There will be some sort of a blue wave in Delaware. Only question is: How much of a Blue Wave? I don’t know. But I feel real good about my predictions, which factor in a bit of a blue wave, but not a blue tsunami. I think there will be a blue wave largely b/c it would be well-nigh impossible for the Rethuglicans to conjure up a less appealing statewide slate. I think it will have down-ballot consequences, especially in New Castle County. In fact, I think that suburban NCC voters will find Trump’s brand of Rethuglicanism particularly rethugnant, and will vote accordingly.
United States Senator: Tom Carper, who polls show is more popular than he has any right to be, looks like he’ll cruise to a 30-point blowout over Trump’s guy, Rob Arlett. I’ll be just a bit more conservative, 62-34, with the rest going to third party candidates. That’s still a Rethuglican disaster with down-ballot repercussions.
United States Congress: One of our commenters, pretty sure it was Rufus, said, and I agree, that this would measure the absolute low bar on die-hard Rethuglicanism. Sorta the political Mendoza Line. Anyone who votes for Scott Walker would vote for any R under any circumstance. I’m setting that bar at 32%, with Lisa Blunt Rochester getting 68% (there are no 3rd Party candidates in this race). Gotta admit, though. The press’ fixation with The Abomination That Is Scott Walker might push his numbers up a few points. Whatever happened to context in reporting, he asked rhetorically.
Attorney General: Following a string of false starts, the Rethugs recruited a presumably-aggrieved D, one Bernard Pepukayi, who had close ties to Tom Gordon and who ran afoul of County Councilpersons Lisa Diller and Janet Kilpatrick, to run for AG. He is clearly no match for Kathleen Jennings, and is looking at something like a 62-38 trouncing. Are we starting to see a pattern here?
State Treasurer: OK, kids, ask yourselves this question. Assume, for just a moment, that you are an R. You’re looking at perhaps the most uninspired collection of statewide candidates your Party has ever conjured up. No easy feat in itself. You feel next to no enthusiasm. You’re not crazy about Trump. In fact, you might despise him, especially if you’re a woman living in New Castle County. Are you gonna buck up your resolve and go out there just to cast a vote for Ken Simpler? Let’s assume the answer is ‘yes’. Are your neighbors from across the aisle gonna send a ‘pity’ vote Ken’s way? And, even if some do, is that gonna overcome a statewide registration edge of some 140-plus thousand D’s over R’s? I, for one, don’t think so. If you’ve been following Colleen Davis’ social media, she has focused on bringing the D’s home, which is precisely what she should be doing. (Hey, she even helped serve dinner at the Arden Gild Hall this past Saturday.) Not to mention that a lot of women, including R women, are more likely to choose any decent woman over a male R. Especially a privileged preppie like Ken Simpler. I don’t even think it’s gonna be that close. UPSET SPECIAL: Davis beats Simpler, 54-44. Green candidate gets 2%.
State Auditor: The Marcus Hook refinery of statewide races. Stench everywhere. Kathleen McGuiness will win by dint of the D after her name. James Spadola might have had a shot, but the particularly cynical ploy that he and Tom Wagner cooked up has cooked his candidacy. 57-43 for the alleged D. I’ll say this, though: Of all the statewide races profiled here, this has the most potential to surprise me, which is to say ‘not much’. More D’s than I thought have caught onto McGuiness. And Spadola has been running non-stop. Check out his social media, and you’ll see that he’s been everywhere. Why he and Wagner flushed his supposed ‘independent’ cred down the toilet, I’ll never figure out, unless Wagner really was in the bag for Park City Kathy. A major unforced error.
State Senate District 4: No matter what he whispers to people at gatherings, Greg Lavelle has voted for, and has been a proponent of, the worst that Republicanism in the Trump era has to offer. He always takes the side of the overlords, be they white males who hate uppity wimmenfolk, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, or the gun nuts who shoot up synagogues, to name but a few. And he doesn’t pretend otherwise. We know where he stands. He truly stands with Trump. We know that his opponent, Laura Sturgeon, opposes Lavelle on virtually every issue. We know that she has been knocking doors since last fall. We know that Lavelle knows he’s in trouble. He’s in ‘throw shit up on the wall’ mode. He’s a long way from those long-gone CCOBH bipartisan group hugs with the likes of Bob Weiner, Phil Cloutier and Tom Gordon. He is what his record is. I also think he’s a goner. Say, 55-45.
