Early voting is underway in Delaware and one race that has captivated the LGBTQ community is the 14th District House seat being vacated by longtime ally Pete Schwartzkopf. Claire Snyder-Hall, a lesbian, won the Democratic primary and faces Republican Mike Simpler. But Simpler says the LGBTQ community shouldn’t discount him simply because he’s a Republican.

“I was kind of upset that they would even think of me being a Republican, that I would discriminate against the LGBTQ community in general,” Simpler told the Blade. “It’s kind of upsetting knowing that I’m born and raised here, and I’ve had family members that way. I mean the treasurer of my campaign is a lesbian. It’s just upsetting that people feel that way about the gay community in general.” 

Simpler, a lifelong resident of Sussex County and the current president of the Rehoboth Beach Volunteer Fire Company said that his experience in the role has allowed him to work alongside many different types of people, including members of the LGBTQ community. 

“We probably have the most diverse fire company in the state of Delaware, when it comes to the LGBTQ group,” he said. “People need to realize that the LGBTQ [community] is no different than the rest of the people in the world.”

Simpler also shared with the Blade that he has had firsthand experience with a unique aspect of LGBTQ culture — drag. He dressed up in drag at a fundraiser held at The Pines, a popular gay venue in Rehoboth Beach.

“I was asked to volunteer for a fundraiser, and next thing you know, I find out I’m going to be in drag at The Pines,” Simpler said. “We had a ball! I mean, I had so much fun.”   

Not only did Simpler definitively say he supports the LGBTQ community in Delaware, but he added he supports legislative protections for these communities. He pointed out that providing a safe space for marginalized communities is ingrained in American history.  

“Protect them,” he said when asked about the potential of supporting pro-transgender legislation amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ state legislation being passed nationwide. “You’ve got to. They’re trying to escape. For example, they’re trying to escape the process like the Jews did, like the Chinese when they came here. They’re trying to move away from an issue where they’re being prosecuted against to somewhere where they can be free and enjoy their life that they want to live.” 

In addition to promising LGBTQ support, Simpler says he backs smarter growth in the region by prioritizing better development and efforts to alleviate traffic. He also pledges to attract high-quality jobs to the region.

Simpler faces Synder-Hall in the Nov. 5 general election. Read the Blade’s profile of her, here: https://www.washingtonblade.com/2024/09/24/claire-snyder-hall-interview/

Early voting is already underway. 

Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride is poised to become the first openly transgender person elected to Congress after she won her primary on Tuesday.

McBride defeated Earl Cooper by a 79.9-16.2 percent margin in the Democratic primary for the state’s congressional seat. McBride will face Republican John Whalen in November.

The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund in a press release notes McBride is “favored to win in the heavily Democratic state.”

“Voters across the country are sick and tired of the divisive politics of the past — that’s why we’re seeing an increase in diverse, young candidates like Sarah McBride clearing their primaries,” said Victory Fund President Annise Parker. “Nobody is more qualified than Sarah to represent the values of Delaware in Congress. I look forward to celebrating Sarah’s election victory in November and seeing her get to work for her constituents in Washington.” 

McBride is poised to succeed U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), who is running for retiring U.S. Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.)’s seat.

“Of course, there’s going to be discussion about the potential of this campaign to break this barrier and to increase diversity in Congress and to ensure that a voice that has been totally absent from the halls of Congress is finally there in an elected capacity,” McBride told the Washington Blade during a 2023 interview after she declared her candidacy. “While it’s not what this campaign is focused on, while it’s not what voters are focused on, it is certainly relevant to the young people who are feeling alone and scared right now.”

As summer draws to a close, attention is increasingly focused on the upcoming primary and general elections.

In Delaware’s 14th District of the state House of Representatives, which includes Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, and southern Lewes, three candidates are running to replace state Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf, a longtime LGBTQ ally. 

Kathy McGuiness, Claire Snyder-Hall, and Marty Rendon are all hoping to win the seat of the former speaker of the House, who announced he would not run for reelection after 20 years in office.

It’s an embarrassment of riches for the local LGBTQ community. Of the three running for the seat, two — Claire Snyder-Hall and Marty Rendon — identify as members of the LGBTQ community. McGuiness is a strong LGBTQ ally. 

