Delaware’s lone house member enters the Senate race and becomes an instant favorite
Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat, announced Wednesday her campaign for Senator Thomas R. Carper’s Delaware Senate seat to be vacated, starting as the favorite in a race that could make her the third black woman in U.S. history who is electing for the Senate.
Blunt Rochester, 61, a close ally of President Biden, made a 3.5-minute biographical video that focuses on her faith, how she overcame her husband’s untimely death, and her experience during the January 6 attack on the Capitol, as she prayed while trapped on the home’s balcony as rioters besieged the building.
“The Senate candidacy for me is also about protecting our democracy, and that includes voting rights, and also about protecting our freedoms, such as reproductive rights,” Ms. Blunt Rochester said in an interview.
Mrs. Blunt Rochester is the only member of the House of Representatives in Delaware, a deep blue state in which the winner of the Democratic primary will be heavily favored to win the general election. Powerful Democrats, including Mr. Carper, for whom Ms. Blunt Rochester once interned, and New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, have supported her candidacy. Mr. Carper said he would do everything he could to make sure she won.
If elected, Ms. Blunt Rochester, who previously served as Delaware’s secretary of labor, deputy secretary of health and social services and state personnel director, would be the state’s first female senator and first black senator.
She said her first priority would be to push for voting rights legislation to be passed, and advocate eliminating the legislative filibuster to make that happen.
During her four terms in the House, Mr. Biden has counted on Ms. Blunt Rochester as a close adviser. She was national co-chair of Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign and is known for keeping the president abreast of events on Capitol Hill.
“When he called me, he got a really broad picture of what was happening in the House,” she said of Mr. Biden.
Ms. Blunt Rochester is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, and both the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the more centrist New Democrat Coalition. She has also served in leadership.
She said she felt she had the president’s encouragement to run.
“It was more like we had a conversation to make sure there was representation in the Senate,” she recalled. “He didn’t say, ‘Hey, Lisa, you should run for Senate.’ He said, ‘Lisa, whatever you decide to do, I think you’d be great at it.’”
Shortly after Mr. Carper announced his retirement, Mr. Schumer spoke to Ms. Blunt Rochester by phone and told her that he believed she could make a very good senator, according to an aide to the top Democrat.
“It was just a really encouraging phone call, he just said he was looking forward to having a longer and more in-depth conversation with me but that he was really excited about my potential to run,” Ms Blunt Rochester said.