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.
