Delaware Political Weekly: Week Ending January 29, 2026
“We are kings of our bikes. So, we are again really lucky to live in Rehoboth, when we park a car, we have to get back into the car. We can hop on our bikes and our ritual is that we are always biking from our home to L(ewe)s. We do a little bit of walking around, a little bit of margarita, a little bit of good food – there’s amazing food then bike right back. So the ritual, on our bikes, every chance we can, any place we can go, and eliminate the cars.”–Dan Cruce.
I’m pretty sure that the weather slowed down activity this week. But we have a couple of noteworthy items to address.
1. It’s on—Griffith vs. Bahnsen in RD 12. (Psychiatric) Doctor Rob Bahnsen vs. (Richards, Layton & Finger’s favorite) Lawyer Krista Griffith. Needless to say, money will be no object. RD 12 includes westernmost Brandywine Hundred, a significant portion of Chateau Country, and even dips into some of Wilmington’s tonier neighborhoods, thanks to the most recent redistricting. This race is a Democratic primary, with the winner the heavy favorite going into the fall. I make Bahnsen the favorite until/unless I see a strong grassroots effort from Griffith’s team. Still, the Delaware Way members of the House D caucus will certainly be supporting Griffith. Both candidates have now qualified for the primary ballot.
2. R Files For Rae Moore’s Seat. One Gary Taylor. based on my hasty search of the intertubes, I think that he’s a Veteran and may, or may not, be a mortgage broker. Breaking News: I’m WRONG. He’s an ex-cop who looks to be making a quick jump to the General Assembly. He touts ‘30-plus years in law enforcement’. Guess that everything old is new again. Moore has made some enemies in the Caucus, but they’re righteous enemies–The Speaker Of The House and Kim Williams. She won reelection against R Chris Beronio in 2024, 58-42. In 2022, she defeated R David Thomas by a similar margin. Unless the Mean Girls try to gin up a D primary, I look for a similar result this year.
That’s all I’ve got. What’d I miss, and whaddayathink?
Matt Meyer was on fire last night during “ask gov Meyer.” You can tell the vetos got under his skin-he had to take a cheap shot at Madinah. His response to the question about Daedalus airlines is particularly revealing, and shows he is firmly in the pocket of big business. Same goes for the question about a conflict of interest re: hospital cost review board and his wife’s position at Christiana hospital. He got so wound up I thought he would have reached over the table and slapped someone.
Game theory dictates that this always will happen in a one-party situation: The party will split and the two halves will fight each other in the absence of an actual enemy.
I just watched that Ask Governor Meyer episode.
I thought it was a real good window into Meyer’s priorities.
Yes, he was PO’d about the veto override of the labor bill, but, after listening, it was for a good reason. He feared it would place Latino workers, in particular, in jeopardy.
I’m no Meyer apologist, but LilBubster, you’re an unreliable narrator.
To anyone who’s interested, check it out for yourself:
https://whyy.org/episodes/ask-governor-meyer-whyy-dpm-01-29-2026/
I’d like to know the specifics on how ensuring workers are not being ripped off is a problem for Latino businesses specifically. It’s weird to me that that issue takes precedence over ensuring that airlines running deportation flights aren’t doing business with DRBA. @elsom I don’t know if you listened to that follow-up question from Shirley min, but it does come off as really hypocritical to spike the football on avelo and then go wishy-washy on Daedalus.
Overall I want to believe Meyer is a good person- i genuinely believe he did some good work running NCCo. But he didn’t come into office with a focused project. For him, the governing process is the project. Every major policy is reactionary/crisis response, instead of proactive/goal oriented. He lacks the vision and understanding that he can just “do stuff”, which is putting him at odds with progressives. Maybe he feels like he has to run every policy through the chamber of commerce, FOP, get a fiscal note, etc, but the reality is that he is only accountable to the individual voter
I thought you said you watched the show. He explained it. Which likely explains why Rep. Ortega voted against the override.
As to Daedalus, he said that he wants assurances in any contract that the facility will have no involvement with ICE while he also said that Federal law supersedes the State’s ability to challenge the contract.
Your second paragraph is word salad.
Not word salad, but it’s rather unforgiving. He’s dealing with budget fuckery thanks to the feds and a GA determined to push its own agenda, which is even less progressive than Meyer’s.
“He is only accountable to the individual voter” is not how politics works, here or anywhere else. He’s accountable to the people who gave him the money to run, and it’s not the unions.
They might all be Democrats, but at the statewide level the individual voter has a choice between the construction union Democrats and the Chamber of Commerce Democrats. Maybe that will change as more progressives win, but they’ll have to resist the blandishments of one side or the other to remain independent and accountable only to the voters.
“How politics works” is a poor excuse. He can take their money, turn around and spit in their face; he’s not under contractual obligation to do anything for them. Of course he risks being a one term gov, but it’s not like he needs 8 years to get his agenda enacted (still unclear what those goals are by the way, beyond the vagaries of “education” and economic development). Would rather have a 1 term gov that throws sand in the gears of the del way vs a two term chamber airhead.
That might be what you’d like, but that’s not who he is.
I have my disagreements with Gov. Meyer especially on big business (and on both of his recent vetoes) but the idea that he’s anything but a staunch opponent of the FOP is risible. No politician in Delaware other than Rep. Wilson-Anton and Wilmington City Councilwoman Darby has stood up to them as forcefully nor as consistently.