Bethany Hall-Long – monoblogue

The several mornings after

I began this post late Wednesday night but I didn’t figure on getting it out until Friday. Then it’s time for a few days of well-deserved R & R.

So, about that crystal ball of mine. There are a lot of moving parts remaining in this Presidential election. I definitely whiffed on Minnesota – I guess people don’t mind rioting as much as I thought. And President Trump may well lose Wisconsin and Michigan as I predicted, but then he has to keep Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania to prevail. All three are a little fishy.

Because of that, I’m reticent to discuss that race. As for the overall Senate, it may come down to Georgia either holding that 51-49 majority or possibly 51-50, as predicted. And based on the House races out and who leads, I may not be terribly far off my guess on that. It’s hard to count (and count on) little dots, but I think we may indeed have a 219-216 House if results hold. I suspect it will be a couple-three less than that because Democrats have a way of ~~stealing~~ finding enough votes to win races, especially in California.

My focus was pretty good on Delaware races, with one exception. In a nutshell, here’s what I guessed and the results:

Delaware President: Biden 56-41 (actual: Biden 59-40)
Delaware U.S. Senator: Coons 60-37 (actual: Coons 59-38)
Delaware U.S. House: LBR 55-43 (actual: LBR 58-40)
Delaware Governor: Carney 50-45 (actual: Carney 59-39)
Delaware LG: Hall-Long 60-40 (actual: Hall-Long 59-41)
Delaware Insurance Commissioner: Navarro 60-40 (actual: Navarro 59-41)
Composition of Delaware Senate: Democrat 14-7 (actual: Democrat 14-7)
Composition of Delaware House: Democrat 26-15 (actual: Democrat 26-15)

I literally missed the Senate race by about 1/2%, the LG race by .36% and the Insurance Commissioner race by .02%, or 42 votes statewide. The biggest error I made was overestimating the level of enmity for John Carney, meaning Delaware is a state full of sheep. (But we already knew that, given other results.) I also gave the third parties more of a wide berth than they received, but that goes back to their exclusion from debates and media coverage.

I also figured the two Republicans who were picked off in the State Senate would indeed be the ones to go. It cleaned out my entire roster of Delaware winners of the monoblogue Accountability Project’s RINO Huntee Award, although I would have definitely preferred they go by the wayside in a primary. But if you’re going to vote like a Democrat, why not just have the real thing?

So while I don’t like the Delaware results, they were pretty much in line with how I guessed they would be, moreso than the primary.

The last race – one that I could not get a sense of – was the race I talked about across the way in Wicomico County. The good news is that Nicole Acle, the Republican, leads by about 1,100 votes so far. The bad news is that there are several thousand mail-in and provisional ballots left to count and “conservative” Democrat Alexander Scott had about a 2-1 margin in the mail-in votes already received. Essentially there needs to be about 3,000 votes out for Scott to have a chance if the mail-in trend holds with those and the provisional votes. (By the way, it’s normal that Maryland’s count is extended, but what is not normal is the number of mail-in votes. In a usual year we may be talking 100 votes tops out in the district by now; for example, in the 2018 midterm there were just under 400 of these votes total for that district, and most are counted by the Friday after the election with a handful withheld to mix with late-arriving military votes for the following Thursday when they wrap up. I recall sweating bullets for a week-plus after the primary I won to retain my seat on the Central Committee – by 30 votes countywide.)

If there wasn’t already enough evidence that mail-in voting was conceived as a huge advantage to Democrats, consider that between early voting and Election Day returns in Maryland, the Trump/Pence ticket leads by about 28,000 votes. Yes, in Maryland. Unfortunately, the mail-in balloting has Harris/Biden in the lead by 676,199, meaning the overall percentage is 63-35 Democrat. That may balloon even some more as the ballots left to count are mail-in so I figure Trump may lose by 30 points this time rather than 20.

One reason is the slight shade of purple we’re now seeing on the Eastern Shore. No, Andy Harris is not in serious danger of losing with a 30-point lead but I figured on 70 percent given his Democrat opponent is a girl who used to be a guy and doesn’t actually live in the district. (Never mind the far-left political stances.)

