Elections were held inDelaware on Tuesday, November 2, 2010.Primary elections were held on September 14, 2010.

The 2010 election for the United States Senate was anopen seatspecial election to finish the term ending in January 2015.Joe Biden, the 36-year senator from the seat, was reelected to his Senate seat in 2008 and was simultaneously electedvice president of the United States. He resigned on January 16, 2009, in order to take his seat as vice president (he was sworn in five days later, on January 20,Inauguration Day). Delaware GovernorRuth Ann Minner announced her intention to appoint Biden's longtime aide and chief of staffEdward E. "Ted" Kaufman on November 24, 2008, and made the appointment the same day Biden resigned. Kaufman was sworn in as a senator the next day. He made clear that he would not be a candidate for election in 2010.

Biden's sonBeau Biden, thestate attorney general, considered entering the race but decided not to. DemocratChris Coons, thecounty executive of New Castle County, entered the race instead and won the Democratic nomination unopposed. In a widely publicized Republican primary,Michael Castle, the former governor and nine-term U.S. representative for Delaware's sole congressional seat who was initially heavily favored to win the primary and then the general election, was defeated in an upset byTea Party movement-alignedmarketing consultantChristine O'Donnell. Coons went on to defeat O'Donnell, as well as minor-party candidates Glenn A. Miller (Independent Party of Delaware) and James W. Rash (Libertarian), by a wide margin.

John Carney was elected to Delaware's sole seat in the House of Representatives, replacing Republican Mike Castle, who vacated his seat to unsuccessfully run for the Senate. This was one of just three House seats to be picked up by the Democrats; the others wereCedric Richmond inLouisiana's 2nd congressional district andColleen Hanabusa inHawaii's 1st congressional district.

2010 Delaware Attorney General election

← 2006 2014 →

Nominee Beau Biden Doug Camp Party Democratic Independent Party Popular vote 203,931 54,503 Percentage 78.9% 21.1%

County results State House district results Biden:     60–70%     70–80%     80–90%     >90%

Attorney General before election Beau Biden Democratic Elected Attorney General Beau Biden Democratic

Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III, son ofVice PresidentJoseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr., cruised to reelection asDelaware attorney general with no major-party opposition and a commanding 58-point margin of victory. Beau Biden had considered running in the special Senate election held simultaneously with the general election to serve the balance of his father's unexpired Senate term. (His father resigned to become vice president.) However, Beau chose to run for reelection as attorney general instead.

2010 Delaware State Treasurer election

← 2006 2014 →

Nominee Chipman Flowers Jr. Colin Bonini Party Democratic Republican Popular vote 153,203 147,031 Percentage 51.0% 48.9%

County results State House district results Flowers:     50–60%     60–70%     70–80%     80–90% Bonini:     50–60%     60–70%     70–80%

Treasurer before election Velda Jones-Potter Democratic Elected Treasurer Chipman Flowers Jr. Democratic

In this race, DemocratChipman "Chip" Flowers Jr., a 35-year-old attorney fromMiddletown, narrowly edging out RepublicanColin R. J. Bonini ofMagnolia, a 45-year-oldstate senator representing District 16. Flowers replacedVelda Jones-Potter, the incumbent treasurer appointed byGovernorJack Markell to finish out his term as treasurer when he was elected to the governorship in the 2008 election. Jones-Potter ran for the Democratic nomination, but was defeated by Flowers in the primary. Flowers became Delaware's firstAfrican American elected to statewide office. Bonini remained a state senator until 2010.^[1]

2010 Delaware State Auditor election

← 2006 2014 →

Nominee Tom Wagner Richard Korn Party Republican Democratic Popular vote 150,156 147,593 Percentage 50.4% 49.6%

County results State House district results Wagner:     50–60%     60–70%     70–80% Korn:     50–60%     60–70%     70–80%     80–90%

Auditor before election Tom Wagner Republican Elected Auditor Tom Wagner Republican

In this race, longtime State AuditorR. Thomas "Tom" Wagner Jr. ofDover, the Republican nominee and 21-year incumbent, won a sixth term in office by just 2,563 votes (0.8 percent) over Democratic nominee Richard Korn ofWilmington, the president and CEO of Franklin Strategies, a political consulting firm. This was the closest statewide race in Delaware in the 2010 general elections.

Half of the seats of theDelaware Senate were up for election in 2010.

All of the seats in theDelaware House of Representatives were up for election in 2010.

The countywide position ofsheriff was up for election in all ofDelaware's three counties.

In heavily DemocraticNew Castle County, Democratic nomineeTrinidad Navarro, 40, a seniorcorporal and chief media spokesman with the New Castle County Police, won by a very wide margin, defeating Republican William Hart, a commercial construction project manager and Independence Party of Delaware candidate Joseph O'Leary. In the Democratic primaries, Navarro routed 30-year incumbent Sheriff Mike Walsh, 72, with 63.3 percent of the vote. In the Republican primary, Hart defeated O'Leary, 14,377 to 11,105, but O'Leary chose to run as an Independence Party candidate.^[2]

InSussex County, Republican Jeffrey Scott Christopher, 46, ofGreenwood, a former Sussex County sheriff's chief deputy, won with 53.8 percent of the vote, defeating incumbent Democrat Eric D. Swanson, 56, ofLewes, who had been sheriff since 2007 and, before that, aDelaware State Policeman.^[3]

InKent County, Democrat Norman Wood ofCamden, aSmyrna Police Department lieutenant, defeated Republican incumbent Sheriff James A. Higdon Jr. ofDover.^[4][5] Higdon pleaded guilty in July 2010 todriving under the influence on May 29, 2010. First elected in 1994, he won reelection three more times, in 1998, 2002, and 2006, and only in 1998 had an opponent.^[6][7]

• Delaware State Election Commissioner
• U.S. Congress Candidates for Delaware atProject Vote Smart
• Delaware Candidate List atImagine Election - Search for candidates by address or zip code
• Delaware Election Guide fromCongress.org
• Delaware Polls at Pollster.com
• Delaware Congressional Races in 2010 campaign finance data for federal races fromOpenSecrets
• Delaware 2010 campaign finance data for state-level races fromFollow the Money
• Election 2010 atThe News Journal

• 2010 Delaware elections
• 2010 elections in the United States by state

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