The Delaware House [2012]

After yesterday’s expected but still game changing and shocking retirement of Senator George Bunting downstate, it is obviously time to update our 62 District Strategy charts. Some more candidates have officially filed, but you will be surprised at how many districts still have no filed candidates, including those with incumbents who everyone expects to run for reelection. That is not unusual, especially if they have no declared opposition. Some, in that scenario, wait until the last possible minute (which is July 10, the filing deadline).

Due to the 2010 Census, and the resulting redrawing of all of the House and Senate districts, all of the seats in the General Assembly are up for election this year. All 21 Senators. All 41 Representatives. Kent and Sussex Counties have each gained a House seat, and Sussex County gains a Senate seat. In this post, we are going to address the House first. A column on the Senate will be posted shortly.

Here is a map of the new House Districts with their current party representation indicated by the colors red (Republican) and blue (Democratic), with the 11th District in southern New Castle County and northern Kent County and the 20th District in Sussex County are colored grey as no one is currently representing these newly created districts.

Here is my chart of the races in the House. I have colored the races I expect to go Democratic in the fall blue, while races I expect to go to the Republicans are colored red. The tossup races are colored yellow. The Democrats hold a 26-15 majority in the House, and there are no signs yet that this majority is in danger. The Republicans would need to pick up 6 seats to reach 21, enough for a majority. And yet there are only three tossup districts by my estimation at this early stage: the new 11th and 20th districts, and Michael Ramone’s 21st district upstate, which became more Democratic demographically in redistricting. If I had to guess, I suspect Ramone will hold on in the 21st, while the Democrats will pick up the 11th and 20th districts, which would result in a net 2 seat pickup since Republicans hold the current 11th and 20th RDs (Greg Lavelle (R) represents the 11th and Nick Manolakos (R) represents the 20th). In such an eventuality, the Democratic majority would increase to a super majority of 28-13.

You see, that is what happens when you have someone in leadership, like Speaker Gilligan, who is concerned with protecting and expanding Democratic representation in his Chamber. It is a different story in the Senate, with much different results.