But with some mail-in votes left to count there’s some chance that Andy may not have a 12-for-12 sweep in the counties as he usually enjoys. I know Kent County (Maryland) has had it in for Andy ever since he kicked their favored son Wayne Gilchrest to the curb and out of Congress in the 2008 GOP primary but they may turn blue in the Congressional race just as they did the presidential as Harris leads there by just 2 points. Same goes for Talbot County, another popular Annapolis exurb. Andy is hanging on to a slim 8 point lead there. Oddly enough, sandwiched between the two is Queen Anne’s County, which is the eastern terminus of the Bay Bridge – Harris has a 67-33 lead there.

So I guess my handicapping wasn’t half-bad, but now I’m going to take a weekend away. I need a break!

After that I owe you an odds and ends piece, maybe some more election wrapup, and then the retrospective things I do about this time of year. Hard to believe I am wrapping up year number 15 of this enterprise.

For Delaware 2020

The other day I saw a photo of the scariest Halloween decoration out there: a white wooden cutout of “2020.” And in this year of the pandemic, we have had quite the state election campaign, haven’t we? Six Republicans running for governor, a spirited primary race for both sides in the Senate, and the inclusion of principled independent bids up and down the ballot have made this a rather unique balloting, particularly compared to previous Delaware elections I covered on a peripheral basis. It’s probably the most controversial run in a decade, since the O’Donnell vs. Castle U.S. Senate primary on the Republican side – a contest from which the rending of the state GOP still shows.

In this race, I have been a free agent of sorts: when I moved to Delaware I decided to call the Constitution Party my home because I’m more in tune with their political philosophy and, frankly, don’t have a lot of use for the Delaware Republican Party based on how they run their affairs and the candidates they support. Alas, the CP doesn’t have the numbers to have a ballot position nor do they have viable candidates running in the state. Thus, I had no primary vote, and the Republican voters of Delaware selected two of the three I would have preferred. (Feel free to cue up Meat Loaf if you desire.)

Besides my local races, which are walkovers because no one but the Republican bothered to file, I have five statewide races to consider: U.S. Senator, U.S. House, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Insurance Commissioner. I think I will handle them in the reverse order.

To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about the Insurance Commissioner duties or candidates, except for the fact I thought it unusual that a county sheriff would pivot into the position, as happened in 2016. Trinidad Navarro indeed made that transition, obviously helped by the familiarity to New Castle County voters and the D column he was placed in. (Before becoming a police officer, he was an insurance agent for a time – but considering the length of time he was a LEO, this insurance experience must have been rather brief.) Navarro’s biggest claim to fame since taking office was spearheading the drive to enshrine Obamacare into state law, which means we are stuck with these unaffordable provisions.

Meanwhile, Dr. Julia Pillsbury comes from a different perspective – that of a pediatrician. As a business owner, she’s the one who has to deal with the insurance companies and wrestle with them as an advocate for those in her care. Just from looking from the outside, I believe that rather than having the fox watch the henhouse with a former insurance agent, perhaps it’s time to try a new approach and see if it works. I’m urging a vote for Dr. Julia Pillsbury.

Why do I get the feeling that incumbent Bethany Hall-Long is simply biding her time and waiting her turn as Lieutenant Governor? While the list of lieutenant governors who eventually grabbed the brass ring is still relatively short in Delaware, it includes two of the most recent previous three occupants of the office including the current governor. Anymore that seems like the Delaware Way and that’s not the way we should go, particularly as she’s apparently been a willing accomplice to Governor John Carney’s tyrannical ways.

I think Donyale Hall will be an active player who is also bringing in the perspective of an outsider – unlike her opponent, who spent 15 years in the Delaware General Assembly as her way of working up the political ladder. What do we have to show for the last twenty years she’s been in office? Donyale is placing her emphasis on education, economic advancement, and a streamlined budget – issues that appeal to hardworking Delaware families and not those who simply want their back scratched in return for bestowing the trappings of power. The better choice for Lieutenant Governor is Donyale Hall.

When the current governor John Carney ran for his latest office, he used a carefully cultivated reputation as a business-friendly moderate Democrat to finally win the office he thought he would grab back in 2008, when he lost a bitterly-contested primary to Jack Markell and could not succeed in doing what his “boss” Ruth Ann Minner did – advance directly to the Governor’s chair from being Lieutenant Governor. Instead, he cooled his heels in Congress after Mike Castle bolted for an ill-fated Senate run two years later.

