‘Time to pass the torch’: Delaware ACLU legal chief challenging Attorney General Kathy Jennings in Democratic primary

What are journalists missing from the state of Delaware? What would you most like WHYY News to cover? Let us know.

Dwayne J. Bensing, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Delaware, has sued the state government over education spending and prison conditions.

Bensing, 42, is also president of the Delaware Stonewall Political Action Committee, which works to promote the rights of LGBTQ+ residents and candidates who support fairness, equity and inclusion.

Bensing wants to be Delaware’s attorney general and has launched a campaign to unseat fellow Democrat Kathy Jennings, who is seeking a third four-year term, in the Sept. 15 primary election.

Should Bensing oust Jennings and then prevail in the Nov. 3 general election, he would also become a trailblazer — the first openly gay man elected as attorney general of any U.S. state.

Bensing said he’d be honored to hold that distinction.

“I’ve been really interested in ensuring that Delaware is a safe place for everyone, including the LGBTQ community,” Bensing said, pledging to continue such advocacy.

Republicans have not announced any candidate. The party’s 2022 candidate, Julianne Murray, recently declined the nomination.

“I think many people do not realize the sacrifice entailed in running for office,” Murray wrote to supporters. “It is a big ask.”

In Delaware, the attorney general oversees an office that prosecutes all felonies and most misdemeanors statewide, files and defends civil lawsuits, and represents state agencies.

Bensing is an Arkansas native who attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School and worked for Teach for America in Philadelphia before joining the Delaware ACLU six years ago.

Bensing said he’s seeking to become Delaware’s chief law enforcement officer because the state Department of Justice, which Jennings has run for nearly eight years, needs new leadership and direction.

“It’s time to pass the torch,” Bensing told WHYY News. “That’s kind of our campaign slogan. I think today’s problems can’t be solved with yesterday’s playbook.”

While Bensing credits Jennings for joining with other Democratic attorneys general who have sued the Trump administration over issues such as education, health care and immigration policies and funding, he said Delaware’s attorney general shouldn’t be a follower.

“I’m really looking for Delaware to become a leader on these, not just a joiner, on these fundamental civil rights issues,” Bensing said.

Jennings would not agree to an interview but said in a written statement that she was running again because “violent crime has reached historic lows” and that her office has won victories against the “gun lobby,” protected abortion rights, and reaped more than $300 million in settlements with drug companies over the opioid crisis.

“This is not just a job. It’s a fight. I’m not walking away in the middle of it,” Jennings’ statement said.

Bensing, however, charged that Jennings has not done enough for average residents.

For example, he noted that Jennings was the top aide to then-New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer in January 2018 when the ACLU sued the state over its education funding formula and sought the first reassessment of property values in decades. The government settled the case, with the state’s three counties agreeing to reassess properties.

Jennings was elected attorney general in November 2018 and was re-elected in 2022. Meyer was elected governor in 2024.

“The political status quo, to which the current attorney general belongs, just really isn’t working for everyday Delawareans and certainly not for our students in our public schools,” Bensing said.

Asked to respond to Bensing’s assertion that she isn’t doing enough for her constituents, Jennings stuck to her written statement.

“I’m not interested in attacking a Democrat with the country on fire,” Jennings said. “I’m working every day to protect our state from Donald Trump. In the last two years alone, I’ve had to take the president to court more than 50 times to make him follow the law and to protect our neighbors and our rights. That work must and will continue.”

Bensing counters that he should be the one doing that work, but realizes his first run for political office is a “grassroots” campaign that must overcome steep odds to oust the incumbent.

Jennings, 73, has strong, longstanding ties to the governor and other prominent Democrats, including Wilmington Mayor and former Gov. John Carney and the state’s three members of Congress.

“I’m very clear-eyed about this, and that’s pretty much the way the board is set up, but I think the timing is right,” Bensing said of the potential for a changing of the guard in his tiny adopted state. “A lot of Delawareans are sick of the way that the Delaware Way has helped some and left the rest of us behind. So, having only insiders at the table in state leadership isn’t always the best thing. We need someone who’s an independent person to hold everybody accountable to ensure that we’re protecting everyone’s rights.”