Our First Look At Delaware Elections 2018
Over the next few weeks and months, we’ll be examining every key 2018 race in depth. However, to get the juices flowing and to get the grassroots recruiting, today we’ll list every race that will be on the 2018 ballot. Uh, except for row offices, which really should be appointed rather than elected.
If you want to get the 2016/2018/2020 schedules, this chart from the Department of Elections will serve you well.
Here’s the 2018 lineup with incumbents:
Federal & Statewide Offices
U. S. Senator: Tom Carper (D)
Congress: Lisa Blunt Rochester (D)
Attorney General: Matt Denn (D)
State Treasurer: Ken Simpler (R)
Auditor of Accounts: Tom Wagner (R)
State Senate:
2nd SD: Margaret Rose Henry (D)
3rd SD: Bob Marshall (D)
4th SD: Greg Lavelle (R)
6th SD: Ernie Lopez (R)
10th SD: Stephanie Hansen (D)
11th SD: Bryan Townsend (D)
16th SD: Colin Bonini (R)
17th SD: Brian Bushweller (D)
18th SD: Gary Simpson (R)
21st SD: Bryant Richardson (R)
State House: All 41 RD’s are up.
New Castle County Council:
CD 1: Ken Woods (D)
CD 2: Bob Weiner (R)
CD 3: Janet Kilpatrick (R)
CD 4: Penrose Hollins (D)
CD 5: Lisa Diller (D)
CD 6: William Powers (D)
Commissioner At-Large: Terry Pepper (D)
2nd LC D: Vacant-Special Election to be held on Mar. 21 between Andrea Kreiner (D) and James Hosfelt (R) to fill the remainder of the term of Brad Eaby.
4th LC D: Eric Buckson (R)
6th LC D: Glen Howell (R)
Sussex County Council:
CD 5: Robert Arlett (R)
CD 6: Robert Lee (R).
I don’t know about you, but I see a lot of targets for grassroots challenges, both in primaries and in the general as well. I will start to discuss each race in the next few weeks and months. Feel free to talk up those races where you would most like to see grassroots involvement.
I officially declare the 2018 Political Hot Stove League up and running!
I see Ken Simpler taking a shot at LBR. It is a mid-term election, so Dem turnout should be down. Should be… but who knows. With Trump in the White House Dems may be continuing to mill around with pitchforks and torches.
In that spirit, it is time to retire Ernie Lopez. He has lived under the Pete Schwarzkopf Mafia’s protection for long enough.
Simpler would have to give up his State Treasurer position to make that run.
I could see him maybe seeking the Senate seat if Carper retires, but I’m not sold on him running for the House.
Simpler defeats Carney in 2020.
Could Lavelle and Lopez be in jeopardy due to anti-Trump sentiment in Delaware?
Doubtful. Incumbents still have the enormous advantage of name recognition.
Anon – “Simpler defeats Carney in 2020” How could Simpler possibly run to the right of Carney?
Simpler is hoping for (we are all hoping for) a primary to Carney. That creates an open seat election that he’d have a better shot at winning.
Nemski: I think Lavelle could well be vulnerable based both on anti-Trump sentiment and b/c he’s such a shill for the least desirable aspects of Rethuggery. District’s about 50-50, and there are a lot of moderate R’s. A D appeal to R women could prove effective.
Lopez might have some issues due to his personal travails, but I don’t really know to what extent that might hurt him.
Budget cuts and tax increases (if any) will create some voter animosity toward Carney, especially if state workers take a hit. And in 2018 the schools will only be worse under Carney.
“Simpler is hoping for (we are all hoping for) a primary to Carney. That creates an open seat election that he’d have a better shot at winning.”
Carney and the DelDems would most likely back Simpler if a primary challenger took out their favorite DINO.
I think Lavelle should be concerned. He has a huge target on his back and a lot of motivated Dems are preparing for that race already.
Loving the getting out in front of this, many of us are talking 2020 as well. We need no DINO’s and more genuine representation.