Yet that belief Carney was business-friendly has evaporated in the midst of a pandemic that has claimed as of Friday 680 lives in Delaware – a number that would rank as the 56th largest city in Delaware if it were a town. I certainly don’t want to trivialize these victims, who were beloved by their families and friends, but the pandemic threw many thousands more out of work and continues to do so even as other similarly-situated rural states have reopened and returned to a relative state of normalcy.

That heavy-handed pandemic response was the factor that goaded six Republicans into joining the race to replace Carney. While two of these six had political experience as state Senators – including the candidate Carney defeated handily to win the governor’s chair in 2016 – Republican voters opted for an outsider, attorney Julianne Murray.

Julianne’s platform has been heavy on restoring small business to Delaware, and given these times it’s the right platform to have. Once again, it would be an outsider approach to state governance that may be the kick-start the state needs to succeed and not fall further behind its peers in everything except drawing retirees who take advantage of the three biggest assets Delaware has: inexpensive housing, low property taxes, and no sales tax. For them, the higher income taxes aren’t as much of a burden but for people who want to be productive private-sector employers it’s a lot more difficult.

It’s worth pointing out that there are four people in the race for governor, as it includes Libertarian John Machurek and Independent Party of Delaware (IPoD) hopeful Kathy DeMatteis.

Sadly, Machurek hasn’t run much of a campaign. I’ll grant that the Libertarian candidates don’t get a whole lot of love from the media except for the odd mention here and there and they don’t get invited to the debate stage. But sometimes you have to push the envelope a little bit. Unfortunately this has been true of all their candidates, who you don’t hear a whole lot about despite their good ideas – I’ve voted Libertarian regularly over my lifetime because they present a better alternative to RINO Republicans (or occasionally they are friends of mine.)

On the other hand, DeMatteis seems to be working hard at the race despite a low likelihood of success. She has some interesting and unique proposals, as do others in her IPoD camp. I think the question I have regarding Kathy’s plans – which apparently are spelled out in a book she wrote a few years ago – is why she couldn’t wait to run until she put them into place and succeeded with them? Why is it so important that she get into government to implement her ideas? Donald Trump succeeded in life then ran for President, and we see how that order of achievement worked out well for us.

For these reasons and many more, the best vote for Governor is one for Julianne Murray.

I have not been particularly inspired by the House race this year. It begins with an incumbent whose key reason for being elected in the first place was her gender, race, and the perceived slight of having neither heretofore represent Delaware. Since her election, Lisa Blunt Rochester (or LBR for short) has worked her way leftward on the political spectrum – most recently co-sponsoring a proposal that would serve to eventually eliminate gas-powered cars.

Yet LBR has drawn a motley crew of opponents which included a Republican who was defeated in the 2018 primary by a candidate whose claim to fame was illegally-placed plywood signage, a Libertarian who only recently put up a single-page website as his campaign face, and the IPoD candidate who admits to being an anon in Qanon. Still, I have to vote for someone and it won’t be LBR.

As I mentioned, I wasn’t enamored with Libertarian hopeful David Rogers but I have to hand it to IPoD’s Catherine Stonestreet Purcell for both having the longest name on the ballot and being the most interesting to follow because you really can’t pin her down on left or right. I sometimes wonder if she has a future career as an investigative journalist because she has the perfect undercover job as an Uber driver – she admits to going to places where she feels more likely to pick up well-connected people and just talking to them. Being the (admitted) Qanon participant, she has a deep interest in child trafficking and perhaps the most diverse Facebook friends list in Delaware.

All that is great for human interest, but in the meantime I have to vote for someone. I have to admit I have warmed up a bit to Lee Murphy’s campaign as he has presented a good case for replacing the incumbent to the voters. They should reward Lee Murphy by sending him to Congress.

Last – but certainly not least – is the race for U.S. Senate, preferably to replace the partisan hack Chris Coons, whose campaign has basically been “orange man bad.” With the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and subsequent nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court we’ve seen this tendency up close and personal.

Again, we have three opponents – although in this case, they are generally of a higher caliber than the House field. The only exception I would take to that is IPoD’s Mark Turley, who really hasn’t been out there and when he is Turley is trying to portray himself as a down-the-middle moderate – one who just happens to make his living in an industry the Senate can really help with ill-advised legislation (renewable energy.)

