Congratulations to all of the primary election winners. Here’s to what has been, so far, a relatively positive local campaign season – with a few sign-defacement troubles in the 41st District aside – and we hope that the rest of the campaign will continue to be positive.
We look forward to a vigorous debate between Jack Markell and Bill Lee over how to best move the state forward, whether its toward universal health care coverage, as Markell proposes, or away from big government, as Lee has suggested.
On the newly-launched Delawaretalkradio.com, Lee took on a question during a live interview about how to best bridge the gap between Sussex development and DelDOT’s budget crunch (full disclosure: we e-mailed the question), and we hope that, despite the massive upstate voting blocs in Kent and New Castle, Markell and Lee don’t forget that Sussex is growing plenty fast.
But local focus will almost certainly turn to the 41st Representative District, as one-time incumbent – and one-time Republican – John Atkins will go up against the man who replaced him, Rep. Greg Hastings. After beating out Barbara Lifflander for a spot on the Democratic ticket, one question now is how many Lifflander voters will go for Hastings.
If you go strictly by their latest tallies, Atkins took 1,095 0f 2,033 votes in the Democratic primary. Hastings took 1,770 of 4,100 districtwide votes, beating out Democrat Lynn Bullock in the 2007 special election, held after Atkins resigned his seat.
The 41st District seat, however, may play a crucial role in giving Democrats control of the state House, and the second question is, will district Democrats hold Atkins’ past against him even if it means potentially missing out on that chance?
Man, we love election season.
