WILMINGTON, Delaware — For many in the Washington, D.C., area, Delaware is an easy summer getaway to the beach. Some know the First state, more annoyingly, for the tolls required to drive through a few miles of its northeast corner on I-95.
But for Delaware residents, their state, the nation’s second-smallest after Rhode Island, could soon be home to a president, Joe Biden. The two-term vice president under President Barack Obama and 36-year Delaware senator has already given the state outsize recognition through his nearly half-century on the national stage.
“I cannot tell you the enthusiasm the state of Delaware has for Joe Biden. Because, if he goes to the White House, Delaware goes to the White House,” said 54-year-old Martin Willis, a union boilermaker from Wilmington.
In a small state like Delaware, with a population of less than a million people, voters have gotten to know Biden well over the years, from the days he commuted back and forth from Wilmington to Washington, D.C., as a senator.
Britney Mumford, 32, of New Castle, said Biden’s different from officeholders who establish national profiles and then lose their connection to their home territory.
“The story of Joe Biden’s life has always really spoken to people from Delaware,” Mumford said. “Regardless of where in the state of Delaware you’re from, everyone’s [like] a small town. We can all really see part of ourselves in the ‘blue-collar Joe Biden’ that grew up and built something out of his life, and it’s something we admire.”
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Biden has spent the bulk of the campaign against President Trump holed-up at his Wilmington home. When Biden does venture out on the campaign trail, it’s usually to nearby Pennsylvania, a crucial state for both sides with its 20 Electoral College votes, and which famously went to Trump in 2016 over Hillary Clinton.
Biden has spent considerable time playing up his Pennsylvania roots. He was born in Scranton but moved to Claymont, Delaware, just outside of Wilmington, when he was 10.
But, with only three electoral votes, Delaware isn’t the most politically advantageous state. It’s voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1992 on and is expected to again in record numbers on Nov. 3, with Biden on the ballot.
Traci Manza Murphy, who lives outside of Wilmington, said it doesn’t bother her that Biden plays up both states as his own. Murphy said she was born and raised in New York but has lived in Delaware for about three decades, so she understands where the Democrat is coming from.
“I really do consider myself a New Yorker and also a Delawarean,” Murphy told the Washington Examiner. “I really relate to that. It never occurred to me to consider it anything other than he was born in one place, and he grew up in another, like so many people. So many people move around.”
Katherine Caudle of Pike Creek said her state likes to claim Biden as their own, even when he pushes campaign messages such as the election being “Scranton vs. Park Ave.” as he’s done to sway working-class voters.
“I would like to think of it as Claymont vs. Park Avenue because he’s Delaware’s Joe Biden,” Caudle said.
Biden isn’t the only one more focused on an electoral battleground than the state with which they’re most associated. Trump, a New York City native who made his name as a developer there, has lately adopted Florida as his home.
Trump announced last year he would make Palm Beach, Florida, the home of his Mar-a-Lago estate, his permanent residence due to New York’s hostility towards him as a political figure, despite his long legacy as a real estate mogul in the city. Florida has 29 electoral votes and is being fiercely contested by both campaigns.
“I cherish New York, and the people of New York and always will,” Trump said in a tweet. “But unfortunately, despite the fact that I pay millions of dollars in city, state and local taxes each year, I have been treated very badly by the political leaders of both the city and state.”
Whether Floridians would recognize Trump as one of their own is a long shot, just as many Pennsylvania voters said they didn’t necessarily see Biden as a hometown guy.
If Biden makes it to the White House, it could have tangible benefits for Delaware, about a two-hour drive from downtown Washington, D.C.
That sentiment may hold true more than just in spirit, said Syracuse University political science professor Grant Reeher.
“If the person becomes president or vice president, they know that state presumably better than any other state so they know where monies may be more effective and that kind of thing,” Reeher said.
Whoever wins the presidency on Nov. 3 or after, Biden’s name will continue to resonate in Delaware. The main Amtrak station in Wilmington is named for him after his years of traveling on the rail. The public pool where Biden once worked as a lifeguard in the city is also named for him, and the state’s National Guard headquarters is named for his late son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden.