Snyder-Hall, a lesbian, has a long history in the 14th District and in politics. Drawing from her leadership at the Delaware office of Common Cause, a national organization dedicated to protecting and strengthening democracy, and her 20 years as a political science professor at George Mason University, she has extensive experience in politics.

“I’m representing the district, but I’m also representing our whole community,” Snyder-Hall said in an interview with the Washington Blade. “The LGBTQ+ community is so large — it’s not just Rehoboth Beach proper, which is one-mile square, or even unincorporated Rehoboth. We’re spreading out into western Sussex, going south. A lot of people don’t have any representation in the General Assembly because they have, I’ll say it, Republicans, representing them. I see myself as representing the entire community.”

Snyder-Hall said she has spent her entire life fighting for this community.

“I’ve spent decades working on LGBTQ+ rights,” she said. “My wife and I were lobby captains in Maryland for Equality Maryland before we moved to Rehoboth. I ran the phone bank with Chris Beagle at CAMP Rehoboth for months.”

This experience, she said, in tandem with how the current national political system is moving, is why she decided to run. 

“This is the most important election of our lifetime. Choice is on the ballot. LGBTQ+ rights are on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot, and indeed, the American Dream itself is on the ballot as we face a series of crises that are threatening our prosperity and quality of life.”

The complex community of the 14th District, Snyder-Hall explains, is diverse, and requires a representative who understands the nuanced issues of the area. Of these issues, healthcare in Delaware is a major focus of her campaign. 

“Healthcare, including both reproductive healthcare and protections for gender-affirming care, are critically important across Delaware,” the former professor said. “We’re having a severe shortage of healthcare providers in eastern Sussex, and that’s something that I hear at the doorsteps all the time. I’ve knocked on thousands of doors, and it’s a common thing. We also have to make absolutely sure that reproductive choice is protected, and I favor a constitutional amendment to protect abortion, protect reproductive freedom, including abortion access.”

In addition to abortion protections, Snyder-Hall highlighted another aspect of healthcare policy she wishes to address: gender-affirming care. As states across the country begin to pass more laws restricting and regulating transgender healthcare, she is in favor of protecting the right to gender-affirming healthcare.  

“We’re starting to become a state that’s receiving a lot of so-called ‘refugees’ from other states that are persecuting trans people,” she said. “I think it’s really important that we extend the protections that we already have in place for reproductive care to providers of gender-affirming care. So for a variety of reasons, healthcare is really pressing.”

Snyder-Hall added she encourages the state to pass legislation enshrining protections for the LGBTQ community. 

“I would like to see a constitutional amendment that protects sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression and disability,” she said. “That’s something that was filed a couple years ago and didn’t move, but now we have a new speaker of the House, Valerie Longhurst, and she was the sponsor of that bill, so that makes me optimistic about its future.”

Marty Rendon, who is also running for the seat, highlighted protecting LGBTQ Delawareans as a major issue for his campaign. Rendon, who is gay and Mexican-American, worked in Washington for most of his career as a congressional aide and director for congressional relations for UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund).

Rendon remembers when Rehoboth was less welcoming of the LGBTQ community. 

“I can remember when signs used to be up saying ‘Keep Rehoboth a family town’ and there were attacks on gay people, physical attacks, and there were slurs and things,” Rendon recalled. “It was not necessarily a welcoming place, but over time, thanks to the efforts of groups like CAMP Rehoboth and other groups like the Washington Blade, they helped plant the flag for us … We’re now a very viable part of the community. I think it shows you how far we’ve come, the fact that an openly gay man like me has a really good chance of winning the seat and representing everybody, not just our community, but everybody.”

Rendon added that an openly gay candidate winning the seat would be a welcome step in the right direction. 

 “It’s not every day that we have the opportunity to send somebody from the LGBTQ+ community to an elected position, particularly in Rehoboth Beach which has a very, very strong LGBTQ+ community,” Rendon said.  “Why not send someone from our community?”

The Movement Advancement Project, which tracks more than 50 LGBTQ-related laws and policies in every state in the U.S., ranked Delaware as “Medium Overall LGBTQ Policies.” The project explains there are protections for gay couples to get married, but they are not as exhaustive as other states when it comes to other LGBTQ matters, including healthcare, adoption, and anti-bullying laws.

In addition to advocating for LGBTQ protections, Rendon also said that climate change and healthcare are his two biggest issues, as he explains they impact everyone regardless of sexuality, income, and background. 

