A Delaware political update: part 4, Lieutenant Governor and Insurance Commissioner

The final two statewide offices on the ballot this fall may seem insignificant but potentially can have a great effect on people’s lives. At the moment, though, there’s not a great deal of interest in these ballot lines as only a few candidates have actually filed between the two downballot races.

The lieutenant governor’s race is generally ignored unless and until a day nearly four years later when we wake up to realize the second banana is now the fruit in charge. The last time this happened in Delaware it was a brief precursor to what was to come as then-LG Ruth Ann Minner got a few extra days at the helm when her former boss Tom Carper moved on to the U.S. Senate in 2001.

While we never know what will happen to the sitting governor, we do know that the incumbent, Bethany Hall-Long, is seeking a second term of her own. Hall-Long won a six-way Democrat primary in 2016 but is likely to be unopposed in her primary this time. She worked her way up the ladder by serving 14 years between the Delaware House (6) and Senate (8).

The Republicans were initially believed to have a gubernatorial candidate by the name of Kevin Baron, but he decided not to enter the race. Instead, he is now on the Independent Party of Delaware ticket as their lieutenant governor candidate, recently appearing at the Reopen Delaware rally as a team with their gubernatorial candidate Kathy DeMatteis.

In turn, although she hasn’t formally filed, the GOP is pushing Donyale Hall as their LG candidate. I’m not sure if having a candidate with the same last name as the incumbent was intentional, but Hall seems to have a relatively standard GOP platform stressing education, economic advancement, and “effective” government. (As opposed to limited government, I suppose.)

At this time there is no primary race for any of those spots, but the same is not true for Insurance Commissioner.

Right now the current Insurance Commissioner is Democrat Trinidad Navarro, who will seek a second term. Navarro, who came into the race as the New Castle County sheriff (first elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014), surprised the incumbent Karen Weldin Stewart in the 2016 Democrat primary and defeated Republican Jeff Cragg in the general election. He has an opponent in his primary by the name of Kayode Abegunde; unfortunately, Kayode’s biggest problem is an extraordinarily painful to read website – not to mention a presumably well-funded incumbent.

On the other side, instead of Cragg making a third try for statewide office, the Republican candidate is Dr. Julia Pillsbury, who has a military background and wasn’t previously directly involved in the insurance business. She’s pledging to be an independent voice and advocate for patients and ratepayers and, while she hasn’t filed yet, is listed on the state GOP website as a candidate so we’ll go with it.

Over the years there have been a sprinkling of minor party aspirants for the position, but so far none have emerged for 2020.

So that concludes the state races up to this point, although much will likely change before the July filing deadline. I’ll likely do an updated series of posts once we know all the candidates on the primary ballot – if they are uncontested I may wait until October to revisit the races. (I want to get to the monoblogue Accountability Project as quickly as possible this summer since over 50 of the sitting legislators are on the ballot. Maybe we can goad some conservatives into making a last-minute bid.)

In the meantime, I have planned for one last part where I look at the doings so far in eleven Sussex County races – nine for the state House and two for the state Senate. In looking at the filings to date, though, I may postpone this final part a few weeks and see what develops, because in 2018 there was only one contested primary out of 12 seats available in the county. If the same holds true there may be little point in doing Sussex County legislative races as a post – I’ll just add them to the widget.

3 thoughts on “A Delaware political update: part 4, Lieutenant Governor and Insurance Commissioner”

  1. The problem is trying to read anything on the background of the meeting photo. Granted, I just run a blog but I selected background and font to be easy to read.

    I have old eyes and need new glasses, so I need all the help I can get.

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