DOVER, Del. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester defeated Republican Eric Hansen in Delaware’s U.S. Senate race on Tuesday.
Blunt Rochester will become the first woman and first Black person to represent Delaware in the Senate. Only three other Black women have served in the Senate, two of them elected and one who was appointed.
Rochester was considered a virtual shoo-in for the Senate against businessman Hansen, a political newcomer. Democrats hold a significant voter registration advantage over Republicans in solid-blue Delaware, which last sent a Republican to Washington in 2008.
Rochester raised some $8 million for her Senate campaign, while Hansen’s campaign receipts totaled only about $1 million, including more than $800,000 in loans he made to his campaign.
Blunt Rochester will fill the seat left vacant by fellow Democrat Tom Carper, who handpicked her as his preferred successor when he announced his retirement last year. Blunt Rochester once interned for Carper when he was in the House and also served in his cabinet when he was governor.
Blunt Rochester has served four terms as Delaware’s lone representative in the House.
According to the Congressional Record, she has sponsored 90 bills and seven resolutions during her House tenure, many aimed at improving or expanding access to health care, especially for women and minorities. The only measure sponsored by Blunt Rochester to become law is a resolution naming a Wilmington post office in honor of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a 19th-century anti-slavery activist and publisher.
Rochester began her political career as a case worker for Carper and served in appointed positions as Delaware’s labor secretary, state personnel director and deputy secretary of Delaware’s Department of Health and Social Services. She also has served as CEO of the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League.