“One of the biggest issues we’re facing here as a coastal state is the effect of climate change,” Rendon began. “Right now, we’re worrying about tornadoes coming in every time there’s a hurricane alert. We worry that our shoreline is very low, and we worry about the ocean rising. We worry about our inland waterways that close. Climate issues are very, very concerning to us here, and I think everybody’s affected by that.”

His opinions on the issue of healthcare echoed Snyder-Hall’s views, and particularly highlighted accessibility in Delaware. 

“The healthcare costs are important, but when I knock on doors here and I talk to people, the biggest issue is access to healthcare,” he said. “How do we, particularly, when you’re down here in southern Delaware, [get access]? Let’s say you need a specialist. Well, do you have to go to Wilmington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C.? Where do you find the specialist? We need to attract specialists, but then the regular primary health care providers, the physician’s assistants, the nurses, we need more of those people, and we need to get them to come here.”

His solution, he told the Blade, is already in the works and is achievable if the work is put in. This would benefit everyone in the community, he explains, but particularly some of Sussex County’s most vulnerable (and growing) demographic — people who come to the beach to retire. 

“One of the ways that a lot of folks have thought might be a part of the solution is this idea of getting a medical school here, particularly in Sussex County. And now that idea is not a pipe dream…There are people working on that, the Sussex development folks are working on it.”

“We also should think about incentives to encourage people to come to areas that are less medically served than others,” Rendon added. “We don’t want to send people to Philadelphia to school and then they stay there to pay off their medical school debts.”

Kathy McGuiness, the third candidate running for the state house seat also explained healthcare in District 14 is central to her campaign. McGuiness, who is a third-generation local resident of Rehoboth Beach, studied biology and DNA research in college, eventually going to Northeastern in Boston for a degree in pharmacy. After getting her degree, she returned to Rehoboth, started her family, and “bought an old dying pharmacy.”

McGuiness eventually turned to local government after working in medicine for 30 years. She was a City of Rehoboth Commissioner from 2000-2012 and in 2014-2018. This experience, she explained, allowed her to see the issues in her community up close and ways to address them. 

“I think the most pressing issues are bringing the resources to the 14th District,” she said. “If I’m speaking for the 14th District, we need money here for infrastructure, for transportation. We were an underserved area in the healthcare world 30 years ago, and now we’re still underserved even more so actually. We’re federally recognized as being underserved. We don’t have enough healthcare professionals. We’re in a crisis. As a pharmacist, I see that firsthand.”

“I see a lot of folks that move here without an advocate. “‘[Delaware] has low taxes. Let’s go retire,’ and they’re still having to go back to New York or New Jersey or Maryland or Virginia to see their doctors because they can’t get an appointment here.” 

Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf, the incumbent, endorsed McGuiness. Schwartzkopf has a long history of supporting LGBTQ issues despite not being a part of the community himself. McGuiness told the Blade this is why he chose to endorse her campaign.

“I think that’s why Pete has endorsed me, because he knows I’m aligned with his thinking. He knows that I will continue the good work and champion and be supportive of the LGBTQ community, and that that includes the trans youth and gender identity, you name it, I am there as a supporter, and I will be a fierce advocate. I will continue to champion or co-champion, or assist those who are bringing forth good legislation for our protections.”

Rendon says his independence is why he is the best fit for the job.

“At this point in my life, I’m retired,” Rendon said. “It’s my full job. I don’t have anything to distract me. I don’t have any special interests. I’m kind of dangerous because nobody controls me. No PAC controls me. No special interest. I’m not doing this for my law firm, my insurance company or my real estate, none of that stuff. I’m just doing this to serve.”

Snyder-Hall emphasizes that having experience within the community is what will make her a good representative. She pointed out that sometimes people don’t agree when writing laws, but that’s where the work starts.

“There’s no shortcut when you’re trying to pass legislation. You have to try to reason with people. You try to appeal to their humanity. You try to appeal to their hearts — like when we did the marriage equality fight. Try to appeal to reason, to people’s hearts, to their humanity, and to their interests.”

The primary election is Sept. 10. For more information about the election visit elections.delaware.gov and for information on each candidate you can visit their websites at: mcguinessfordelaware.com, martyrendon.com, and clairesnyderhall.com.