Every Presidential election year is a high turnout year, with Barack Obama at the top of the ticket it is safe to assume that this is going to be a VERY high turnout election.
What does that mean for Delaware? It could very well mean that Vince Lofink, Nancy Wagner, Terry Spence and Dick Cathcart will be looking for new jobs this December.
If you dare…
In the 27th Earl Jacques came within 128 votes of upsetting Vince Lofink in 2006 . Jacques seems more visible this year and is raising some money. I interviewed Earl last year and he seems like a nice guy. I ‘m not sure what issues he plans to raise this time, but he has a real registration edge.
DEM REP ALL OTHERS TOTAL
6,158 4,256 3,355 13,769
A 1900 voter registration disadvantage, a more aggressive campaign from Jaques, and a high presidential year turnout makes Lofink the most endangered Republican in the house.
Nancy Wagner the 31st in is also on the outs. She has been dogged big time in the media for the make work job she created for her hubby and the Dems have a registration edge of over 2000 voters.
Democrats Republicans Others Total
5,707 3,647 2,927 12,281
Pramela Kazza softened Wagner up for Darryl Scott, ( http://www.darrylscott.org/ ) but he looks pretty good. School board member, active in a lot of community stuff. After doing the spade work against Wagner, Kazza was flat out screwed by the Kent County Dems, but has shown a lot of class in letting Scott take out Wagner. This is another Dem pick-up.
Mike Barbieri is the next most likely Dem freshman. Again, this is a Democratic district with a lot of new arrivals. Although Terry Spence is as popular with organized labor as any Democrats in Dover, Barbieri is set to be this years John Kolwalko. He is been working hard on this since 2005 and the Obama turnout could put him over the top.
Rebecca Walker could pick off Dick Cathcart (9th) because of the registration edge, but with Cathcart’s leadership position he be able to raise a ton of money and carpet bomb final month mailings. A good measure of how much heat Cashcart is feeling will be whether he goes negative early. (Since I’m in the 9th I’ll let everyone know if Dick is using the picture of himself awkwardly looking into a storm drain with a constituent (his usual pic) or has updated the mailer.)