El Somnambulo Predicts Some Of ‘Em For You: The State Senate

Filed in Delaware, Featured by on October 28, 2020

Let’s face it. A monkey typing Hamlet could get most of these races correct. (I told you I’m adding bad analogies to my repertoire.)  I ain’t gonna play that game.  We all know that there are only a handful of competitive races, and they’re the only ones I’m gonna pick.

First of all, some ramblings. We owe Network Delaware, the Working Families Party, Leftward Delaware and, yes, our Delaware Democratic Party some serious kudos.  For organizing, recruiting, training and providing the best group of insurgent challengers all the support they could ever have asked for.   We have progressives, many of whom I had never heard of before the beginning of this year, poised to join the Delaware General Assembly, and to move that ‘body at rest’ in an exciting new direction.  Marie Pinkney, Madinah Wilson-Anton, Larry Lambert, Eric Morrison and Rae Moore.  Whenever one of them chalks up a victory on Election night, just remember who they’re replacing: Dave McBride, John Viola, Ray Seigfried, Earl Jaques, and Quin Johnson.

We’ve got Sarah McBride, a leader on the national stage, joining the Delaware State Senate.  I’m not sure how long she’ll be there b/c she has statewide-and-beyond potential, but she’ll be essential from the very start.

I want to give a shout-out to Lisa Blunt Rochester, who has assumed the role of den mother for this year’s class of incredible female candidates.  She has really taken to the task, and I can now see her being more assertive in Congress.  My kind of synergy.

OK, let’s talk only the close ones, at least two of which will not be so close:

Senate District 5:  Cathy Cloutier (R-Incumbent) vs. Kyle Evans Gay (D):

Back in 2006, Ardentown’s Pat Morrison challenged Cathy, and got 47.4% of the vote. At that time, the district had an R plurality.  Pat was a great candidate, and was relentless at doing door-to-door.  I was sort of her campaign manager w/o portfolio for this mom-and-pop campaign.  One day Pat said to me, more in astonishment than in anger, “Cathy lies.”  She was correct.  Cathy has kept office largely by making people feel sorry for her and by flat-out lying to people. About ‘not really being a Republican’; about either being pro-choice or anti-choice,  depending on who she’s talking to; about supporting LQBTQ rights while disappearing when her vote is needed the most; about supporting ‘common sense gun control’ while voting to bury legislation to ban military-style assault weapons.

She is now lying about where she lives. Which I think is why she’s running a campaign that is doomed to fail:  She can’t afford to win and then lose her seat b/c she doesn’t live in the district.  It could put her pension at risk.  One final lie from Cathy Cloutier.

That’s OK. She wasn’t going to defeat Kyle Evans Gay under any circumstances this year. There are now 5000-plus more registered D’s than R’s in the district.  Kyle’s campaign is a juggernaut.  I’ve been volunteering on this campaign pretty much exclusively since Marie Pinkney (you’re all gonna love Marie Pinkney) won her primary.  Kyle is better-funded, and has a large and enthusiastic volunteer brigade, something that Cathy doesn’t.  I think that Kyle wins easily, something like 60%-40%.

Senate District 7: Anthony Delcollo (R-Incumbent) vs. Spiros Mantzavinos (D).  Let’s call Patti Blevins‘ loss to Delcollo back in 2016 for what it was: political malpractice.  Blevins was always a bit of a political lightning rod, she spent too much time in Dover, and she ran afoul of a traffic controversy in the district. I also think there was a streak of anti-feminism among a not-insignificant percentage of the male voters in SD 7. That resulted in a 206 vote win for Delcollo. Kinda reminds me of Nancy Cook’s loss to Dave Lawson, which was even more inexcusable since Nancy couldn’t be bothered to extricate herself from the Controller General’s office in the Leg Hall basement to spend even the minimal amount of time in her district, which was less than 10 minutes away from the Hall.