To be perfectly honest, I was torn in this race. Philosophically I line up best with the Libertarian hopeful Nadine Frost, who is a pro-life Libertarian. (In other words, she gets it.) Yet realistically the one with the best chance for defeating Coons is Republican Lauren Witzke, who has run an uneven campaign filled with landmines of her own making, particularly regarding the passing of the aforementioned RBG. She would be an almost automatic choice except for two places I vehemently disagree with her: one being the idea of incentivizing marriage and family through government policy (as opposed to that of merely not penalizing it) and the other being her stance against right-to-work as some sort of appeal to Big Labor voters – never mind that jobs tend to accrue to right-to-work states when all other conditions are substantially equal. Those are two big strikes against her, and her reaction to RBG’s death was very nearly strike three – somehow she managed to foul it off and stay alive.

Lauren has also managed to do what may be necessary to win and that’s nationalize her race. But then again, so did Christine O’Donnell and – fairly or unfairly – that’s the candidate and race people like to compare this to. This is one of those cases where the head was going one way and the heart the other – until I found the website.

But once I found out Nadine Frost had finally created a website that expanded on the limited information she had come up with earlier, it made my choice easy. If Lauren Witzke can win despite her missteps and big-government populist approach, then more power to her – she will still be a vast improvement over the incumbent.

Voting, however, should come down to who, in your judgement, will do the best job. Because she would be a Senator who thinks almost exactly like I do (right down to some of the phrasing, which makes me wonder if she reads my website), I have to vote for Nadine Frost for Senate. You can blame me if Lauren Witzke loses a close race, but thanks to a few self-inflicted political wounds I honestly don’t think it will come down to that.

So to recap, don’t just vote the straight GOP ticket:

U.S. Senator: Nadine Frost (Libertarian)
U.S. House: Lee Murphy (Republican)
Governor: Julianne Murray (Republican)
Lt. Governor: Donyale Hall (Republican)
Insurance Commissioner: Dr. Julia Pillsbury (Republican)

I haven’t decided if I’ll do a Presidential endorsement or not. Maybe I’ll make it formal this week, but I have one other race I want to discuss that’s not a Delaware race.

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.

A Delaware political update: part 3, the Governor’s race

I have probably screwed this series up by not saving this part for last because, frankly, this is the race most people in Delaware are interested in given this era of Wuhan flu.

But the actions of current Governor John Carney have alienated many voters who may have previously believed he was another executive cut from the cloth of the prototypical business-friendly, somewhat centrist Democrat Delaware governor. His clampdown on business activity and alliance with other governors in states similarly affected by COVID-19 – including New York’s Andrew Cuomo – have brought many voters to the point of demanding an alternative, if not Carney’s head on a pike.

To his credit, Governor Carney has pretty much abandoned his campaign mode for the upcoming election as he’s not been updating the campaign Twitter or Facebook feeds over the last couple months. Having said that, though, it’s not like he’s not in the news as we deal with the pandemic and it’s his response that will likely make his re-election bid sink or swim. Assuming he decides to run for another term since he hasn’t formally filed yet, Carney would seek to make it four in a row – four consecutive two-term Delaware Democrat governors, that is. Include two Republicans in the mix during the Reagan/Bush era and you get six consecutive* two-term governors.

(Trivia points: Ruth Ann Minner was actually a slightly over two-term governor since she succeeded Tom Carper as his lieutenant governor in the waning days of Carper’s second term before he joined the U.S. Senate before starting her own terms in the state’s highest office. *And the last Republican governor was Dale Wolf, who as lieutenant governor served out Mike Castle’s last term for 20 days in 1992-93 as Castle moved to Congress. In theory, he was not a two-term governor, hence the asterisk.)

In case Carney does not run, there is another candidate who has set up a campaign account and, since he is running on a progressive platform, may well face a last-minute party-favored substitute such as current LG Bethany Hall-Long in a primary. But David Lamar Williams, Jr. isn’t on the primary ballot yet so we don’t know.

Until this past week, the only one who was on the ballot for governor was Libertarian Party member John Machurek, but he doesn’t have much of a presence out there. Machurek has been on a ballot for most of the last several cycles, doing the standard third party believer chore of running for office to advance their views despite having a severely limited chance of success.

It’s always been my belief that, in order to have a chance to succeed as an unknown, a candidate needs to get out there as early as possible and build up name recognition. Despite the fact Delaware has a late primary date, unknowns should be in the game several months beforehand. (Senate candidate Lauren Witzke is a case in point – she filed her FEC paperwork the day after New Year’s Day, which was pretty good.) At the time I began writing this, there were only two Republicans who have active campaign accounts for governor and I’m not sure Colin Bonini wants to loan himself another $60,000 to run. I think that’s the only reason his 2016 governor’s race account remains open.

