More than 75,000 Delawareans have already cast their vote in this year’s midterm election and thousands more are expected to hit the polls on Tuesday.
While the election is an important one nationally with Republicans expected to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives ‒ it remains a tossup which party will control the U.S. Senate ‒ races in the First State this year are largely uncontroversial.
This differs from the 2020 election, where a Delaware man was vying for the presidency and Lauren Witzke was attempting to unseat U.S. Sen. Chris Coons. (Only one of them was successful).
UNSURE WHERE TO VOTE?Find your polling place
Incumbents U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Attorney General Kathy Jennings are expected to win handily on Tuesday, and while every lawmaker in the General Assembly is up for reelection this year due to redistricting, the political makeup of Delaware’s legislature also likely won’t change much.
“With Delaware such a blue state, there may be some insulation for a lot of these races,” Paul Brewer, a University of Delaware political science professor, previously told Delaware Online/The News Journal.
Still, Delaware Online/The News Journal is keeping track of election happenings in the First State on Tuesday. Polls close at 8 p.m.
WHERE TO FIND ELECTION RESULTS:2022 Delaware Election Results
Sussex County voter turns heads in military truck
Voters trickled in steadily at Georgetown Elementary School around noon on Tuesday, with at least one making a head-turning entrance.
Tim Collard of Milton pulled up to the location in a military truck with flags that said “Biden Sucks” and “Trump 2024.” He said he bought it from a government surplus sale.
“It’s been in parades but it’s also a work truck, sort of,” Collard said. “At least I tell my wife that.”
Also voting at Georgetown Elementary – though for the other party – was 69-year-old Michael Makowski, who said he feels the country is at a “crossroads.”
“We can either take the bad route and become more authoritarian or try to maintain the democracy we have,” Makowski said. “I voted Democratic because I think the Democrats are more concerned with preserving the democracy than Republicans.”
The future of the country was also top-of-mind for voters in Brandywine Hundred in New Castle County.
Shelly Towler, whocast her vote at Brandywine High School, said the direction the Republican Party took under former President Donald Trump led her to recently re-register, changing her party from Republican to Independent.
“The party stands for nothing that I used to think it stood for,” Towler said.
She came to the polls with the Supreme Court’s recent reversal of abortion rights on her mind. She’s also discouraged by the Republican party’s attitude toward voting rights and the integrity of democracy.
“It’s a huge embarrassment. We are supposed to be the example?” Towler said. “It’s just going backwards in time.”
A steady stream of voters followed Towler to the polls on a brisk morning as crunchy leaves blown by the wind scratched the school parking lot. The school is one of several polling places in the fifth state senate district, which a Democrat won in 2020 for the first time in more than 40 years.
At nearby Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, Dennis Quill said he voted for Democrats down the ballot. The country needs to ensure individuals’ right to an abortion, Quill said, and he’s disappointed by the partisan justices on the Supreme Court, a body he is in favor of broadening or term limiting.
“I wouldn’t vote for a Republican if my life depended on it,” Quill said.
Quill said he hopes voters realize “things aren’t as bad as people think” and are motivated to support candidates who can keep the nation from a deeper slide. But he’s more focused on races in neighboring states and the national landscape than Delaware, where he expects Democrats to win easily.
Paul Donohue will just be happy when political ads are off his TV. Like Quill, he says “it doesn’t really feel like Delaware has any impact races.” But that hasn’t kept other races, like the battle between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz for the Pennsylvania’s Senate seat, off his screen.
“I find it pretty upsetting that they’re all mean,” Donohue said. “They don’t talk about the issues much, they just attack each other. I’ll be thankful when it’s over.”
— Brandon Holveck, Shannon Marvel McNaught
What to watch for in Sussex County
The most-watched races in Sussex this year will likely be the Senate District 6 and Representative District 20 races.
District 6 Republican Sen. Ernie Lopez is retiring this year, and District 20 Republican Rep. Steve Smyk is giving up his seat to run for Lopez’s. Both seats are longtime Republican strongholds in a county where only one legislator, House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, is a Democrat.
Smyk faces Democrat Russ Huxtable and Gwendolyn Jones (Non-Partisan Delaware) in the Senate District 6 race. In the Representative District 20 race, Democrat Stell Parker Selby and Republican Dallas Wingate are running.
