Election 2008 in Delaware

November 4, 2008 was the most notable election in recent Delaware history. Our nation elected its first African American President Barack Obama and, along with him, our own Joe Biden as Vice President. The Obama/Biden ticket took Delaware 62% to 37% for McCain/Palin, with the remaining 1% being divided among third party candidates. Vice President-elect Biden was also on the ballot for his United States Senate seat. In that race, he defeated Republican Christine O’Donnell 65% to 35%. Nationally, the Obama/Biden ticket won 52% of the popular vote (65,101,106) and 365 electoral votes versus McCain/Palin’s 46% of the popular vote (57,168,270) and 162 electoral votes. The remaining two percent of the vote went to third party candidates.

In Congress, the Democrats retained and increased their majorities in both the House and Senate. In the U.S. House of Representatives the Democrats picked up 20 seats, increasing their number to 254 seats versus the Republicans current 173. Eight races remain to be settled. 2 will be decided in a December runoff in Louisiana. The remaining six are being reviewed by election authorities in the respective states: Alaska, Ohio, Virginia and California. Seven of the eight are currently in Republican hands.

At the time of this writing there is a seven seat gain for Democrats in the Senate. 2 U.S. Senate races are yet to be decided: Georgia, Minnesota and Alaska. The Democrats gain brings their number to 55 Democrats. Georgia will hold a runoff election between incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democratic challenger Jim Martin on December 2. Georgia law requires one when no candidate in a race garners more than 50% of the vote. Third party challengers took enough from each candidate to require the runoff. In Minnesota a recount is under way to settle the race between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken. In preliminary results, each received 42% of the vote with third party challenger Dean Barkley picking up the remainder. Coleman has seen his lead shrink from more than 700 votes to 239 as more absentee ballots and polling place errors are corrected. If the Democrats pick up the remaining two seats, they would technically be 2 votes short of cloture (the ability to end debate/filibuster on a measure) and would need to rely on the two independents in the Senate, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont to vote with them to attain cloture. Observers are closely watching Lieberman as he is currently somewhat on the outs with Democratic leadership and the Democrats in general following his endorsement and active support of the McCain/Palin ticket. Senator Lieberman will continue to caucus with the Democrats and will retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee, but will lose his chairmanship of a subcommittee in a compromise reached with Democrats this week.

At the State level there were few surprises. Democratic candidate and current state treasurer Jack Markell handily defeated his Republican opponent retired Superior Court judge William Swain Lee with 67.5% of the 395,155 votes cast. In the lieutenant governor’s race, Democrat Matt Denn prevailed receiving 61% to Charlie Copeland’s 39%. The Democratic trend continued in the race for insurance commissioner with Karen Weldin-Stewart garnering 57% of the vote defeating her Republican opponent John Brady (41%) and Tom Savage (1.5%).

In the Delaware General Assembly the House majority changed from Republican to Democrat for the first time in 26 years. The House changed from 23-18 Republican majority to a 25-16 Democratic majority. Incumbents, Bob Valihura (R-Talleyville), Donna Stone (R-Dover), Nancy Wagner (R-Dover), Greg Hastings (R-Millsboro), Vince Lofink (R-Caravel Farms) and House Speaker Terry Spence (R-Stratford) all lost their seats to challengers. Dennis E. Williams defeated Bob Valihura with 51% of the vote. Darryl Scott, a school board member from the Capital School District, defeated Nancy Wagner with 53% of the vote. Brad Bennett will replace Donna Stone after receiving 57% of the vote. John Atkins will regain his House seat as a Democrat after defeating Greg Hastings with 53% of the vote. In a hotly contested race in Bear, Earl Jacques received 48.7% of the vote to Vince Lofink’s 48.3% (a third part candidate, James Spencer, received 3%). In another example of this year’s electoral trend, Mike Barbieri defeated the incumbent House Speaker, Terry Spence with 53% of the vote. Representative Pam Thornburg regained her seat following a code-mandated recount nearly 48 hours after the polls closed (the election was decided by less than a percent). The original count showed Charles “Trey” Paradee winning with 50.1% of the vote.

Democrats expanded their 36 year-long majority control of the Senate by three seats. Prior to the election, the body was comprised of 13 Democrats and 8 Republicans. Afterward, there are 16 Democrats and 5 Republicans. Physician and Democratic candidate Michael Katz was elected to the 4th District Senate seat vacated by Charlie Copeland with 50.7% of the vote versus his Republican opponent, John Clatworthy. Former State Representative Bethany Hall-Long won retiring 10th District Senator Steve Amick’s seat with 64.9% versus Republican Jim Weldin’s 35.1%.