Delaware’s political shift is not due to Sussex demographics
Deirdre Hearn Taylor’s recent letter, “Delaware: Welcome to New Jersey,” was a partisan Republican screed blaming everyone who’s moved to Delaware’s beach towns in the last two decades for turning the state into her political nightmare. Taylor apparently didn’t consult the Delaware Department of Elections voter registration statistics before launching her attack.
Taylor derisively but incorrectly assumes that newcomers to the “Delaware beaches … moved here in droves, … bring[ing] their politics from the high-tax, problem-ridden states and want[ing] to turn Delaware, into a state full of the problems like their previous state by voting Democratic.” The facts tell a different story.
In January 2010, registered Democrats in Sussex County outnumbered Republicans – 51,339 to 47,538 – with 26,140 unaffiliated. As of Nov. 1, 2023, registered Republicans in Sussex County outnumber registered Democrats by more than 9,000 – 78,502 to 69,217 – with 46,328 unaffiliated voters. Yes, the county has grown enormously, but Republicans have been the overwhelming beneficiaries of that influx and today dominate county government and politics.
Delaware Republicans have suffered their greatest losses in New Castle County, which today has 88,297 registered Republicans – 12,360 fewer than in January 2010 – while Democrats there have gained 35,990 new registrants, for a total of 227,421 today. The ranks of the unaffiliated there have also grown by more than 15,000 to 101,375. The voter rolls have shrunk overall in Kent County since 2010, but Republicans there too have lost more registrants than Democrats.
Taylor seems unhappy with the out-of-state people she sees living around her on the Delaware shore. If so, she might want to speak with the all-Republican Sussex County Council and their Republican appointees to the Sussex County Planning & Zoning Commission, which have never met a new subdivision they didn’t like.
If Taylor wants to know why Delaware has become a blue state, she should look north, not at the beaches. Why the massive shift toward Democrats in the most populous parts of the state? In large part, it’s because the former Republican leaders she celebrates – moderates like Pete du Pont, Mike Castle, and Bill Roth (no relation to me) – would be unrecognizable and unwelcome in today’s Trump-obsessed, MAGA-driven, hard-right Republican Party.
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