Bonini is one of just a few Republicans who have run a major statewide race in the last decade, so there aren’t many options with that sort of name recognition. Perhaps the best out of that group are the two most recent U.S. Senate candidates, Rob Arlett and Kevin Wade. Both of them have won contested primaries, as did Bonini in 2016. If one of them decided to get into the race it would be an advantage to get through a GOP primary – but, aside from Bonini, none have created a new non-federal account to run for governor.

However, in this era of coronavirus and short attention spans, there are those who believe a new face is just what the doctor ordered. In the space of a few weeks since this virus hit home, the situation got a 30-year-old former Marine and entrepreneur named Neil Shea to run on the Republican ticket, making it three statewide races with GOP millennials in them. His platform stands in direct opposition to Clampdown Carney’s, stating in part:

We think the current administration is out of ideas. That’s okay. We’re Americans. We’re innovative. We’re resillient. We always find a way to survive. All we ask is that you get out of our way while we do what is necessary to earn a paycheck.
“Economy & Jobs” platform plank, Shea for Delaware website

Back on Friday night, as I was writing this, I concluded, “It’s doubtful Shea will get a free pass to the GOP nomination, but at this late date there are few who could jump into the race with enough name recognition to make a splash and secure the nomination.” Sure enough, on Saturday afternoon I learned that State Senator Bryant Richardson had let the cat out of the bag at a religious freedom rally in Dover. (Surely he can’t formally announce a run until he has the campaign finance committee in place, although I suppose that could be as easy as changing the office sought since he already has a Senate account.)

It turns out that Richardson is my state senator as I live in his 21st District; however, I have never met the man. (He did send me a form letter when my voter registration came in, so he may know my actual affiliation.) I know he will get a little bit of favorable press because he owns the Star newspapers that service Laurel and Seaford, among other places. I also know that out of 21 current Delaware Senators Bryant has the third-best lifetime voting record on the monoblogue Accountability Project and is one of only two Senators to be one of my Legislative All-Stars. (The other is 2016 GOP nominee Colin Bonini.) So I can assume that his platform will probably be at least somewhat agreeable to me.

Because it’s a statewide race with different campaign finance rules, this one may be in flux for a little bit longer; however, I can’t see there being more than two or three on the GOP primary ballot for the office thanks to the hefty filing fee.

In my next part I’ll do a twofer as I explore the final two statewide races: lieutenant governor and insurance commissioner.

Late edit 5-26-2020: I have found out the Independent Party of Delaware has nominated Kathy DeMatteis of Newark for the governor’s chair. Her Twitter page tells us she is a “20 year veteran of the healing arts” and an aspiring novelist (as well as Delaware’s next governor.) They also nominated an LG candidate, which I will get to in the next part.

Also filing as a Republican is David Bosco of Greenwood. This just happened today so things are beginning to get active.

Closing the loop: a postmortem, part one

I’m sure that many millions of people like me who stayed up until almost 3 this morning (yet had to get up and go to work) were of several minds: anything from watching a slow-motion trainwreck to openly savoring the bitterness coming from the hearts of the so-called “experts” who predicted a massive blowout loss for Donald Trump. And until the last maybe week to 10 days I was among that group, but it seems there is a reservoir of support Trump could keep tapping into that other Republicans could not.

That subject is one I will get to in due course (that being part two) but for the moment I just want to work through my series of predictions and see if my crystal ball has been fixed. Just as I reeled them out from national to local, I will wind them backward to wrap them up.

And just as an aside, while early voting had historically high turnout, the reason will end up being that people just wanted to wash their hands of this election.

I think that panned out to a fair extent. Turnout is lining up to be right around or perhaps slightly below where it was in 2012, depending on how many absentees or provisional ballots there were. Including early voting, Maryland brought out a little over 2.5 million voters. Considering the state has about 300,000 more voters in this cycle, I think the turnout percentage will decrease or stay about where it was – the timing of votes was what shifted.

Across the border, I fear Delaware will vote for more of the same then wonder why their state isn’t getting better. Basically the state will have the same political composition with different names on the nameplates in Congress and state executive offices – not that Sussex County agreed with it, but they will be outvoted as usual by the New Castle Democrat machine.

