What to expect in Delaware’s state primaries

Delaware’s most prominent elected official, President Joe Biden, may have upended the presidential race in July when he dropped his bid for a second term, but it’s the impending departures of two other prominent Democratic officeholders, Gov. John Carney and U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, that are having ripple effects throughout the ballot in Tuesday’s state primaries.

Carney will leave statewide office next year after two terms as governor, two terms as lieutenant governor and three terms as the state’s lone representative to the U.S. House. His departure has set off contested primaries for both the Democratic and Republican nominations.

The Democratic candidates are Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer and National Wildlife Federation CEO and former state Natural Resources Secretary Collin O’Mara. The Republican candidates are retired police officer Jerry Price, state House Minority Leader Michael Ramone and small business owner Bobby Williamson.

Hall-Long has Carney’s endorsement and is the only candidate in the race to have previously won statewide office. But the two-term lieutenant governor has had a difficult summer after a state-ordered forensic audit of her campaign finances revealed improprieties over an eight-year period.

Emails reviewed by the Associated Press also showed that members of the lieutenant governor’s staff engaged in campaign activity on her behalf during government work hours, which is prohibited by state law. Hall-Long has disputed the findings of the forensic audit, saying the issues identified in the report were the result of minor bookkeeping errors. Nonetheless, Meyer, her primary rival, has called for a federal investigation into the matter.

Carney is barred from running for a third term as governor but will still appear on some ballots in the state as a candidate for mayor of Wilmington, Delaware’s most populous city. His opponent in the Democratic primary is another former statewide officeholder, Velda Jones-Potter, who was appointed state treasurer in 2009 and served about two years before losing her bid for a full term.

Long-Hall is also term-limited as lieutenant governor, and four women have lined up to replace her. State Rep. Sherry Dorsey-Walker, state Sen. Kyle Evans-Gay and state party vice chair Debbie Harrington are running for the Democratic nomination. Former state Rep. Ruth Briggs King is unopposed for the Republican nomination.

Carper’s announcement in 2023 that he would not seek a fifth term created the state’s first open-seat U.S. Senate race since 2010, when U.S. Sen. Chris Coons was elected to the seat Biden had vacated to assume the vice presidency. Democratic U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester looks to replace Carper, as does Republican former Walmart executive Eric Hansen. Both are unopposed for their parties’ nominations and will not appear on Tuesday’s ballot.

With Blunt Rochester running to replace Carper in the U.S. Senate, both Democrats and Republicans will hold contested primaries to take over the seat she has held since 2017. Democratic state Sen. Sarah McBride is the best-known and best-funded candidate across both primary fields. She has the backing of Carper, Coons and Rochester, and had $1.7 million in the bank as of the end of June. Her only competitor from either party to disclose any funds raised was Republican Donyale Hall, who reported a campaign war chest of just shy of $7,500. If elected, McBride would become the first openly transgender member of Congress.

Although control of both the U.S. Senate and House may come down to just a small handful of competitive races, the seats in Delaware are expected to remain firmly in the Democratic column. Once a reliable bellwether in presidential races, Delaware has shifted heavily Democratic since the 1990s. Republicans have not won the governorship since 1988, a U.S. Senate seat since 1994 or the U.S. House seat since 2008.

About half of Delaware’s 21 state Senate seats and all 41 state House seats are up for election 2024, although only 12 districts will hold contested primaries on Tuesday. Democrats hold about two-to-one majorities in each chamber.

Here’s a look at what to expect on Tuesday:

Primary day

Delaware’s state primaries will be held Tuesday. Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. House, state Senate, state House, insurance commissioner and mayor of Wilmington.

Who gets to vote

Delaware voters who are registered with a political party may only participate in that party’s primary. Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may not participate in either primary.

Decision notes

Of Delaware’s three counties, New Castle is by far the largest in population and the most heavily Democratic. In the 2020 presidential election, votes from New Castle made up about 57% of the statewide vote, compared to about 26% for Sussex County and 17% for Kent County.

For Democrats running in a statewide primary, a reasonable path to victory, short of sweeping all three counties, is to win New Castle by enough to offset losses in one or both of the other two counties. That’s the path Democratic state insurance commissioner Trinidad Navarro followed in his 2016 primary victory. In Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary, with both Hall-Long and Meyer claiming New Castle as their political base, there’s a possibility the two will largely split the vote there, leaving Kent and Sussex playing decisive roles. In her 2016 primary for lieutenant governor, Hall-Long narrowly carried New Castle and lost Sussex but still managed to place first with about 30% of the statewide vote when no single candidate was able to consolidate the remaining vote behind them.

For Republicans, it’s possible for a candidate in a multi-candidate field to win a statewide primary while losing New Castle, as long as they post a sizable margin in Sussex County, the state’s Republican stronghold. That’s how Julianne Murray won the 2020 Republican primary for governor.

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Recounts in Delaware are automatic for state legislative and county races if the vote margin is less than 1,000 votes or 0.5% of the total votes cast for the two candidates. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

What do turnout and advance vote look like

As of Aug. 1, there were about 780,000 registered voters in Delaware. Of those, 45% were Democrats, 26% were Republicans and about 22% were not registered with any party.

In the 2022 primaries, turnout was about 16% of registered voters, according to the Delaware Department of Elections. About 27% of Democratic primary voters and 12% of Republican primary voters cast their ballots before primary day.

As of Thursday, a total of 22,293 ballots had been cast before primary day, about 72% in the Democratic primary and 28% in the Republican primary.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2022 primaries, the AP first reported results at 8:30 p.m. ET, or 30 minutes after polls closed. The election night tabulation ended at 12:38 a.m. ET with all votes counted.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 56 days until the November general election.