The new at large congressman from Delaware is John Carney, a Democrat elected to succeed nine-term Republican Rep. Michael Castle after Castle gave up the seat to run for the Senate in 2010. Carney, the second of nine children born to two teachers, has lived in Wilmington for most of his life. He was careful to stress his humble upbringing and the fact that he, his wife, and their two children live in a modest row house. Still, Carney has spent nearly his entire adult life in public office, except for brief stints as president and chief operating officer of Transformative Technologies, a Delaware green technology firm, and as executive vice president of a wind farm start-up called DelaWind. After getting a degree in English at Dartmouth College and a master’s degree at the University of Delaware, Carney went to work as an aide to Joe Biden, then a Democratic senator from Delaware. In the 1990s, Carney became a top aide to then Gov. Thomas Carper, now a U.S. senator. Carney was also the state secretary of finance under Carper, from 1997 to 2000. That year, he won the first of two terms as Delaware’s lieutenant governor. In 2008, Carney tried to move up to the top job but lost a high-profile primary against Jack Markell for governor. Markell went on to win. Read More

The new at large congressman from Delaware is John Carney, a Democrat elected to succeed nine-term Republican Rep. Michael Castle after Castle gave up the seat to run for the Senate in 2010. Carney, the second of nine children born to two teachers, has lived in Wilmington for most of his life. He was careful to stress his humble upbringing and the fact that he, his wife, and their two children live in a modest row house. Still, Carney has spent nearly his entire adult life in public office, except for brief stints as president and chief operating officer of Transformative Technologies, a Delaware green technology firm, and as executive vice president of a wind farm start-up called DelaWind. After getting a degree in English at Dartmouth College and a master’s degree at the University of Delaware, Carney went to work as an aide to Joe Biden, then a Democratic senator from Delaware. In the 1990s, Carney became a top aide to then Gov. Thomas Carper, now a U.S. senator. Carney was also the state secretary of finance under Carper, from 1997 to 2000. That year, he won the first of two terms as Delaware’s lieutenant governor. In 2008, Carney tried to move up to the top job but lost a high-profile primary against Jack Markell for governor. Markell went on to win.

His track record in office earned him the scorn of tea party activists who labeled him a “career politician” in his campaign against Glen Urquhart for Delaware’s at large seat in the House. Carney faced Urquhart in the contest to succeed Castle, a Republican moderate, after Castle gave up the post to run what ultimately was a losing bid for the Senate. Carney ran on his support for the development of renewable energy technology and green jobs and his opposition to oil drilling off the Delaware shoreline.

Urquhart, a Rehoboth Beach developer, lambasted him for collecting government paychecks for years in his various capacities rather than creating jobs in the private sector. He called Carney “part of the problem” with government. Urquhart also called attention to Carney’s attempt to lobby the state for money in 2009, when he worked for DelaWind. The deal fell apart after the primary investor dropped out, forcing the company to withdraw its application to the U.S. Energy Department for tax credits and its application for $1.4 million in state funding.

But Carney’s government-heavy résumé was not the liability it was for candidates elsewhere in the country in an election year marked by anti-incumbent fervor. Left-leaning Delaware was skittish about some of Urquhart’s conservative positions. He said he would vote to repeal the health care law passed by Congress in 2010 and support abolishing the departments of Energy and Education. The Republican’s social agenda and lack of polish also probably hurt him: He said he opposed abortion even in cases of rape or incest. And in widely circulated comments, he compared liberals to Nazis while claiming that Hitler, not Thomas Jefferson, first coined the phrase “separation of church and state.”

Carney declared Urquhart too “radical” and “extreme” to represent the state. He said he supported the health care law, although he didn’t agree with every aspect of it and would work in Congress to make it more effective. Carney also favored the Democrats’ financial regulation bill, a controversial stance in a state heavily reliant on finance and corporate headquarters. Most of the companies in the Fortune 500 and on the New York Stock Exchange were incorporated in Delaware, and the DuPont business empire has shaped politics there for more than a century. On the issue of extending the Bush-era tax cuts, Urquhart taunted Carney in a debate by asking his foe to refuse to play the “class warfare card” and to commit to extending the cuts permanently. Carney kept to his position of extending them temporarily to give Congress time to come up with a deficit reduction plan.

Carney had the upper hand in the money chase. He raised over $2 million, while Urquhart had $1.3 million, $1 million of that from his own pocket. Urquhart criticized his opponent for taking money from political action committees, saying that Carney couldn’t be a voice independent of those “paying his way.” On Election Day, Carney prevailed with 57% of the vote to 41% for his opponent, a rare instance of a Democrat seizing Republican territory in 2010.