criminal charges against Hall-Long.
Carney is legally barred from running for a third term as governor, but he is eager to serve in public office as an executive director and is seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor of Wilmington, Delaware’s largest city.
His opponent is Velda Jones-Potter, a former Wilmington city treasurer who lost a bid for mayor four years ago. Potter served as Delaware state treasurer for two years after being appointed to the position in 2008, but she lost an election for a four-year term as treasurer in 2010.
The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face no opposition in November. Carney has said that as mayor he will build on the investments his gubernatorial administration has made in Wilmington, focusing on improving public schools, expanding affordable housing and helping small businesses.