Sen. Sarah McBride, Matt Meyer, Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester
With three Democrats already announcing a run for statewide offices in 2024, politicians say they expect the election’s main issues to be familiar to most voters.
“It’s the cost of things going up and kind of wages being stagnant,” said Sen. Brian Pettyjohn, R-Georgetown, minority leader in the Delaware State Senate.
“More and more I’m hearing from people, especially our increasing elder population that we have here in Sussex County, concerned about the price of their groceries going up, things that they have to spend money on every week where their Social Security kind of stays stagnant or their pensions stay stagnant,” he said.
Julianne Murray, chair of the Delaware State Republican Party, predicted that education and crime will be big issues, especially in the race for governor.
Related Story: Julianne Murray elected Republican party chair
Gov. John Carney is ending his second four-year term and won’t run for re-election.
“Where we are on test scores, not even getting into curriculum and things like that,” Murray said. “Crime is still going to be an issue that people are going to be talking about.”
What Murray doesn’t want to see is a focus on identity politics.
Sen. Brian Pettyjohn
“Where I think we should be going is talking about issues instead of…getting into the weeds of identity politics,” Murray said. “We should be talking about what’s affecting people’s day to day lives,” Murray said.
Matt Meyer, the New Castle County executive who announced June 6 that he’s running for governor, said there are several areas of concern such as ChatGPT and the healthcare system that he expects to come up.
“Everything from the struggles getting a doctor’s appointment that I hear across the state and are particularly acute in Sussex,” Meyer said. “The challenges of getting a quality public school education across our state. The challenges of things like ChatGPT and a rapidly changing economy. How do we best position the state to address those issues, as well as various issues involving the environment and climate change.”
Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester announced June 21 that she is running for Sen. John Carper seat. He has announced he is retiring.
In turn, Sen. Sarah McBride, D-Wilmington, announced on June 26 that she is running for Delaware’s lone congressional seat.
Blunt Rochester and McBride did not respond to requests for an interview. Neither did the Delaware State Democratic Party.
One more sign that an election year is coming: Scott Walker banners – many painted on what seems to be pieces of material – are hanging from trees and other perches up and down Delaware. It’s unclear exactly what he’s running for.
While the state’s presidential primary is on April 23, the state primary is still set for Sept. 10, 2024. A bill in this year’s General Assembly that would have moved the state primary to the same day as the presidential one failed.
While no Republicans have yet announced for state office, Murray said the party plans to run candidates for all state offices.
Murray believes voters tend to prefer outsiders.
“The electorate likes the idea of somebody that’s not a career politician…even at the federal level, when you see like any of the polling or anything like that,” Murray said. “People across the country are actually kind of tired of seeing the same people over and over…and I think one of the ways that you engage the 18 to 29 year olds is also by having younger candidates.”
Julianne Murray
Pettyjohn, who is minority party whip in the State Senate, said Republicans are actively soliciting candidates for open Senate seats. They hope to start announcing names by late summer to early fall.
“We’ve got some people that are interested that I think it’d be very good candidates,” Pettyjohn said. “We just need to make sure they’re willing to make the commitment and time and effort to do what needs to happen in order to win an office, especially in some of the districts that aren’t a majority of Republicans. They’re more blue than purple.”
He said that while voters make the ultimate decision, he’d like to see newer candidates.
“It just seems that there’s a lot of people that just kind of go through and hit the different offices once their term limit is up and try to seek higher office here in Delaware,” Pettijohn said. “I’d like to see fresher faces come in with new ideas rather than some of the ideas that have been out there and circulated and recirculated.”
Meyer said that there should be more diversity among elected representatives in terms of age, just like there should be for race and gender.
“It’s really important that those public institutions be reflective of the diversity of the people we serve,” Meyer said. “That’s been very true of my office in county government. People often talk about it in terms of race in terms of gender and sexual orientation, maybe somewhat religion, but it’s also important in terms of age.
“So if we have bodies on the national level, where everybody’s over 80 years old, making decisions, I think that leaves a lot of people unrepresented. And I also think that’s true at the state level.”
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