By Bradley Vasoli
Amidst GOP successes across the nation on Tuesday, Delaware remains deep blue. From the city of Wilmington to the governorship to Congress, the First State turned in election results that are delighting local Democrats — and spurring Delaware Republicans to strategize for future success.
The party has not held a statewide office since the final term of Auditor Tom Wagner and sole term of Treasurer Ken Simpler ended in January 2019.
Republican leaders across the state seem to agree that what it will take to course correct has a twofold answer: communication and fundraising. And nailing the former, they say, will boost the latter.
“You need a message,” Delaware Republican Party Secretary Brandon Brice told Delaware Live. “I think, moving forward, we can be much stronger on state, federal, county and city officials sharing the message…. You need something that tugs people’s heartstrings.”
Education Reform. Education Reform. And Cost of Living.
Foremost, Brice said, that message should underscore education reform and remind voters that, under Democratic control, Delaware ranks 45th among states in scholastic achievement, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The state ranks an even more abysmal 46th on education freedom, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Brice wants support for small business and public safety to get special emphasis as well. That, he believes, will spark greater grassroots support as well as increased donor interest.
New Castle County Republican Party Chair Eric Braunstein echoed Brice’s top issue.
“Education, education and education,” he said, especially lamenting the “utterly shocking” failures of the Wilmington public schools.
State Rep. Bryan Shupe (R-Milford), who won a decisive re-election in a closely watched race on November 5, shared Brice and Braunstein’s appetite for bolder GOP messaging, particularly regarding academic improvement.
“I would like to see House leadership for the Republican Party talk more proactively about what Delaware needs instead of being on the defensive,” said Shupe, who is the former CEO for this publication but is no longer affiliated with the organization. “Instead of just saying no, put out more strategic plans of what we are hearing from residents of how we can help our school systems, how we can help with healthcare, and how we can help with the local economy.”
Delaware’s 2024 GOP U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hansen, who lost to Democratic Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester mentioned another issue he believes can resonate with the public in a way that aids his party: the cost of living in a state where he said 60 percent of people are living paycheck to paycheck.
“Republicans are really going to have to do a good job of focusing on the issues that matter most,” he said.
State House gets a tinge bluer
The Republicans did barely avoid the net two-seat loss in the state House that would have given Democrats the supermajority needed to pass state constitutional amendments. But they did, as expected, lose the Pike Creek-based district held by gubernatorial candidate Mike Ramone and failed to pull off two high-profile attempted upsets in Sussex County,
The result is a net one-seat decrease in the House. The Democrats also retained their lopsided majority in the state Senate.
Republican lobbyist and former state representative Robert “Bobby” Byrd views Brenda Mennella’s loss to Democrat Frank Burns in Ramone’s district as unsurprising, given the locale’s Democratic lean. He said however, that Mike Simpler’s defeat by Claire Snyder-Hall and Nikki Miller’s loss to Democrat Stell Parker Selby in Sussex County were a bit more surprising given what appeared to be heightened interest in conservatism in those areas.
Ultimately, he said, those sections of Sussex remain challenging political territory for his party.
“Because of the diverse population on the eastern side of Sussex County, that’s a lot of Democrat votes and the Republicans weren’t able to get over that,” he observed.
He furthermore noted that eastern Sussex has seen an influx of new residents from places like Washington, D.C., New Jersey and New York, compounding the demographic challenge the GOP faces.
State GOP Chair Julianne Murray, who took office last year, made the same observation about that part of the county. Ramone, who lost the governor’s race statewide to New Castle County Executive Matthew Meyer, won Sussex County by roughly 20,000 votes. But Republicans have seen a much greater advantage in the jurisdiction in years past.
“Sussex County is not as red as it historically has been,” she said. “There has been a huge influx of people from out of state who have moved down into Sussex County from — I’m going to use the word ‘more liberal’ — northeast states and they’re registering as Democrats.”
Byrd suggested high-ranking Republicans will face backlash, justly or unjustly, for their party’s house losses. Minority Whip Lyndon Yearick, for instance, spearheaded fundraising for House GOP candidates. Byrd said the Woodside-area Republican has handled his duties impressively, though he’ll likely get a challenge to his leadership post.
Top-tier New Castle Democrats coast
The Democratic stronghold of New Castle County was a terrain where Republicans were even less competitive. The county GOP was open to fielding opposition to Governor John Carney and Marcus Henry, who respectively ran successful campaigns for Wilmington mayor and county executive.
The GOP initially had a candidate for county executive, but he decided against a run so he could attend to professional duties and the registration disadvantage daunted any other potential Republican hopefuls throwing their hats in the ring.
“We just didn’t have candidates,” Braunstein said. “It’s just that simple, I’m sorry to say.”
His view is broadly shared within his party.
“I don’t think it was a strategic move that we’re not going to do this or we’re not going to do that,” Byrd, who lives in New Castle, said. “It was the fact that we don’t have anybody who’s interested.”
