We offered our endorsements in several races yesterday. Now some predictions. This is where our subjective wishes and hope meet cold hard objective reality. And I hope I am wrong in some of these.
Governor (D) — John Carney. You can’t defeat an incumbent without a credible challenger and without a campaign. Plus, Democrats generally give the Governor high marks for his actions during the COVID Pandemic in following the silence and ignoring the screams of the Trumpists.
Governor (R) — Either Julianne Murray or Scott Walker — If signs could vote, Walker would win all the offices, everywhere. And Republicans have proven that they are just insane enough to make him their nominee. But they also liked Murray’s insane ramblings about losing freedom by being forced to wear a mask, and Murray has way more money. I can’t decide between them, but the nominee will be one of these two. What a win for Jane Brady. LOL.
Insurance Commissioner (D) — Trinidad Navarro. Once again, you can’t defeat an incumbent without a credible challenger and without a campaign. Navarro could have been beaten if COVID didn’t shorten and restrict the campaign.
U.S. Senate (D) — Chris Coons — I am looking to see if Scarane does better than Kerri Evelyn Harris in 2018. Harris won 35.4% of the vote, or 29,406 votes. My bet is that she won’t. And that is the result of what will likely be a low turnout primary and the COVID pandemic limiting retail campaigning. Also because Coons has been blanketing the airways and was prominent during the Democratic Convention.
U.S. Senate (R) — Lauren Witzke — Lauren is what would happen if Donald Trump and Christine O’Donnell had a child. Pardon me a moment…..
She is a former Mexican cartel drug mule (I am not making that up) who now totes around an AR15 wherever she goes. So of course she will win the Republican nomination.
U.S. Congress (R) — Lee Murphy — Murphy lost to Scott Walker in 2018, but his opponent this time is a convicted gay basher who doesn’t seem to be running that visible a campaign (unlike Walker with his signs everywhere). This time I say Murphy wins.
New Castle County Executive — Matt Meyer — The real Democrat will win and I think it won’t be close. It will be a repudiation to FOP “Democrats” like Nicole Poore and Nancy Willing.
New Castle County Council President — Ciro Poppiti — I think the anti-Poppiti robocall backfired on Karen Hartley Nagle. Poppiti wins the race by a margin of 45-30-25 over KHN and Monique Johns, respectively.
State Senator 1 (D) — Sarah McBride — Easy win over Joseph McCole. 80-20 or 90-10.
State Senator 5 (D) — Kyle Evans Gay — Gay has had the most visible campaign, though Eric Levin has made a fight of it. Denise Bowers is an after thought. I think the margin will be over 60 for Kyle, and then 25-30 for Levin, and whatever’s left for Bowers.
State Senator 13 (D) — Dave McBride — I think this will be very close, but McBride will pull it out at the end. This is the race most affected by the Pandemic. If we lived in normal times, Marie would win. I hope I am wrong.
State Senator 14 (D) — Bruce Ennis — This race is governed by the rule that you cannot beat an incumbent with two challengers. If this were a one on one race, it would be more competitive.
State Senator 14 (R) — Craig Pugh – Pugh has the money and endorsements.
State Representative 4 (D) — Gerald Brady — I can’t help but think that we might be surprised by this race tonight. It has flown under the radar all year, but I don’t think Amy Solomon pull it out. We will see though.
State Representative 7 (D) — Larry Lambert — Larry barely lost in a five way race to Ray Seigfried in 2018. Now in a one on one race, he has campaigned tirelessly. I think Lambert ends up winning 55-45.
State Representative 8 (D) — Matthew W. Powell — Powell was endorsed by current and retiring Representative Quinn Johnson recently, and I think that will be enough to win it for him.
State Representative 10 (D) — Sean Matthews — Why is Matthews being challenged again? When a primary challenger can’t answer that question, he ain’t going to win. Matthews in a walk, 70-30.
State Representative 26 (D) — John Viola — Again, you cannot beat an incumbent with two challengers. BUT… if the exception to that rule were to happen, it would be this race. Madinah has run an excellent campaign and she could very well win, but I think Viola holds on barely, to the tune of 45-40-15.