In the state of Delaware, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by a 53%-42% margin, Democrat Congressional hopeful Lisa Blunt Rochester won 56%-41% over Republican Hans Reigle. and in all three state government races, the Democrats won by almost identical margins: 58%-39%, 59%-41%, and 59%-41%. Aside from an extra 10,000 or so votes cast in the governor’s race to accommodate the Green and Libertarian candidates, the Democrats’ totals were all within 2,000 votes and the GOP within 2,500.

But if you break it down by county and the city of Wilmington, you find that Hillary won 84.8% in Wilmington, 59.4% in the rest of New Castle County, 44.9% in Kent County, and 37.2% in Sussex County. The problem is New Castle County’s Hillary votes were more than the combined overall total of either Sussex or Kent County. Sussex only went 41% for Rochester, 45% for governor-elect John Carney, 47% for lieutenant governor-elect Bethany Hall-Long, and 40% for new insurance commissioner Trinidad Navarro. Going forward they need to keep statewide Democrats in the 20s in Sussex County, but that may be a tall task as those who retire there generally come from Democratic core states and apparently don’t change their voting patterns.

On the questions, I believe Question 1 will get in the neighborhood of 80% statewide but maybe 75% here. The biggest controversy will be that Question A’s Option 2 will win a plurality of the vote but not quite a majority – a spirited Democrat effort will pull Option 2 down to 48% but Option 1 will get just 32%, with 20% opting for the hybrid. Otherwise, all the charter amendments will pass by healthy margins of 65 to 80 percent in favor.

Question 1 got 73.6% here (so I was close) but I underestimated the statewide wisdom to some extent, as the partisan measure passed on a 72-28 margin overall (as opposed to 80%.) I was just 3 percentage points off on Question A but Option 2 managed a slight 51% majority rather than a plurality. The Democrats probably got a late start in backing Option 1 because it underperformed my estimate by 7 points while the hybrid Option 3 outperformed by 5 points. The other questions ranged from 63 to 77 percent in favor, so I was in the ballpark. Maybe my public opposition brought them down 2 to 3 percent each.

Andy Harris will be returned to Congress, but not by as much as previous years. He will get 60.7% of the vote both overall and in Wicomico County, but Joe Werner’s 35.9% of the vote districtwide will shrink to 33.8% here. The Libertarian Matt Beers will have 3.2% districtwide but do somewhat better here, with 5.2% support in Wicomico County.

I was somewhat correct with Harris. He got 7% better than I predicted districtwide, but I was correct that he did decline slightly from 2014, when he was a shade over 70%. That extra came from Werner as he came up 7.9% short of what I thought he would and Matt Beers came in 1% better at 4.2%. Here in Wicomico, though, I was much closer: Harris underperformed my guess by 1.7% while Werner jumped 3.3%. The Libertarian Beers came in 1.5% less here. It’s worth noting, though, that the Libertarians’ share of the vote has increased slightly with each election they participate in – back in 2008 they had 2.5%, in 2010 3.8%, in 2012 3.8% (but Muir Boda came close to edging the write-in Democratic candidate here in Wicomico with 5.9% vs. 6%) and now 4.2%.

Looking at the U.S. Senate race, I think that Chris Van Hollen wins no more than eight counties but those will be enough to propel him to victory with 61.1% of the vote, compared to Kathy Szeliga’s 37.8%. Margaret Flowers will get 0.6% and various write-ins the rest. Wicomico will be one Szeliga wins, but not quite as strongly as Trump – she gets 59.3% of the vote while Van Hollen has 40.3% and Flowers 0.2%.

Van Hollen won just six counties, but unfortunately for Szeliga they included the four biggest so she was trounced. I gave Van Hollen about 1% more credit than he deserved, but Szeliga got no benefit as she was 1.4% short. All the underage went to Flowers, who grabbed over fivefold the share I predicted at 3.2%. Just as some on the right may give Libertarians the vote in a race they know is safe (I’ve done this several times in the past) I think those well out on the left figured it wouldn’t hurt to push the Flowers total up. But when Szeliga undercuts my modest expectations (to have a shot, she really had to be in the 75% range here and elsewhere on the Eastern Shore) by a full 5.7%, it’s a short wait for a concession speech. Van Hollen only lost our supposedly conservative county by 10.4 points (and beat my guess by about 3 points) but a shocker was that Flowers did about as well here as she did statewide. I thought she would be lucky to get 100 votes locally; she picked up 1,163.