Those unique circumstances aren’t present this year.  Allow me to stipulate that, other than his absolutist defense of the Second Amendment, Delcollo has been a pretty decent senator.  He will certainly outperform the registration in the district.  That registration, however, is as follows:  15,258 D; 7021 R; 8661 I. 

Factor in the turnout to elect Biden, who is popular in this district, and to defeat Trump.  Factor in the fact that Mantzavinos has outraised Delcollo, and has the full party behind him, and I’m hard-pressed to see how Delcollo survives.  I’m calling it 54% to 46% for Mantzavinos.  Which is a pretty conservative prediction.

Senate District 14: Bruce Ennis (D-Incumbent) vs. Craig Pugh (R).  As this district has grown with recent new development, Ennis finds himself to the right of many D’s in the district.  However, Pugh is far to the right of Ennis.  Sure, Ennis has lost a lot off his fastball, and there are D’s just waiting in the wings to succeed him.  But, in a district with 18,533 D; 10,726 R; and 10,080 I, Ennis is not getting knocked off this year.  BTW, a significant majority of this district is in New Castle County.  I hope that Ennis retires after this two-year term.  It will make it easier for D’s to redraw these districts w/o having to worry about the fact that Ennis lives near the southernmost border of the district.  I’ll go 61-39 Ennis.

Senate District 15: David Lawson (R-Incumbent) vs. Jaci Hugg (D).  I think this will be the year’s most competitive general election State Senate race. Yes, the electorate is generally more conservative than the registration figures, which are as follows:  15,469 D; 12,793 R; and 10,226 I.  However, unlike other downstate districts, the 15th has retained its D registration edge, which is something. There has been quite an influx of money into Hugg’s campaign, and she had a lot more cash to spend in the closing days, significantly more than Lawson had.  Even for a Republican, Lawson is to the right of his party.  Obsessing over Sharia Law is not generally something the General Assembly does, but nobody told Dave Lawson. I think that Hugg has picked up late momentum as the entire party has come together behind her.  The question is: Are there enough Dead-End Trumpers to reelect Lawson?  Because that’s his base.  He almost lost to an unknown (Kathleen Cooke) in 2012.  He’s hardly unstoppable.

A couple of other points:  Donald Trump edged Hillary Clinton by about 3500 votes in Kent County in 2016.  Biden is bound to run much stronger there this time, and it will likely have some down-ballot impact.  And, and I’ve been there, when there’s a tsunami, you almost always win or lose all the close ones.

This is a tsunami. I think Jaci Hugg pulls it out, 51-49.  Despite 11, count’ em, 11 mail pieces from Chris Kenny.  Shop-Rite is dead to me.

About the Author ()

Comments (8)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. jason330 says:

    All of the D’s will benefit from straight ticket voting this year.

    I have a Kent County friend who is the most nonpartisan person alive who told me, “Fuck Trump. I’m voting the straight D ticket this year.”

  2. Hop-Frog says:

    Just got a mailer today from the (Kenny)Cloutier campaign whining that “Kyle said mean things about me” and then trying yet again to paint herself as “not really a Republican, honest!”

  3. Hop-Frog says:

    ANOTHER Cloutier(Kenny) mailer today! This one tells me how everybody loves Cathy because she graciously gives us our own tax money back to fix the roads in the district. And, gee, she rubber-stamps the grant-in-aid bill each and every year! And she caused every single thing you might have liked to happen, apparently single-handedly!

    One claim I found less than ludicrous, though certainly suspect, is this: “Cathy quietly gave over $400,000 of her own money to finish projects for local charities.” There’s no indication of when or to what “local charities” she “quietly” made what seems like mighty generous contributions, though it doesn’t seem quite so large if you figure that a woman in her late 70s could well have been contributing 10 percent of a $100,000 annual income for more than 40 years simply for tax purposes. Nice of her, certainly, but not really exceptional.

  4. ScarletWoman says:

    Love these adjustable title lines … after the election, please PLEASE write a piece called “El Somnambulo Tells ‘Em They Can All Go Straight to Hell” or similar : )