“Carney and the DelDems would most likely back Simpler if a primary challenger took out their favorite DINO.”
True. Change is hard sometimes, but it is worth it.
Robert Lee is the incumbent Sussex County Sheriff, not a council member. There are only five council districts.
If we’re talking name recognition in 4th Senate, I’ll put Alby up against Lavelle.
Thanks. All those asterisks confused me. There are 2 Sussex CD’s up in 2018:
George Cole in the 4th and Robert Arlett in the 5th.
Two things : George Cole has been 4 th district councilman for 32 years .. All 5 council members are Republicans. POWER corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely .
Capes: Is there any kind of groundswell against the dirty dealings of Council?
If so, are either of these members vulnerable?
No and no. A Cole has been the only holder of that seat since it was created – dad, mom, then son George. Arlett was the Trump state chairman. What do you think D chances are?
I’m trying to get through these next few elections before I even think about 2018! Lol! But I’m worried for Stephanie Hansen coming fresh off of a special election and heading right back into an election where all the focus won’t be on SD 10.
She’ll be the incumbent. That’s a big advantage. On top of that the GOP will have to scrounge up some greenhorn because there is no way Marino gets another at bat.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Hansen ends up unopposed after that blowout. The R’s would be throwing bad money after bad.
Think about what you were doing in 1989, 28 years ago. Our state auditor has been in office since then. He won in 2014 (IMO) based on poor NCCo turnout. Wagner’s vote total was his lowest in 12 years. The home foreclosure is out of the bag now. The R’s have to be thinking about a replacement and a new face puts that office up for grabs.
Brenda Mayrack would’ve made a great auditor but I understand why people on this blog have said she shouldn’t run again even though she should. Who should be the D who runs?
The Auditor has cheerfully done nothing to push for more authority to actually, you know, audit. The General Assembly, with so many members representing various state agencies, have been all too happy to keep both the office and the incumbent weak.
A mutual circle-jerk. An effective auditor would have to lobby for more authority since the current statute is so weak. Which would represent a threat to legislators’ respective fiefdoms.
I’d support anybody who would fight to change that. As to Brenda Mayrack, she managed to piss off virtually the entire spectrum of D supporters, including her staff, and not b/c she was too committed to change. That was a very frustrating candidacy.
How / why did Mayrack piss people off? I was just an ordinary voter and didn’t get any of that.
She pissed me off for her oppo research incompetence and utterly failing to notice the foreclosure action, which was filed in 2013 – more than a year before the election – but that’s another issue.
Opposition research takes $$ and expertise. When I saw what the Democratic establishment could do for the Hansen campaign it left me shaking my head. If Mayrack had gotten 1/10th of that support, especially with GOTV in NCCo, I think she’d be in.
My own theory is similar to what El Som has stated, with the Flowers fiasco fresh in everyone’s memory, everyone D and R was much happier with the status quo. There was also the Simpler / Barney race which had Rs motivated and Ds not so much.
Rufus: No expertise required. She is an attorney. She knows the courts. The filing against Wagner was public and had been so more than a year before the election. She or her staff didn’t even have to visit a courthouse: https://courtconnect.courts.delaware.gov/public/ck_public_qry_doct.cp_dktrpt_docket_report?backto=J&case_id=K13L-07-031&begin_date=&end_date=
If they knew and decided it wasn’t a good thing to pursue, then she and her team had poor tactical judgment. (You leak it to the papers quietly through a third party so nothing sticks to you.) If they didn’t even look, then they are stupid as hell and I don’t know how she got hired by Matt Denn.
I agree with SussexWatcher. At the very least ignoring/missing the oppo research on Wags shows a severe lack of fire in the belly.
We were screaming about their failure to go after Wagner’s weaknesses, but it didn’t happen. All the stuff we wrote here about Wagner and Cathcart? Crickets. His record was a target-rich environment which largely remained untouched.
But even people working on the campaign didn’t feel appreciated by her. She’s very smart, she can do wonderful things here, but she just sucked as a candidate.