State Representative 27 (D) — Eric Morrison — Earl Jaques has run a petty and nasty campaign and it has turned off most Democrats I talk to, even those who were not predisposed to voting for Morrison. Combine that with Morrison’s stellar campaign, and I think Eric wins 60-40. I am going to quote Mitch Crane here from a post he made on this race: “So sad that incumbents in trouble so often resort to ridiculous accusations against a challenger. I always thought Earl Jaques was a “ good guy” just afraid to vote for a woman’s right to choose and marriage equality. It was a struggle for Delaware Stonewall to endorse his opponent, Eric Morrison. Watching Eric’s aggressive issue oriented campaigns and Earl’s slanderous campaign, funded almost totally by outside interests and lobbyists, confirms we made the right decision. Eric Morrison is the clear choice on Tuesday.”
State Representative 34 (D) — Robert Haynes — Who the hell knows. This is a complete guess.
New Castle County Council 12 (D) — Kevin Caneco — Another young upstart challenging an entrenched incumbent who has lost touch with the community. Caneco also wins by something like 60-40.
New Castle County Clerk of the Peace (D) — Lisa Darrah — These ROW offices should not be up for election. This should be an appointment made by the County Executive, as should the Recorder of Deeds and the Register of Wills, and just like the State Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner should be appointed on the state level. You can say that you didn’t like the shenanigans that incumbent Ken Boulden performed in playing musical chairs with this seat in trying to get his deputy an uncontested shot at the office. But people voted for Ken Boulden for years, and I am sure most will vote for his deputy. On that basis alone, I think Darrah wins. I have no idea by what margin though.
Wilmington Mayor (D) — Mike Purzycki — Two challengers means the incumbent wins. Plus, one of those challengers is corrupt and the other is not mayoral material. So by default, Purzycki wins.
As for the rest of the races, with some council primaries involving three or more candidates, it is just impossible to predict, so we are not going to try.
In regards to the 27th race, Mitch Crane and his political action committee, with its board of aging lily-white gay male boomers, certainly have a vested interest in revising history so it reflects favorably on the candidate they endorsed and helped fund, but it’s certainly nowhere near the truth. I’m not surprised he’s pushing a self-serving narrative, Mitch and his PAC are certainly desperate to maintain relevance in a Delaware that has started the generational political transition that many of us have been waiting to begin for some time. Nor is it surprising that the local political gossip websites pick up on this and treat it as gospel, it’s exciting and has an insider feel to it. As always of course, there is a lot more nuance to the story of what’s happening in this district than pundits and self-promoters care to discuss.
I knew the race here in the 27th was going to be nasty when I heard Eric Morrison was going to run, and I was proven correct in January 2020. Eric was offered an opportunity to speak to the local democratic committee, the same committee where he served as Secretary for a few months in 2017, before he resigned after losing the election to committee chair to me that year. Immediately after that loss, Eric resigned the secretary position but stated his desire to stay on the committee. Eric never attended another committee meeting after that loss. He also never responded to repeated messages asking if he wanted to remain on the committee, and as a result the committee voted to remove him after giving him the benefit of the doubt for over a year – that should be enough time for anyone to lick their wounds and get over themselves. The committee members who previously backed Eric were obviously disappointed in his continual absence, and I would not be surprised if that feeling of betrayal stayed with them.
It came as no great surprise to me when Eric, having been offered the opportunity to address the committee with a five minute allotment for remarks back in January, only spoke for three minutes and gave what I can only guess was his typical stump speech – it was short on position details and long on personal attacks against Earl Jaques, who was sitting right in front of him. We can argue the wisdom of not rehearsing and not having any idea of how long your speeches run, we can argue the wisdom of using your standard stump speech rather than tailoring your comments to your audience, but I hope it’s clear that the approach Eric chose was one that painted his campaign as a petty, ego-driven one that was using the district as a stepping stone for higher ambitions.
It is no wonder really, and Mitch tries to elide past this unpleasant fact because it doesn’t fit his narrative, as Eric’s abrasive nature has been on display on social media the entire time. Though he has scrubbed many of his more incendiary comments from Facebook, it’s no secret that Eric Morrison voted for Jill Stein and thinks anyone who voted for Hillary Clinton can go pound sand. He has made no secret of his disgust of anyone who doesn’t agree with him, his denial of foreign interference in US elections, and that we all got what we deserved with Donald Trump. He’s made some oblique nasty comments about me and how the party needs to do more than elect a gay man as a chair. He doesn’t think the 27th local committee should be allowed to endorse a candidate, presumably because it may not be an endorsement for him that he can then tout in his many negative mailers or e-mails (the 27th RD Committee did endorse Earl Jaques in June).
