The state of a non-state, 2025 edition

I'm seeing a slight Democrat trend with all the rats fleeing the sinking ships of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, etc.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Editor’s note: This is an updated republish of a post I did four years ago, in turn adapted from one I did in 2017.

Eight years ago, thanks to a rant by a Delaware writer and historian friend of mine by the name of Chris Slavens, I had the idea come to me of figuring out just how a state of Delmarva would have voted. It turned out we would be perhaps the most purple state in the country based on the 2016 election and how the legislature would stack up.

But because the 2020 election had a home state nominee in Joe Biden, the state of Delmarva (or you could call it New Delaware) would have been a more bluish shade that time around - that was expected. But that trend carried over in other portions of the ballot, too.

There are a few caveats with this, of course: because the three states which share Delmarva have their local elections at different times, the results downballot aren't necessarily congruent to a real election. But having kept my 2016 (and 2020) spreadsheets around I could pick out some interesting trends.

Without Joe Biden on the ballot, the totals were a little better than 2020, but not as good as 2016:

• Kamala Harris (Democrat) 395,818 - 50.88%

• Donald Trump (Republican) 367,895 - 47.29%

• Chase Oliver (Libertarian) 3,250 - 0.42%

• Jill Stein (Green Party) 1,561* - 0.20%

• all others 9,373 - 1.20% Much of this was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., since he was on the ballot in Delaware as the Independent Party of Delaware (IPoD) candidate.

*Stein was not on the Delaware or Virginia ballot.

Over eight years as Republican nominee, Donald Trump has picked up 47,000 more votes in the fourteen counties that make up the Delmarva, but Democrats have gained roughly 73,000 - although Kamala Harris trailed Joe Biden by some 6,400 votes, it was enough to prevail.

If you recall my 2017 article, the only two counties Hillary carried were the largest, northernmost (New Castle County, Delaware) and the smallest, southernmost (Northampton County, Virginia.) Biden kept those in his column but also flipped three that were more in the middle: Kent County, Delaware, Kent County, Maryland, and Talbot County, Maryland. In 2024 Harris lost Kent County, Delaware and Talbot County (the latter by just six votes.) But the margin in New Castle was enough to prevail over the larger area, much like the actual state of Delaware has to endure.

Because the three states have staggered Senate races, I use the three Congressional races on the Shore as a surrogate for that race as well as the one House race that Delmarva would have. When I wrote this in 2017, I figured Delmarva would have a second seat with the extra population Delaware had, but a closer examination of population reveals the 14 counties have 1,568,419 people (per 2024 estimates) and the average Congressional district has 761,169 as of 2020 - the average may be closer to 800,000 now, which would continue to put a second House member just barely out of reach.

However, if the math did happen to favor the state of Delmarva and there could be two members of Congress, the most logical district split would put New Castle, Cecil, all of Kent County, Maryland, and the northern fringes of Kent County, Delaware into one district (that would be a fairly safe Democrat district despite the Republican pocket of Cecil County) while the rest would be a pretty strong Republican district notwithstanding some sag on the mid-Shore, eastern Sussex, the city of Salisbury, and at the southern end of Delmarva in Virginia. (Having said that, it doesn’t mean the Democrats wouldn’t try to split the state lengthwise so that New Castle dominates both districts.)

As for a statewide Delmarva Senate seat, that contest would also go to the Democrats:

• D total 383,918 - 50.74%

• R total 365,291 - 48.28%

• L total 6,743* - 0.89%

• all others 720 - 0.10%

*The Libertarian Party only had a Congressional candidate in Maryland.

In reality, having a much larger than average Congressional district in Delaware with a Democrat winner easily outweighed the similar victory Republican Andy Harris picked up in Maryland (in the Eastern Shore half of his district.) Meanwhile, Virginia's numbers were too small to matter despite favoring the Republican. The Democrats only carried three counties of the fourteen, but New Castle helped put them over the top.

We also elected a governor here in Delaware, which gave the state an advantage in a mythical Delmarva governor's race that combined the 2024 results in Delaware, the 2022 balloting in Maryland, and 2021 race in Virginia to get the following results:

• D total 355,254 - 52.09%

• R total 321,003 - 47.07%

• L total 2,647 - 0.39%

• Green total 968* - 0.14%

• Others total 2,147* - 0.31%

*There was no Green Party candidate in Virginia or Delaware. As for Others, the vast majority of that came from the Working Class Party candidate in Maryland.

The worsening from 2020 came from a much weaker Republican vote total in the Maryland 2022 gubernatorial election as Democrat Wes Moore succeeded term-limited Republican Larry Hogan, who later lost in a bid for Senate in 2024.

Yet the Democrat success should not come as a surprise: voter registration still favors them by 9 points:

• Democrat RV: 462,983 - 39.88% (down 3.06% from 2020)

• Republican RV: 355,361 - 30.81% (down 0.81% from 2020)

• All other RV: 342,665 - 29.51% (up 3.86% from 2020)

Bear in mind that non-affiliated number includes the 36,467 voters in Virginia who don't declare a party. Even so, their numbers are poised to pass the Republican total, perhaps in this next cycle.

In the mythical Delmarva Senate, though, the Democrats held their 15-11 control. The ersatz Delmarva House shifted to a 28-26 Democrat edge from a 27-27 tie thanks to a Delaware loss in 2024. Talk about swing votes!

But what if there were another way? The one weakness with my method is that I have a lot of small districts in Delaware (less than 25,000 for House and 50,000 for Senate) but much larger districts in Maryland (about 50,000 for House and 150,000 for Senate) and Virginia, where the Eastern Shore is less than half a House district, let alone their Senate. So the state of Delaware is way overrepresented in this model.

Since this is my fantasy, I decided to use a federal model and give each of the counties two state Senators (screw the incorrect SCOTUS decision of Reynolds v. Sims), which means the 28 Senators would likely work out to be a sizeable Republican majority (on the order of 21-7) because New Castle County only gets two. Using a model like Delaware's, with about two House members per Senator, the House count would be about 29-27 Democrat (the D’s gained seats, particularly in Sussex County) but with a lot of potential flipping in several areas, making local elections become greatly important. This divided government would mean ideas from the split legislature would have to be appealing enough for the Democrat governor to be signed into law but not be too liberal with the highly GOP Senate majority.

Thus it's a fairly safe bet that, having a state of Delmarva, you would not see the radical left-wing nonsense that seems to be ruining both the state of Maryland (over the Eastern Shore's objections) and Delaware (because there's outsized influence from one liberal county that has over half the state's population.) Even with the slight trend to the left based on 2016-24 results, this state would perhaps have some of the most interesting politics on the East Coast. If we could get some conservatives to leave the states feeding Delaware’s population, we may make things even better.

Let's make a deal: Maryland gets the retrocession of Washington, D.C. while they give up the Eastern Shore to become part of Delaware. (Virginia just forgets about its Eastern Shore half the time, anyway, so if we grabbed that, too, they wouldn't miss it until it was too late.) We could make the new Delaware into a great state - all without messing up the American flag.

In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.