Voters weighing their choices in a pair of races for seats in Delaware's House of Representatives hear from the candidates at two League of Women Voters forums.
The forum in House District 4 brought together Democrat Gregg Lindner and Republican Dan Zitofsky to discuss district issues.
District 4 covers areas like Long Neck, Trinity, and Holiday Pines.
Among the areas covered was education, specifically the state’s move to a new education funding formula.
Lindner is a former member of the Indian River School District Oversight Committee. He supports making sure the state's new hybrid funding formula is properly funded.
But Zitofsky worries taxpayers won’t get their money’s worth.
“Education funding has been up by about 49%. We do not need to ask families to foot that bill. What we need to do is actually hold the schools responsible for the students.” he said.
Another area covered was data centers, and whether or not they’re right for Delaware. The candidates hold similar positions short-term, but different long-range outlooks.
Zitofsky says he is currently against adding data centers in Sussex County, but leaves the door open to hear from experts and learn more.
Lindner is a hard ‘no.’
“As far as District 4, I would be a no on data centers in District 4. We don’t need them here. We don’t need them now, we don’t need them five years from now. There’s no place that we need them to go in District 4” he said.
The two candidates are running to replace Republican State Rep. Jeff Hilovsky, who decided not to run for re-election. Hilovsky endorsed his fellow Republican Zitofsky in this race.
In House District 14, voters are choosing between incumbent Democratic State Rep. Clair Snyder-Hall and challenger Mike Simpler.
At their recent candidates' forum, they delved in topics ranging from climate change and education to immigration and homelessness.
They also sparred over President Trump’s impact on local issues.
Simpler says he’s not a MAGA Republican, but questions the relevance of Trump administration policies on issues lawmakers in Dover grapple with.
I think we need to take Trump out of all of these conversations because it's state issues and this is to talk about Delaware state legislation," Simpler said. "So, anything you start referring to as Trump is kind of like baiting the crowd."
Snyder-Hall disagrees.
"We are directly affected by what happens with the federal administration, and that's part of the job is figuring out how we're going to cushion the blows from the Trump administration or figure out how to reconnoiter the whole budget because we're losing federal funding.," said Snyder-Hall.
House District 14 covers Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach and parts of Lewes. This year’s race there is a rematch. Snyder-Hall beat Simpler two years by a nearly 10 percentage point margin.
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University of Delaware student journalist Andrew Hoffert contributed to this story.
He is a member of the UD Journalism/Delaware Public Media Midterm Election Coverage Team.