Both candidates are flawed, and in my opinion, not the best representation for the district, but in Delaware pragmatism is often the best recourse. It is pragmatism that compels me to offer that despite all this, I have found over the past four years Earl and I can put our differences aside and work together for the greater good of the district. It remains to be seen whether the same is true of Eric, and that uncertainty is entirely of Eric’s own choosing. We will know the results shortly. My one desire is that whoever wins takes to heart that the job is about representing the district as a whole and takes that responsibility seriously for the next two years.
Full disclosure: I am writing in my personal capacity as a resident of the 27th and not as the Chair of the 27th Representative District Democratic Committee. I and my husband were once paid members of the Barbara Gittings Stonewall Democrats club prior to it becoming a political action committee not affiliated with the Democratic party (and we have not and will not contribute to them again without significant changes to their mission, alignment, and demographic makeup of their board); and to just illustrate how small this state is, I dated the man who succeeded Eric as the student President of the University of Delaware Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Student Union (LGBSU) in the late 90s.
Wow, just Wow. It is so sad to think that the posting of something I said results in a personal attack on me. I just left a polling place where two Laura Witzke supporters launched an attack against me for saying “I belong to the other party” when they asked me to vote for her. They resorted to attacks on Joe Biden and then on me for supporting him (“You are all socialists” “You hate Trump and call us racists”, etc). I merely reminded them that all I said was that I am a member of the other Party and that I had not said anything critical of them, their candidate or their Party). So now I come home for a few minutes and read an attack from someone on the other side. People who resort to personal attacks against the supporters of another candidate have nothing positive to say about their candidate and are fearful their candidate was going to lose..
Saying “the blogs” take what I say as “gospel” is hilarious considering the number of times I have been attacked by them.
As to Stonewall, I don’t recall ever meeting Mr. Reuling. I have been a member of Stonewall since 2005 and I do not recall Mr.Reuling as having attended any of our meeting or events. Since I don’t even recognize his name, I question if he was ever a member,
Nevertheless, Delaware Stonewall PAC, of which I am a Board member and not the president, endorses candidates based on their support for LGBTQ issues. Incumbents with 100% voting records are almost always endorsed. If an incumbent has a less than perfect voting record and an opponents expresses total support for LGBTQ favorable laws passed and proposed, we look to support that candidate. When it comes to Democratic incumbents, in 2018 we endorsed Nnamdi Chuckwuocha over the incumbent State Representative Charles Potter because Potter gad voted against Gender Identity protection, This year we are supporting, in today’s Primary, Kyra Hoffner over Senator Bruce Ennis because Ennis has voted against every single LGBTQ bill. The only other Democrat with a 0% voting record is Bill “Lumpy” Carson and we would support a more reasonable opponent if he were opposed.
The same thinking was used in the Earl Jaques- Eric Morrison race. Eric supports all the previously-passed legislation and Earl voted against Marriage Equality and chose not to vote for a bill Prohibiting Conversion Therapy. He also voted against codifying into Delaware law Roe vs. Wade. If Earl Jaques had admitted those two votes were mistakes, it is likely Stonewall would have stayed out of the race (as many in Party and House leadership asked. He chose not to, even though he knew that in 2018 Trey Paradee admitted his errors and received Stonewall’s support for the State Senate. What I have written about this race, without exception, was about where the two candidates stand on the issues of importance to me. I never leveled a word of criticism against Earl Jaques. Earl and I have always gotten along well and, until this race, he presented himself honorably, even on issues we disagreed on. As to Eric’ persona, he and I are not friends, I do not think we have ever met, I am aware of his past stridency in his posts ( I was a target of them 2 years ago when Stonewall endorsed someone he did not like, against someone he supported). I have long said, and I probably stole that from someone else, ” I am not looking for friends in elected office. There are elected officials who are friendly and even privately support things I believe in, but who vote wrong. There are elected officials who vote for all the bills of importance to me, but are not friends of mine and in some cases, probably support those bills out of political expediency. I am not looking for friends. I am looking for people who will vote for and fight for the issues of importance to me. Eric Morrison is that person and I believe he will fight for and vote for legislative issues that are important to me and my community.