In Representative District 20, as of this month, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 8,423 to 7,742. There are also 5,444 independents. That’s compared to 9,802 Democrats, 9,591 Republicans and 6,430 independents in 2020.
In Senate District 6, there are 18,942 Democrats, 15,770 Republicans and 11,471 independents. In 2020, there were 10,282 Democrats, 8,229 Republicans and 5,751 independents.
Senate District 6 includes Rehoboth Beach, Lewes and Milton. Representative District 20 includes most of Lewes, Milton and parts of Georgetown.
— Shannon Marvel McNaught
Voters struggle to get to polling location due to road blockage
Voters near Townsend were unable to get to Blackbird Community Center Tuesday morning due to Verizon blocking the road.
An election day spokesperson later told Delaware Online/The News Journal that “elections has indicated that it is aware and is in the process of addressing the blockage.”
Steady turnout at the polls Tuesday morning
Across the state Tuesday morning, polling locations saw a steady stream of voters.
There was a line outside Clayton Fire Company just before the polls opened at 7 a.m. Among the first voters was Diana Dede.
She said the issue she’s been following the most has been the debate about guns, saying “it’s just important to me to vote.”
Paul Skreenock, also one of the first in line, said he didn’t come to the polls for a specific issue or candidate but because “it’s my civic duty.”
In Wilmington, there was only one voter at the Delaware Technical Community College polling place just after 8 a.m. On the outside, the only sign that it was Election Day was the red poster indicating the entrance to the polling place.
Two seniors walked out of the voting area as a reporter walked in. According to a poll worker, this was the calm after a morning rush when the polls opened at 7 a.m. There were no issues with the voting machines, as the process took less than a minute.
About an hour later in Dover, the parking lot at East Dover Elementary wasn’t busy as residents turned out to cast their vote. Yolanda Poe, 53, of Dover, said her decision to vote was, in part, to set a precedent for her grandchildren.
“For centuries as Black people, we couldn’t vote and women couldn’t do anything,” Poe said after casting her vote. “Now we have the right to, so it’s important that we do something.”
In front of the elementary school, she took a selfie with Kerri Evelyn Harris, a candidate for Delaware State Representative. Harris, shivering from the cold, was the only candidate greeting voters outside the school at 9 a.m.
An older woman who slowly walked toward the school’s entrance to vote told Harris: “Keep warm!”
To the north in Talleyville, a handful of residents were voting at Springer Middle School at 10 a.m.
One poll worker said about 170 people had voted so far Tuesday morning, but about a half-dozen more walked in less than five minutes after the poll worker gave his estimate.
— Ben Mace, Isabel Hughes, Andre Lamar, Meredith Newman
Why Lee Murphy thinks he can upset Lisa Blunt Rochester
A Republican hasn’t represented Delaware in Congress since 2011, but Lee Murphy, the party’s challenger to Lisa Blunt Rochester, is confident that will soon change.
“I’ve lived here a long time,” Murphy said by phone Monday. “I’ve seen Democrats rule the state, Republicans be in power. For many years in this state, Republicans and Democrats worked together, but that recently hasn’t been the case. I just believe one-party rule, especially over a long period of time, isn’t healthy for everyone.”
Murphy, who voted Tuesday morning at Hillcrest-Bellefont Methodist Church off Marsh Road just outside of Wilmington, said his No. 1 issue is the economy. Voters he’s spoken with are hurting from record inflation and are concerned about oil prices ahead of the winter months, he said.
READ:3 takeaways from the Blunt Rochester-Murphy U.S House debate
It’s an issue he hopes energizes voters to seek change.
Blunt Rochester won Delaware’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016 after fellow Democrat John Carney left the office to seek the governorship. Murphy has run in each election since, challenging Scott Walker unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in 2018 before losing to Blunt Rochester in the general election in 2020.
The indicators once again point in Blunt Rochester’s favor.
A poll conducted by the University of Delaware Center for Political Communication published in October found 50% of registered voters plan to vote for Blunt Rochester and 33% support Murphy.
Blunt Rochester’s campaign has raised almost $2.7 million, about nine times as much as Murphy’s.
Murphy pointed to the Delaware Supreme Court’s ruling against vote-by-mail and same-day voter registration as a reason for optimism. Without the COVID-19 measures that expanded absentee voting by mailing ballots to registered voters in 2020 and the following two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, Murphy believes he’s better positioned this year compared to previous runs.
