Possible Election Winner You Never Heard of-The Working Families Party

You may have never heard of the Working Families Party,but they may have an impact in 2008 in some close races.
Here is a description from the Party’s website:
The Delaware Working Families Party is a grassroots, community and labor based political party. We strive to make elected officials address issues that matter most to working-class, middle-class, and poor families that work hard to make ends meet-issues like jobs, health care, education, and housing.

The Working Families Party has Endorsed 6 candidates on today’s ballot, Karen Weldin Stewart in the Insurance Commissioner’s race and five candidates for state representative.
Here is the list of endorsements:

Karen Stewart ( D ) Insurance Commissioner
Dennis Williams ( D ) 10th
Vince Lofink (R ) 27th
Terry Spence ( R ) 18th
Bill Oberle (R ) 24th
Jerry Semper (D ) 39th

Based on past voting history I would say Oberle is a safe bet to win in the 24th and Semper & Williams are likely to lose.
The other three races are expected to be close and the endorsement could be a deciding factor. There may be enough people who will vote for a candidate and not want to vote for the major party line, that Stewart, Spence and Lofink could possibly win and have their share of Working Families votes be more than their margin of victory which would be a big coup for a relatively new party.


Spence won by 601 in 2006 and Lofink won by only 128 votes. Each of these districts has at least 2000 more Democrats than Republicans. It is distinctly possible a few hundred Democrats may feel more comfortable voting for Spence or Lofink on the Working Families line on the ballot without giving them Republican votes.


2006 18th Representative District

DEMOCRATIC PARTY
MICHAEL A BARBIERI *** 2,123*** 43 . 8 %
REPUBLICAN PARTY
TERRY R SPENCE *** 2,724*** 56 . 2 %


2006 27th Representative District

DEMOCRATIC PARTY
EARL JAQUES **** 2,921** 48 . 9 %
REPUBLICAN PARTY
VINCENT A LOFINK **** 3,049** 51 . 1 %





18th Representative District

DEM****REP*****OTHERS**TOTAL
6,475**3,148***2,985***12,608


27th Representative District
DEM**** REP****OTHERS** TOTAL

6,340**4,289***3,407***14,036



For more about this party:

http://delworkingfamilies.org/