P.J. O’Dwyer, chair of the Northern New Castle County Region Republican Committee, concurred.
“I would not characterize it as a conscious decision,” he said. “What it was was an inability to find someone willing to do it…. [They] were two [offices] that I viewed as relatively high priorities.”
He recalled speaking to “literally dozens” of Wilmington Republicans for mayoral recruitment purposes. Some gave it serious thought, but O’Dwyer was candid about the uphill battle they would face in a city where only about one in ten voters are Republicans. He got no takers.
“Winning would have been a very, very, very unlikely scenario,” he said. “But I still think there would have been value in doing that.”
Braunstein, who agreed it would be ideal to have challengers to Carney and Henry next time around, said a major local Republican focus in New Castle this year was Melissa Brayman’s bid for County Council president. He described her as a stellar campaigner, but the party-affiliation numbers rendered her path to victory against Democrat Monique Johns too steep to overcome.
Murray said triaging Republican efforts in the state’s northern region had to happen as her committee focused on fundraising and party infrastructure.
“From a candidate-recruitment standpoint and a resources standpoint, we just weren’t set up to be able to have candidates in every election,” she said.
Where should Delaware Republicans focus their efforts?
Byrd doubts either Henry, who is replacing Meyer as county executive, or Carney, who is replacing retiring Mayor Mike Purzycki, would find themselves vulnerable if they run for reelection in four years. The Republican lobbyist is counseling his political compatriots to aim for more attainable goals.
“The Republican Party ought not focus on the city,” he advised. “They ought to focus on what the General Assembly’s going to do, what a new Democratic governor’s going to do, and the fact that the Democrats control the House, the Senate and the governorship…. And [that electoral agenda] takes time and money.”
Brice, however, said he doesn’t see Carney and Henry as politically invincible, opining that Republicans could gain traction against them if they make a more populist appeal, for example, working to create more contracting opportunities for minority-run businesses.
“Every candidate has vulnerabilities,” he said. “I think both Carney and Henry are good people. I am personally friends with both. However, I think that if you are the mayor, I think you’ve really got to have a conversation around subcontract agreements and getting more people in the game around opportunities for more contractors of color.”
To become politically ascendant in northern Delaware, one key task for New Castle Republicans is filling party committee vacancies that remain in numerous election districts. GOP officials couldn’t provide exact numbers offhand, but they noted the recruitment effort is an ongoing process.
State of the party
Republicans, totaling roughly 207,000 statewide, are outnumbered in the First State not only by Democrats (numbering about 353,000) but by unaffiliated voters totaling approximately 227,000). The GOP did, however, move the needle in terms of the presidential vote, where Kamala Harris only beat Donald Trump’s by about 37,000 votes, representing almost 42 percent statewide.
Still, Byrd said the Delaware Republicans are in a state about as dire as the registration numbers suggest. He observed a steep decline in party strength over the last two decades.
“The Republican Party in Delaware is pretty much disorganized on a statewide basis,” he said. “And they don’t have the old committee structure, they don’t have the old interests that they had 20, 25 years ago, and as a result of that, they can’t find candidates.”
Dover-based Republican lobbyist Scott Kidner said the imbalanced demographics deter many who would otherwise be inclined to aid the party.
“As Delaware continues to be this very, one-party, deep-blue state, folks start making decisions about ‘Well, I’m not going to be doing Republican politics in Delaware; there’s nowhere to go,’” he said.
He added that a party with so little power can provide fewer professional opportunities to those who involve themselves in it. And this cycle of waning power and waning interest among grassroots supporters can is manifested in scant fundraising. Just since early September, the Democratic State Committee raised $658,000 while its GOP counterpart raised only about $23,000.
Charlie Copeland, a former state Senator, lieutenant governor candidate, and state GOP chair who now heads economic and fiscal policy at the free-market Caesar Rodney Institute said the Republicans’ fundraising disadvantage makes it difficult for the GOP and its nominees to improve in other areas.
“It’s really hard for Republican candidates because they’re outrageously outspent…,” he said. “When you’re grossly outgunned, it’s hard to do almost anything.”
While he sympathizes with the current GOP leadership on that score, he said that fundraising handicap should prompt the party to present a clear contrast with the Democrats that emphasizes a commitment to small government and free enterprise. In a state that has seen zero overall economic growth in 20 years, he believes, that should be an easier case to make than many realize.
“You can’t just be Democrat-lite,” he said. “You have to give voters a reason to say, ‘Wait a minute, there’s somebody else out there who I’m not hearing from because they don’t have any money, and that means being bold.”
That, he clarified, does not impugn the overall quality of the Republican candidates who ran this year, a slate he regards as serious and diligent.
And Murray said Delaware Republicans do see some hopeful signs. First, she is confident that a new GOP White House will usher in better economic conditions that will warm voters to her party. Also, Republican turnout in Delaware this November was a relatively high 75 percent, compared with 65.7 percent overall.
“What it shows is we really banded together in this election,” she said. “We were very upbeat…. So that’s something I think we can capitalize on.”
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