“State House: All 41 RD’s are up”
Kevin Hensley is very vulnerable in the 9th RD. The 9th is like SD10, loaded with people pissed off at the Party of Trump. Hensley is a moderate sounding Repugnant, but that might not be enough to save him if the 9th finds someone good. I’d look to how much/how well BHL and Stephanie Hansen help out finding that person as an indication of how hard the D’s are going after this seat.
http://auditor.delaware.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2017/01/Dual-Employment-CY-2015-2016-Examination-Report.pdf
To El Som’s earlier point about not pushing to get things done. A similar report is issued every year.
a laundry list of true red Rs and so-called Ds. I don’t see a single person on this list I could justify supporting in any fashion but a half-hearted vote. It’s going to be a disappointing election season.
Arlett is a sleaze bag. I would donate $$ to see him lose. The maggot approved one of these rezonings for a high density plastic beige generic housing development for transplant tax dodging retirees in the 300K on up range that no one who lives and works here could afford then the POS was arguing for even more houses at the last minute
Jason330 what special election were you looking at? Hansen didn’t win any of the EDs in the 9th. Clinton and LBR got beat pretty handily in the general, and only Carney and BHL won narrow victories in that district.
It might be a bit vulnerable, but based on the special and the general, it would be hard to find a candidate that would fit the needed profile.
Delaware Left, thank you kindly. My bad. I didn’t drill down.
Ralph: This article merely sets the stage for us to closely examine races where the grassroots can have an impact, either in primaries and/or general elections. And then to act on what we find.
If the same names on the list are ultimately reelected, it will be a huge disappointment. This exercise is all about positive change.
Syntax Police alert:
“A mutual circle-jerk” is redundant.
That is all.
Delaware is in deep shit. I hope they make some major cuts.
Name three things, expensive items, that should be cut. Program and cost. I’ll check back. Let’s do this, eh?
Don’t hold your breath.
@R E Vanella
I know that the Tom Kline meme-generator algorithm can’t play the “cut three” game, but I sure could:
1. Cut out the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders and convert any necessary services to treatment for addiction: this cuts the cost per convicted felon from roughly $36K per year to less than $9K per year. There are probably about 5,500 people who meet that requirement. You do the math. In addition, reducing the prison population by that number reduces tension, risk, and the need for so much overtime.
2. Slash the budget for DIAC (the Delaware Information Analysis Center) by at least 50%. It’s hard to say exactly what the DIAC budget is because Homeland Security fairly carefully hides it. My best guess, based on analysis of several years of reporting is that the overall cost of DIAC in state dollars is about $35 million per annum. It is more of a mechanism for (a) collecting obscure Federal grant money and (b) violating the civil rights of law-abiding citizens than it is a legitimate law enforcement aide.
3. Eliminate all of the Race to the Top backfills in DE DOE as well as IHE and a couple of the branches that exist only to administer the administration (yes, I know what I just wrote there) of high-stakes tests and to try to move our special needs student populations toward more of the same. The IHE branch is a complete state bureaucracy for accreditation of teachers and teacher education programs. In the first it is redundant, as its function is replicated by national and regional accreditation agencies that do a far better job, and in the second, believe it or not this used to be done by one certification specialist and one secretary. There aren’t that many more teachers in DE to justify the explosion. Cost savings: somewhere between $25-35 million; or more than enough to fund K-3 special education and take a healthy stab at funding WEIC.
There is significant flab and pork in the DE budget–just not where our ideologues think to look
Thanks, Steve. Thoughtful and thorough. You’re a good teacher. You should do something with that.
The first two seem like no-brainers, but does the political will exist to let “criminals” out (and also stop spending resources to lock up the nonviolent and the sick and the poor for bad reasons)? And cutting funding controlled by Homeland Security? I don’t know if you’ve heard, but enemies are “pouring in” apparently…
As far as the 3rd item, I’m not familiar with that at all, but if it’s redundant it makes sense.
On locking people up for bad reasons… see my links on today’s open thread.