Democrat’s primary heats up

Rhetoric and accusations are heating up in the Democrat’s primary race for governor as one candidate is calling for a federal investigation into past campaign reporting by the current lieutenant governor, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-state money is flowing into a political action committee to swing the election.

Matt Meyer, the New Castle County executive challenging Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long and Collin O’Mara in the Sept. 10 Democrat gubernatorial race, said July 29 that a federal investigation is needed to determine whether Hall-Long and her husband, who had handled her campaign finances, are guilty of federal crimes.

In a recent television interview, Hall-Long said she discovered misreporting last fall of her campaign finance reports and self-reported the inaccuracies to the Department of Elections.

“There has been no wrongdoing,” she said. “We just had to figure out how much we had put in our own personal campaign expenses from my credit cards in past elections.” 

As they moved from the lieutenant governor campaign to the governor account, Hall-Long said, she and her husband learned they had to clarify how much they put on their credit cards for legitimate campaign funds, which was then repaid out of the campaign account.

She said she has worked with the Department of Elections, and an internal review was conducted and presented in November 2023. Since then, she said, she fired her husband from the campaign and hired a firm to handle her campaign finances.

“There’s nothing more transparent than that,” she said, adding she’s learned from the process and wants to work to improve the system so that “no one else has this experience when they voluntarily come forward to make corrections in their campaign finance reports and make them accurate.”

An independent review of Hall-Long’s campaign finance reporting noted incomplete, inconsistent and often inaccurate information, but Attorney General Kathleen Jennings has said she will not pursue charges against Hall-Long because state law is too narrow to prosecute.

“Delaware’s code does not contain a criminal statute that adequately describes the campaign’s actions in light of the state’s extremely high burden of proof, and of a defense attorney’s ability to credibly attribute the committee’s errors to carelessness,” Jennings said. “We cannot pursue charges where the law does not provide the standards to do so; but neither should we abide a precedent that flouts the spirit of the law when committees demonstrate negligence.” 

She said she plans to work with the General Assembly to seal gaps in the law, and create accountability and public trust in campaign finance rules.

In light of weak state law on campaign finance reporting violations, Meyer is pushing for federal intervention.

“The report found Ms. Hall-Long broke the law. The report provides evidence that she tried to cover it up,” Meyer said at a Wilmington press conference.

Meyer sent a letter July 31 to David Weiss, U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, citing potential violations to federal law including mail fraud, money laundering, wire fraud and conspiracy.

Hall-Long said she believes the campaign has become dirty because she is leading in the polls.

“I am just really disgusted with some of this stir-up and the false accusations of criminal misconduct and other accusations,” she said. “In 2016, when there was a six-way primary, no one got down in the dirt like this.”

Following Meyer’s press conference calling for a federal investigation, Hall-Long fired off a press release adding another layer to the drama.

She said money from an out-of-state billionaire is fueling a negative campaign against her.

“Philip Shawe, CEO of Transperfect, is a bitter billionaire looking to settle old scores against the State of Delaware and Gov. John Carney at all costs,” she said in the press release. 

Transperfect was at the center of a Chancery Court battle nearly a decade ago resulting in a court decision to auction off the company. Since then, Shawe has waged a public relations battle against Delaware courts, at times bringing in Al Sharpton to lead rallies on court reform and increased diversity in the judicial ranks.

He has now pledged his support of a $1 million effort to upend the governor’s race through a Citizens for a New Delaware Way political action committee.

A review of PAC information on the Department of Elections website shows nearly a quarter-million dollars already flowing into the New Delaware Way PAC that lists a Florida address.

PAC spokesman Chris Coffey – CEO of New York City-based Tusk Strategies, which was paid $243,160 out of the PAC the same day the money was received, according to the PAC’s Delaware campaign finance report – said the PAC is confident it can swing the election.  

“As we begin spending the $1 million committed to this PAC, we’re confident we can swing this election away from the ethically compromised Hall-Long and toward a brighter future,” he wrote in a July 11 press release.

A 30-second television ad will be circulated along with direct mail in the coming weeks, the release states.