I’m going to stop with that because I want to see the write-in votes for President before I comment on that race. But I will say that I am shocked at the number of write-in votes, as over 40,000 were cast statewide. I’m sure many of these won’t be counted, but it won’t be 85% of them like it was in 2012. I may have been overly pessimistic on Evan McMullin, Darrell Castle, Tom Hoefling, and so forth as they may split 15 to 20 thousand votes (although McMullin will get the lion’s share.) We won’t know for a few days, though, and when we do I will pick up with the second part regarding the Presidential race.

Regarding Delaware statewide races

I have finally come around to the Delaware state races after speaking on Congressional races both in the First State and the First District of Maryland as well as the U.S. Senate race here in my adopted home state. Unlike Maryland, Delaware’s top two statewide offices are elected in separate ballots, meaning it’s theoretical that the governor represents a different party than his or her lieutenant governor.

I will begin with the race for governor, which features four on the ballot and one write-in hopeful. As I have done previously, we’ll go in alphabetical order on the ballot which means the GOP standardbearer leads off.

Colin Bonini (Republican Party)

Key facts: Bonini has held elective office as a State Senator since 1994, which is the vast majority of his adult life as he first won at the age of 24. He also previously ran for state Treasurer in 2010, losing narrowly, so this is his second run statewide. Colin also works in the financial industry for a bonding agency and owns a small venture capital firm. Bonini is 46 years of age. Of the four on-ballot candidates for governor Bonini was the only one with a primary challenger, and he defeated Sussex County businesswoman Lacey Lafferty by a nearly 70-30 margin.

Key issues: Education, Economic Development, Crime, State Budget, 2nd Amendment, Regulations, Personal Freedom and Liberty

Thoughts: In looking at Colin’s platform and some of what he is about, he strikes me as a relatively by-the-book conservative who wants to make government work better yet also has the potential of rightsizing government in a number of ways. Because of the nature of Delaware’s budget, Colin may have the better mindset for a potential pitfall to come based on a recent federal court decision regarding Delaware’s unclaimed property laws. Two definite items in his favor: an advocacy to make Delaware a right-to-work state and a pledge to pull Delaware out of the RGGI boondoggle – a step Larry Hogan should also be taking in Maryland to relieve pressure on state utilities.

John Carney (Democrat Party)

Key facts: Carney was supposed to be governor eight years ago (as the survivor of the Democrats’ primary is the odds-on favorite to win) but he was displaced in the primary by now-outgoing Governor Jack Markell. Carney was the favorite because he served eight years as the Lieutenant Governor under fellow Democrat Ruth Ann Minner, but voters rejected him in 2008. He’s also been the state Secretary of Finance and the deputy chief of staff for another former Democrat governor, Tom Carper. But when the Delaware Congressional seat opened up in 2010 because Mike Castle wanted to move up to the U.S. Senate, Carney was Johnny-on-the-spot and bucked the TEA Party trend sweeping the nation as one of just a handful of newly elected Democrats. Like many other Democrats running, Carney has spent practically his whole adult life in government, although he briefly served as the chief operating officer of a wind energy company during his downtime from being LG to winning the Congressional seat. Carney is 60 years old.

Key issues: John’s “Vision for Delaware” includes sections on The Economy, Education, State Budget, The Environment, Healthcare, Criminal Justice, and Agriculture.

Thoughts: Truth be told, his is not the worst, most liberal platform out there (although it definitely has its pitfalls.) But the overarching problem with state assistance in a number of areas is that it becomes state control rather quickly. Carney’s policies to me come off as Wilmington-centric, which addresses the population as currently comprised but fails to account for the growth area of the state, which would be Sussex County. (Kent County is also growing faster than the state average, which is held down by New Castle County and Wilmington.) It’s likely Carney would govern in the same manner that Jack Markell has done – business-friendly enough to please those interests, but liberal enough to keep the machine which has propped up his political career for most of the last 35 years backing him.

Sean Goward (Libertarian Party)

Key facts: Goward is an Air Force veteran who made a lengthy career of it before retiring two years ago. Now he works as a railroad signal technician. Goward is 37 years old and making his first run for political office.