“This election is very much a referendum on Joe Biden, which is bad for the Democrats,” Murphy said. “The landscape has definitely changed.”
— Brandon Holveck
What to watch for on Tuesday
While Delaware races may be lower-stakes this year than in past years, elsewhere across the country there are a number of hot races that many are watching.
Here are some that will determine what the country looks like moving forward:
Pennsylvania races to watch
In neighboring Pennsylvania, all eyes are on the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races.
The outcome of the Senate race, between Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz, could determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, ultimately affecting issues like abortion rights and the economy, among others.
For the governor’s race, Democratic candidate and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro faces Doug Mastriano, a far-right Trump-endorsee who has supported the former president’s lies that the election was stolen.
MIDTERMS ARE HERE:Midterms are less than a week away. Here are the key races in Delaware
Maryland races to watch
In Maryland, bestselling author Wes Moore, who would become the state’s first Black governor if elected, is facing another Trump endorsee, Dan Cox. Cox has also promoted the former president’s lies about the election. During the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Cox tweeted that Vice President Mike Pence was a “traitor.”
Moore is seen as the favorite to clinch the gubernatorial election in Maryland.
New York races to watch
To Delaware’s north, it’s unlikely that the traditionally blue state of New York will look much different after Tuesday. Still, the governor’s race between Gov. Kathy Hochul ‒ the state’s first female governor who took over following disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s resignation last year ‒ and Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin isn’t a shoo-in.
Hochul’s lead over Trump-backed Zeldin has narrowed in recent weeks, according to Politico’s election forecast.
Georgia races to watch
Many eyes are on Georgia’s governor’s race this year, a repeat matchup between Gov. Brian Kemp and gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams.
Recent polls show Kemp ‒ no longer the overseer of Georgia’s elections as he was during the 2018 race ‒ leading by seven percentage points. Still, Abrams was able to mobilize many voters in 2018, something she hopes to carry with her this year.
KEMP VS ABRAMS:In second debate, Georgia candidates Kemp and Abrams argue over abortion, gun control
Just as anticipated, though slightly more contentious, is Georgia’s U.S. Senate race.
Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock is facing Trump-backed Herschel Walker, an anti-abortion advocate who, in recent weeks, has repeatedly denied that he paid for two women to have abortions years ago. The women recently came forward with the claims that Walker impregnated them and then paid for the medical procedures.
Earlier in his campaign, Walker revealed that he fathered four children by four different women, a striking contrast to his public admonishments about absentee fathers and his previous contention that he had three children, USA Today reported.
According to FiveThirtyEight, the race is quite close, with Walker leading Warnock by about one percentage point.
Arizona races to watch
Arizona’s gubernatorial race remains a toss-up, but it will be closely watched.
Polls are showing election denier Kari Lake slightly ahead of incumbent Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs, though that may not mean much. The veracity of polls often depends on what entity is conducting them, what their methods are and whether they have a partisan lean.
POLLS AREN’T ALWAYS ACCURATE:Polls in Arizona’s Senate and governor’s races: Don’t count on them
The outcome of the gubernatorial race will have important implications ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Lake, a former local Fox News anchor who now markets herself as an anti-media Republican, has repeatedly reiterated the baseless claim that Trump won the 2020 election in Arizona. She’s also said she would not have certified President Joe Biden’s election if she were governor at the time.
Florida races to watch
As in many other states, Florida’s key contests are the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races.
Incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis, who will likely be a presidential contender in 2024, is facing off against Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor-turned-Democrat who represented Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives until August of this year. He resigned to focus on the governor’s race.
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On the U.S. Senate side of the midterms, Republican Marco Rubio, a senator since 2011, is facing off against Democrat Val Demings. Polls show Rubio with a more than eight percentage point lead.
Ohio races to watch
This election cycle, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan ‒ who is vying for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat ‒ has out-raised many other Senate hopefuls across the nation.
READ:Tim Ryan is raising more than J.D. Vance. Can he counter national GOP spending?
Yet it remains to be seen whether Ryan’s cash flow will be enough to secure him the race against Trump-backed Republican J.D. Vance.
Got a story tip or idea? Send to Isabel Hughes at ihughes@delawareonline.com. For all things breaking news, follow her on Twitter at @izzihughes_