State Senate District 6: I cited this eastern Sussex County contest as a ‘sleeper race’ in a piece here awhile back. That was before I looked at the campaign finance reports for incumbent Ernie Lopez and challenger Dave Baker. Not only was Baker competitive with Lopez on fundraising, but I was amazed at how many local supporters have contributed to Baker’s campaign. We talk a lot, justifiably, about all the transplants to Sussex County. But Baker appears to have earned the trust, and donations, of people of all stripes in the district, and, let’s be honest, Lopez has suffered some self-inflicted wounds to his reputation (bonus points to anyone who can find and post the ‘Law & Order’ clip of the wronged woman/murderess saying ‘You, you couldn’t keep it in your pants.’ Believe me, I tried). I now think that Baker will win this seat, let’s call it 52-48. And he will have done it w/o the help of alleged D Pistol Pete Schwartzkopf. In other words, next time that the Speaker heads to the other chamber to cut a deal with the Senate R’s, ain’t gonna be no Ernie Lopez smooching his ample backside. If he’s still the Speaker, that is.
State Senate District 10: I guess that it’s God’s Will that Christine Metzing loses this race against the presumably secular Stephanie Hansen. Why? He has greater things in mind for Her. Local cable access programming, perhaps. Hansen, 70-30.
State Senate District 11: Bryan Townsend will roll over Dan Kapitanic who, like Evan the Q before him, seems unduly concerned about the United States supposedly ceding its sovereign authority to the UN. In this case, ‘sign(ing) your 2nd Amendment rights over to the United Nations Small Arms Treaty’. Does Trump know about this? Townsend, 72-28.
State Senate District 16: Kids, I want you to pay close attention here. Yes, we all owe late entrant Louisa Phillips a debt of gratitude for challenging the light/deadweight that is Colin Bonini. No, she’s not gonna win. The story is that someone, maybe even Louisa Phillips, could have won had not the so-called D Senate leadership team of Dave McBride and Nicole Poore thrown up roadblock after roadblock against D recruitment efforts here. Why? Because both McBride and Poore are endangered ‘leaders’ in their own caucus and, in Bonini, they have a Rethug who will cross the aisle to vote for them. It’s a disgrace. Both McBride and Poore need to be taken out in primaries in 2020. Bonini, 61-38.
State Senate District 17: Some people believe that this is a competitive race for the Dover-area seat being vacated by Brian Bushweller. Not only am I not one of those people, I can’t even make a compelling case that this race will be close. Democratic Rep. Trey Paradee is running against R Camden mayor Justin King in a district that takes in the most Democratic areas of Dover and environs. The registration numbers are overwhelming, not just a D plurality, but a D majority: 16,469 D; 7307 R; and 7972 I. No, these aren’t Sussex County D’s who never bothered to change their registration. Just about half of the registrants reside in Sean Lynn’s RD, with another 6700 living in Andria Bennett’s district. Couple that with the fact that Paradee has generally outperformed the registration figures, and I don’t understand why this race is perceived as competitive. 60-40 Paradee, at least.
State Senate District 18: Former State Democratic Party Executive Director Jim Purcell is taking one for the team against the marble-mouthed auctioneer Rep. David Wilson in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Minority Leader Gary Simpson. Jim is a low-key, even-tempered guy who I thought was out of his element as Executive Director. He, of course, would be far preferable to Wilson, who defines the term ‘non-entity’. Preferable to me, of course, but not to the yayhoos in this district. While the registration numbers in this Kent/Sussex district are largely even, an awful lot of registered D’s are Trump supporters. Jim will keep it respectable, but 58-42 Wilson is the likely result.
State Senate District 21: Big props to Bob Wheatley for an outstanding fundraising effort which is every bit the equal of incumbent Sen. Bryant Richardson. Although the candidacies of Wheatley and Purcell are longhots at best, they keep Rethugs at home, preventing them from streaming into districts like that of Ernie Lopez. Wheatley is in one of the Trumpiest of Trump districts, though. Only someone as steeped in his primitive understanding of the Bible as Bob Venables could have held this seat, and he lost last time. We’re talking Jeezusland. Richardson will likely top 60%, but we owe Bob Wheatley thanks for stepping up. Not just stepping up, but for running a strong campaign.
If my predictions are correct (insert joke here), we’ll have two new D senators and a new D State Treasurer. Oh, and a ‘D’ State Auditor. I’ll contain my enthusiasm on that one.