As to the Stonewall Board of “aging lily-white aging male boomers”, there is an open membership form on our website. Anyone who supports LGBTQ rights is welcome to join and then seek membership on the Board in January. We don’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender, gender identification, AGE, and we have nothing against lily-white aging baby boomers who continue the fight. Fighting for what one believes is so much more productive than sitting back on one’s haunches and growling.
I can understand you taking umbrage Mitch, but that doesn’t equate to a personal attack as much as you’d like us all to believe it does. It’s fine if you don’t know me, I am not a person who craves the spotlight by any stretch so go ahead and speak dismissively about & attack me if that makes you feel better. You haven’t met me, this is true – but I do exist and I have the credit card receipts for my past membership dues. Incidentally, you can remove me from the Stonewall mailing list, since according to you my past membership is suspect there’s no need to keep emailing me your opinions on how I should vote this many years after your conversion to a PAC, is there?
I have a problem with how outsiders have characterized what’s happening in this district, and how it’s being used for ideological purposes, and it’s on this basis that I objected to your initial one-sided characterization of this election. I’ll note the additional detail you provided offers more perspective, so thank you for that.
This has been a particularly nasty campaign and many of us who live in the 27th are ready for it to be over. As much as I would like my priorities and views to win the day, to borrow the words of someone more erudite than me, an election isn’t a marriage and you should vote for the candidate that gets you closer to the representation you desire. I don’t desire more rancor, nor do I want a district pariah who fights viciously but accomplishes little. I like to get things done, and if that sometimes means accepting a half measure or compromise on the way then that’s something I’m open to considering. Rome wasn’t built in a day after all. It’s entirely reasonable to disagree with me here, it’s another thing to categorically dismiss it because you haven’t deigned to take the pulse of the people you’ve declared persona non grata.
We disagree on this but I think it’s incumbent on any political board, and particularly one that claims on its website that it is “Delaware’s Voice for the LGBT Community”, to actively seek out and recruit members that represent the people for whom they purport to represent. It is so much more productive than sitting back on one’s haunches and pointing to an open membership form as proof of your commitment to the community – at least one of whom you suspect because he was critical of your opinion on an election that has a direct bearing on him, and the community in which he lives.
I wasn’t looking for a personal argument, Rick. I was responding to your post, BTW, I always find it interesting that the person who perceives they are being attacked and defends themselves, is countered by a person who says they were not attacking, but feel attacked by the original response!
I have been asked to correct some of your statements, and I should have in my original response: Not all of our Board members are “baby boomers”. Not all of our Board members are “White”.
As to your continuing to be on our email list, I am not the person who keeps that list.
Finally, we did receive input from our New Castle County members, It was that input that resulted in endorsement of Matt Meyers in NCC and Sean Barney in Wilmington. We have some members in the 27th, I can tell you that the input we received was to endorse Morrison or to endorse neither/ No one suggested an endorsement of Jaques,
Now I need to get back to fighting the fascist Republicans working the polls for their Primary candidates.
I find it interesting that the rhetoric that often follows the use of the phrase “I find it interesting” is typically not something the author truly finds interesting at all, they’re just trying to convey their opprobrium in the most genteel & evasive manner possible.
I stand corrected on the characterization of your board as “lily-white” and “boomers” (I assume by your omission that “gay” and “male” are currently accurate), while continuing to call for greater diversity that better reflects the diverse community it wishes to represent.
Your organization would do well to include a link with your email blasts to allow for easy unsubscribing, there are numerous firms that provide list management services to help with that and other tedious but necessary functions.
Good luck fighting those fascist Republicans, that sounds like a very large undertaking you are handling all by yourself. Thank you for undoubtedly leading the fight.
Well Rick The Stonewall folks, Lily, Rose or Dandelion, did endorse a 78 year old white dude who called for the return of the whipping post, and took cash from Big Pharma, Big Dangerous chemical and Big Toxic waste Dump interests. All while living at the beach 80 miles from the pollution and pestilence he spreads. I “find it interesting” that this outfit did that over a 30 year old black lesbian woman social worker. 🙂
That 78 year old white man has a 100% pro- LGBTQ voting record
Well, that settles it, then. As long as he votes the right way on LGBTQ issues, who cares how dishonest he is, amirite?
Yea just overlook that Whipping Post an polluter loving record as he chills in his million buck McMansion in Lewes. Well played:)
Lordy, this is why I still monitor DE politics…..no cable fees required. Mitch….you seem to be the antagonist here, you seem to be on the wrong side of history. This election is not just all about the Trump agenda….