Why Should Delaware Care?
Democrats currently hold the governor’s seat and a supermajority of seats in the State Senate, but the addition of two House seats would give them a supermajority across the state’s government. That would allow them unchecked power to make changes to the state’s Constitution.
While most of Delawareans’ attention will be on the race for the next governor in the Nov. 5 election, four House of Representatives races could shape the future of the First State.
That’s because those races, stretching from Milford to the Newark suburbs, have the power to give Democrats a super-majority in the lower chamber of the state legislature.
If Democrats continue to hold their current seats in the House and State Senate and once again win the governorship, as expected, it would mean that they would no longer need to seek bipartisan input from Republicans on any proposal.
Right now, House Democrats require two Republican defectors to approve any constitutional amendment – a scenario that requires approval by two-thirds of all legislators.
The inability to find a bipartisan compromise to breach that threshold has stalled discussions on adding early voting, mail-in balloting and abortion rights measures to the Delaware Constitution in recent years.
The addition of even one more Democratic seat would also safeguard its three-fifths majority for enacting tax increases and overriding vetoes by the governor.
Interest, investment rising
In an election year ripe with change, from the presidential ticket down through almost every statewide race in Delaware, Democrats are aiming to flip two seats in New Castle County where they arleady registration advantages.
Those seats include District 9 (Middletown-Odessa-Townsend), District 21 (Pike Creek), District 22 (Hockessin) which are currently represented by Republicans Kevin Hensley, Michael Ramone and Michael Smith, respectively.
With Ramone giving up his seat after 16 years of service to run for governor, Democrats have an advantage in flipping District 21, but will still face popular incumbents in Hensley and Smith.
A fourth race, District 36 (Milford), could play a part in the outcome. Currently represented by Republican Rep. Bryan Shupe, the district’s registration gap has narrowed to just 154 votes in favor of the GOP and its demographics have changed broadly in the last decade. Shupe also narrowly survived a bruising primary election by a dozen votes, and it remains to be seen if he’ll win over all of his opponent’s voters.
On top of those data advantages, the Democratic challengers are raising more significant sums of money in this campaign than in past cycles and benefiting from outside support. The three northern races will likely each see more than $100,000 spent in the campaign for the seats.
One of the biggest influences has been the Working Families Party (WFP), a progressive political party that is remaking the leftmost flank of Delaware’s Democrats.
The political action committee arm of the WFP has already spent $87,000 in the early days of the general election campaign to buy mail ads criticizing the incumbents in Districts 9, 21 and 22.
Karl Stomberg, the state political director for the WFP, said that this has been the party’s biggest cycle yet, after launching here just four years ago. It’s endorsed candidate Kamela Smith already managed to defeat incumbent House Speaker Valerie Longhurst in the September primary election.
“We do see big electoral opportunities in these three districts … they’re opportunities to get people who are voting more in line with, I think, the district which they would represent and also the state more broadly,” he said.
District 9: Hensley v. Williams
Hensley, a local real estate agent, has represented the district that basically stretches from the C&D Canal down the U.S. Route 13 corridor to Townsend for the past decade.
For the second consecutive election, he faces a challenge from Democrat Terrell Williams, an Army veteran and lawyer who moved to Delaware around the same time that Hensley took office.
Hensley has stayed in office, in part, by cultivating a boots-on-the-ground reputation that has gained the support of 10 to 15% of the Democratic vote each of his elections. Williams said that his strategy this year is to remind voters of Hensley’s voting record.
“This time around, we have really made a concerted effort to reach out to independents and really siphon off a little bit of moderate Republicans who were dissatisfied with the direction of the party,” he said. “We’ve put Representative Hensley’s legislative record on trial for the district to see. He does a pretty good job with constituent services, but that’s about it. Do we want someone who votes 95% of the time with the Republican Party and who claims to be an independent vote representing us in Dover?”
That strategy is evidenced by mailers from WFP that highlight Hensley’s voting record on gun legislation.
The top issue in the minds of District 9 voters has been education, according to Williams. With a huge influx of new residents to the MOT region, the local Appoquinimink School District has raced to keep pace with the growth. Residents are tired of paying ever-increasing school taxes and want to see home-builders contribute more to the infrastructure needs that they create, Williams said.
Hensley did not respond to requests for comment regarding the campaign.
District 21: Mennella v. Burns
In one of the few open races across the state this year, Democrat Frank Burns and Republican Brenda Mennella are vying to succeed House Minority Leader Ramone in the Pike Creek-area district.
Voters will be familiar with Burns, a microbiologist and entrepreneur who nearly unseated Ramone two years ago, losing by only 35 votes.
