Snyder-Hall takes District 14 seat

Claire Snyder-Hall knocked on a lot of doors for her primary win, and she kept on knocking to lock up the win Nov. 5 for the 14th District representative seat formerly held by Pete Schwartzkopf.

“After we won the primary we continued knocking on doors, and I was specifically focusing on independents,” Snyder-Hall said. “It’s a different population, but a lot of them said they were going to vote blue all the way down this year.”

In unofficial results posted on the Department of Elections website, she won the race with about 54% of the vote, 9,627-7,989.

As the new 14th District representative, who will immediately take office the day after election, Snyder-Hall said she wants to work with her colleagues to get a constitutional amendment to secure early voting, vote by mail and same-day registration, and remove Jim Crow language such as a literacy requirement.

She also supports bringing a medical school to the state. “We’re so short on healthcare providers,” she said.

The lack of doctors and healthcare providers in the area was the No. 1 concern Snyder-Hall said she heard from constituents.

“Both of those are long-term plans, so I’d want to get started right away on that,” she said.

Gruenebaum ousts Schaeffer

Democrat newcomer Jane Gruenebaum ousted incumbent Republican Mark Schaeffer for the District 3 Sussex County Council seat by a 20,610-17,050 unofficial vote. 

From the joint election night venue at the Listening Booth in Lewes that Gruenebaum shared with Sen. Russ Huxtable, D-Lewes, she said she knew challenging an incumbent would be a steep hill to climb, but she also knew how upset people in the county were about overdevelopment.

Gruenebaum thanked everyone who helped make her campaign a success.

“This was an amazing campaign run by the people of Sussex County, not the builders of Sussex County,” she said. “We are going to bring the change to county council we promised we would bring.”

Parker Selby wins tight race

Rep. Stell Parker Selby, D-Milton, kept her representative seat for District 20 by about 250 votes over Republican newcomer Nikki Miller.

She addressed her supporters at Irish Eyes in Lewes, but there was no clear winner by the time the party ended. 

"Thank you to everyone in this room for the support. No matter what the results are, I'm still going to be a mouthpiece here in Delaware," she said

The unofficial results shows she won 8,854-8,610.

Huxtable keeps Senate seat

Sen. Russ Huxtable, D-Lewes, retained his Senate seat with about 54% of the vote, beating Republican challenger Kim Hoey Stevenson 20,208-16,968.

He said he is looking forward to spending time with his family now that the results were released.

“We did this because community matters. Community is what this campaign has been about. It’s about working together to create the community we want to grow in,” he told his supporters at the Listening Booth.

To see unofficial results and photographs from candidates’ watch parties, go to https://tinyurl.com/3u3zcswf. 

New faces 

Democrats secured all state races for governor, lieutenant governor, insurance commissioner, and the U.S. Senate seat and House of Representatives seat. Matt Meyer, Kyle Evans Gay and Lisa Blunt Rochester each took about 56% of the vote for their respective governor, lieutenant governor, and U.S. Senate wins. Trinidad Navarro took about 58% of the vote for his insurance commissioner win, and Sarah McBride took about 57%.

Republicans lose a seat 

Republicans lost the District 21 seat held by Mike Ramone, who ran for governor. Democrat Frank Burns won the seat. Other new Democrats are Melanie Ross Levin in District 10, who replaces Sean Matthews who didn’t run for re-election; Kamela T. Smith, who was unchallenged for the District 15 seat after beating Speaker of the House Valerie Longhurst in the September primary; and Mara Gorman, who was unchallenged in replacing Paul Baumbach in District 23.

The loss of Ramone’s seat leaves Republicans with 14 seats to the Democrats 27. 

The Department of Elections has no information yet on when a special election would be held for the Senate District 1 and District 5 seats that were held by McBride and Evans Gay.

Staff writers Chris Flood and Bill Shull contributed to this story