Key issues: Education, Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice Reform, Fiscal Policy, Accountability

Thoughts: Goward has some interesting ideas about the state of the state, but they seem to be lost when he makes civil liberties and criminal justice reform priorities over the economic issues people truly care about. I know that Libertarians are for smaller government, but where Goward fails in making the sell is relating the benefits of limited government to the voters of the state. It’s one thing to promise to cut spending in half in four years, but the reality of the situation would dictate a much less rapid winding down as well as an education course on why this would be a good thing. Also, Goward hasn’t updated his site since April so why should I take him seriously?

Andrew Groff (Green Party)

Key facts: Like the other Delaware Greens, Groff doesn’t have a formal website. What I did find is that he is 58 years old, and while he’s not run for governor before he ran for the U.S. Senate seat in both 2014 and 2012 – the 2012 race was run with the additional blessing of the Delaware Libertarian Party.

Key issues: From the limited reading I have, Groff is well entrenched with the Green Party line which would entail a much larger government.

Thoughts: As a party, the Green Party barely made the 636 registered voter cutoff for ballot access this year. (As a comparison, Maryland has 8,614 registered Greens in a state about sevenfold Delaware’s population.) So it’s not like Groff will make a large dent, but the fact he’s not making it easy for people to learn about him makes things even more difficult.

There is also one write-in candidate for governor by the name of Benjamin Hollinger, Sr. but I found nothing on him. So I will turn to the two LG candidates.

La Mar Gunn (Republican Party)

Key facts: Perhaps he’s one of the few Republicans to be the head of a local NAACP chapter, as he leads the Dover chapter. Gunn ran for the Kent County Recorder of Deeds in 2014 and won the vote on election day by two votes, but four non-identical recounts later (two of which expanded Gunn’s lead and one that was a flat tie) it was deemed in court that the office was vacant, and Governor Jack Markell appointed his fellow Democrat. Gunn is a financial consultant by trade.

Key issues: Placed under two non-specific categories, “Jobenomics” and Fighting for Delaware.

Thoughts: Jobenomics is a carefully thought-out plan, but it’s way more complex than the average person wants to consider in a political context. If he could have boiled it down to a couple pages and related it to actual policy it may have been more helpful. As for the rest, it’s extremely skimpy. Granted, lieutenant governor may be a “bucket of warm spit” position (as evidenced by its vacancy over the last two years) but I think there needs to be more of an accessible platform for people to understand.

Bethany Hall-Long (Democrat Party)

Key facts: Hall-Long is one of the few Delaware candidates to be born in Sussex County, although she has spent the last 14 years in the state legislature representing portions of New Castle County. However, she spent several years outside the state, particularly in the Washington D.C. area (her husband was stationed in the Navy) and served as a Fellow in both the U.S. Senate and Department of Health and Human Services. She has a background in nursing, is 52 years old, and won a six-way primary for the LG nomination with just 29% of the vote.

Key issues: Jobs and growing the economy, Health, Education, Environment, Infrastructure

Thoughts: When I read the word “invest” four times in five paragraphs, I know I have to hold on to my wallet. Yet while Gunn is remarkably detailed in one area until one’s eyes glaze over, the platform of Hall-Long has the depth of a cookie sheet. And while I am not a grammar Nazi, I must say whoever wrote the copy for her website needs lessons in sentence structure. Again, there’s really not a great deal of function to the position but Hall-Long has some of the worst platitude speaking I’ve seen in this campaign. She may be a mom, a nurse, and a state senator but I have to wonder how much she knows about the role of government.

As far as those I would recommend to Delaware voters, there are really two clear-cut choices here. Since Colin Bonini knows John Carney fairly well, he can keep John around as an advisor on business issues. But the more aggressive job creation approach from Bonini is the one Delaware needs right now. And having a laserlike focus on job creation isn’t the worst thing in the world for a lieutenant governor to have, either. Remember, I’m looking at this not as a voter (because I live in Maryland) but as one who wants the First State to succeed because my employment depends a lot on it. The more people find Delaware attractive, the better chance my employer succeeds.

And I didn’t forget about Insurance Commissioner, but that balloting isn’t one that’s really important to me right now. So I have no opinion on it.

So if you are a Delaware voter, it’s in your best interest to vote for Colin Bonini and La Mar Gunn on Tuesday. They are clearly the better choices in their respective fields.