‘Just tired of losing’: As Delaware GOP reels from irrelevance, a senator challenges incumbent attorney for party chair

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This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Dave Lawson knows what it’s like to take on Democrats.

The Republican former state trooper and Vietnam veteran did just that in 2010.

That year, he was a political newcomer but defeated state Sen. Nancy Cook, the powerful chair of the Joint Finance Committee, for the western Kent County seat she had held for 36 years.

Ever since, Lawson has had a stranglehold on the seat that stretches from Smyrna to Harrington, and has been a consistent conservative voice in the Senate. He usually wins re-election without a GOP primary foe or a general election Democratic opponent on the ballot.

Now in office for 14 years, Lawson says he’s grown increasingly dismayed by the state of Delaware Republicans.

So Lawson is running to become the state GOP chair. He’s facing incumbent Julianne Murray, who won the two-year unpaid post in 2023. Murray is a lawyer and former candidate for governor (2020) and attorney general (2022).

“I’m running because I’m tired of losing. We’ve gone backwards and backwards,” the 78-year-old Lawson said last week.

The election results have been crushing for Delaware Republicans in recent years.

Since 2018, Republicans haven’t held a single one of the nine statewide offices, and in November, lost all five up for grabs, including governor and two congressional seats, by at least 10 points.

Down the ballot, Democrats also reign, with a 15-6 margin in the state Senate and 27-14 in the House. Dems also won the 2024 races for Wilmington mayor and New Castle County executive with no Republican opponent.

On Election Night, Murray didn’t try to sugarcoat the results. “We are the third party in this state,’’ she said, acknowledging the newest harsh reality underpinning all the losses.

For more than a decade, Democrats have held a nearly two-to-one voter registration advantage over the GOP for more than a decade. But now — for the first time — Delaware has fewer Republicans (209,400) than people who are unaffiliated or registered to a minor party (234,300). There are 353,000 Democrats.

Lawson thinks he can begin the process of reversing those devastating results, while Murray thinks she’s already begun doing so.

But only one can be at the helm. And on June 7, during the state GOP’s annual convention, the party’s 341 regional delegates will vote. Until then, Murray and Lawson will be stumping for votes.

‘I bring leadership. I bring a winning history,’ Lawson says

Lawson says he can change the downward trajectory.

“I bring leadership. I bring a winning history. I’ve certainly done well,” Lawson said. “I know how to lead. I know how to run campaigns. I know the ground game.”

Lawson pointed out Murray twice ran unsuccessfully for high office before becoming state GOP chair.

“I didn’t come in at the top, I’ve come in at the bottom, and that’s usually the better leader when you come up through the ranks,’’ he said. “I can bring people together. And I’m just tired of losing.”

He says one problem is that “we have no platform, we have no planks” for candidates to draw from in their campaigns.

“We have a kind of a word salad and you can call it a platform, but it’s more a mission statement,” Lawson said. “It’s got to be believed by the candidates and it’s got to be believed by the investors because right now, why would you invest in the Republican party? It’s in such disarray.”

‘Direction we are going is having a positive effect,’ Murray says

Murray, 54, said she welcomes Lawson’s candidacy but argues that she’s already begun that transformation, despite the November losses and the registration deficit.

She said the party is in better shape financially since she took over, and has a new statewide headquarters in Wilmington.

“We didn’t really have a structure in place for supporting the candidates. The regions were all kind of working in their own silos and not working together and working with the state party,’’ Murray said. “And we just weren’t getting our base out to vote.”

She said turnout improved in November, with 75% of registered Republicans voting, and 40% voting early.

“We did things like creating a Delaware GOP app that allowed anybody who had access to the app to go in and they could text, they could call, they could doorknock people in their neighborhoods, geolocate to where they were,’’ Murray said.

“And the lists kind of update as people are contacted, so it allowed us to do text messages, peer-to-peer text messages and calls that didn’t cost the party anything,’’ she said.

Murray said she’s running for re-election because “we’re not done. What we learned in November was even with terrific turnout, we don’t have enough registered Republicans or independents who are voting for our Republican candidates.”

To increase registration numbers, Murray said the answer is to address the deficit head-on with the voters.

“It’s publicizing it. It’s saying, look, we actually have an active party. The regions are all working together,’’ she said.

Murray brushed off Lawson’s assertion that the party doesn’t have any platforms, and insists that “incremental progress” has been made in her nearly two years.

“We had statewide platforms in terms of we pushed out education, we pushed out the economy,’’ she said. “All of our candidates were talking on the same talking points.”

“And granted, the election did not come out the way that we wanted it to, but I think we can demonstrate that the direction we are going is having a positive effect. And so ultimately, even though I have publicly said being a party chair is a soul-sucking spirit-crushing job, we haven’t finished.”

“So these next two years are needed to get to that next level. And that next level is recruiting candidates earlier in the process, doing that fundraising, not having to dig out of a hole. Building a war chest and just getting at it earlier.”