This year, he will have to overcome a race against Mennella, a teacher and former labor department official who unsuccessfully ran for the District 9 State Senate seat two years ago.
After his near win in 2022, Burns said that he’s learned to get out in front of voters earlier to build momentum into the fall.
“We’ve got a great ground game; we’re knocking the doors really hard. Between that, doing the mailers, Facebook ads and things, I think we’re in pretty good shape,” he said.
Burns said that voters are primarily concerned with local issues, including issues with water drainage and road safety. He’s also dedicated to increasing transparency and accountability in government.
“We do have a state where the Democrats do control most leaders of government, and I’d really like to see us get that Office of Inspector General done,” he said.
Mennella did not respond to requests for comment regarding the campaign.
District 22: Smith v. Beard
Rep. Smith, the director of strategic initiatives and partnerships at the University of Delaware’s College of Health Sciences, has represented District 22, covering parts of Hockessin and North Star, since 2018.
He continues a line of successful Republicans who have held the seat for at least 45 years, including the late House Speaker Joseph Petrilli, despite changing demographics.
This year, Smith faces a race against Democrat Monica Beard, an advocate for victims of domestic violence.
“I’ve worked really hard over the last six years, and I think most people in my district just see me as their community representative versus a Republican or Democrat,” Smith said. “We’ve seen an absolutely insane amount of money being pummeled into the campaign by the Working Families Party and the ACLU of Delaware. It makes it hard to fight fair. But luckily, there’s a lot of people who have wanted to invest in my campaign.”
As of Oct. 7, Smith had $81,000 on hand in his campaign account, which was about 80% more than he had at that point in the 2020 campaign, when he was last opposed.
Smith said that he was concerned for the health of the state if Democrats were able to secure a supermajority.
“When you have one party controlling every level of government, you get examples like HB350, where the governor says we’re going to do this hospital bill and the legislature says, ‘Well, we have the votes. We don’t need Republicans to do it.’ — regardless of the debate, regardless of the questions and regardless of the public policy,” he added.
Beard said that she’s been encouraged by what she’s heard in the district for voters’ appetite for change, and noted that today’s political climate is different than it was even two years ago.
“The Dobbs decision proved that so many decisions are now being made at the local level that just weren’t previously. So I think it’s become so relevant to talk about what your rep thinks about reproductive rights, what your rep thinks about gun violence, where your rep is on making sure that we vote by mail,” she said.
While she agrees that the amount of money in even local races today can be “jaw-dropping,” Beard said that the support she’s received from organizations like WFP and ACLU is encouraging because they share her values.
“These are issues that I care deeply about and it is great that people who agree with those issues, who understand what my policy priorities are, are supporting it,” she said.
District 36: Shupe v. Baltazar-Lopez
Not since former House Majority Whip Howard Clendaniel held the seat in 1984 has a Democrat been elected in the Milford-area District 36.
For the past six years, the district has been represented by Bryan Shupe, a former mayor of Milford and small business owner.
He now faces a race against Democrat Rony Balatazar-Lopez, a former Milford school board member and official in the Delaware Department of State, in a district that is rapidly evolving.
Shupe, who said that he doesn’t feel that he’s running against Democrats more than he is against development interests that he believes stand against him,
“I think people have really started to understand in the last couple years that the one party rule over the last two decades has not turned out a lot of new ideas, and really has held Delaware stagnant in many areas, including education, our local economy and our health care,” he said. “They’ve known me and they continue to see me as an innovator, someone who reaches across the aisle and creates unique plans and listens to the community to see what they want.”
“I’ve had many Democrats come to me and say, you know, you were the only you’re the only Republican I’m voting for,” he said.
The campaign in District 36 sits in one of the fastest growing areas of Sussex County – the population in Milford has grown about 40% since Shupe was elected, according to Census data. The area is increasingly diverse as well, with Hispanics making up roughly 15% of voters in 2020 and Haitian immigrants increasingly arriving in the area.
“I think when people think of Milford, they used to think of a place that was just a pass-through to getting down to beaches. But now people are expecting a community,” Baltazar-Lopez said, noting locals’ desires for housing, commercial development and support services. “I think it’s reaching a point where the current makeup of the district still favors Republicans, but the independent vote is what really sways the election toward the Republicans, but it is changing very rapidly.”
To try to overcome the registration and support gap, Baltazar-Lopez has been trying to court Republicans who may have voted for Shupe’s primary opponent.
“I’ve had conversations with members of the Republican Party who are discontent with the outcome of the primary election, and I’ve quite honestly been open about my platform, my ideals,” he said.
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