Del. governor's race in new territory with Hall-Long's campaign finance scandal

Rep. Phillips says Hall-Long lied about conducting ‘audit’

But the ranks of critics have grown and include two women in the state House of Representatives.

State Reps. Sophie Phillips and Madinah Wilson-Anton, both Democrats from Bear who have not been supporters of Hall-Long’s candidacy, called on her to withdraw from the race.

Such strident statements from Democrat lawmakers about a high-ranking party member whose gubernatorial bid is supported by Democrat House Speaker Valerie Longhurst are basically unheard of in Delaware.

Phillips told WHYY News that she was appalled by the state report’s findings.

“I was honestly shocked. I didn’t know any of that to be true,” Phillips said. “As an elected official, I need to be able to trust the executive branch and especially someone who’s going to be in charge of running a $6 billion budget. So yes, just utter shock. I don’t think she is the right person to run in a general election against the Republicans either.”

House Minority Leader Mike Ramone of Pike Creek and former Rehoboth Beach police officer Jerry Price are facing off in the Republican gubernatorial primary. The primary winners will face off in the Nov. 5 general election.

Phillips, who is in her first two-year term, said she was infuriated by what the state report concluded about what last fall Hall-Long had called an “audit” of her campaign finances by Summit CPA Group of Middletown.

Hall-Long had never released the audit, despite calls by her primary opponents and government transparency groups to do so. Hall-Long instead announced in November that, while her handpicked accounting firm found “errors’’ in the finance reports, “no wrongdoings or violations were found.”

The state report countered that Summit CPA Group and its principal, Karen Remick, “did not appear to seek audit evidence beyond the Longs’ representation that certain credit card charges were campaign related, and further accepted purported 2016 charges as campaign related with no documentation the charges had occurred.”

The report also said Remick would not cooperate with the state’s review, which began in January. Dana Long was interviewed but not the lieutenant governor. The report didn’t specify why not, and neither Albence’s office nor Hall-Long would say why she did not speak with former FBI boss Lampinski.

Phillips said it’s now clear that Hall-Long’s statements about the Summit CPA Group over the last nine months “turned out to be a lie.”

Wilson-Anton, elected in 2020, said Hall-Long’s actions are disqualifying.

“This is not the behavior of someone who is fit to run for office, let alone fit to lead our state as governor,’’ said Wilson-Anton, who nevertheless expressed some affection for Hall-Long.

“She is a sweet lady. I honestly believe she means well,” Wilson-Anton said. “But that’s not enough. We need our governor to be competent and visionary, and that means they can’t put untrustworthy people in positions of power and public trust, especially when they have a history of violating that public trust and abusing their power.”

Dana Long had been arrested for stealing Republican campaign signs near Middletown during his wife’s 2014 race for state Senate. She won that election by 267 votes out of 12,193 cast, won the race for lieutenant governor in 2016, and was re-elected in 2020.