Politics
Delaware Republican running for governor aims to flip one-party rule in Biden's home state after three decades
A Republican primary candidate for governor of Delaware, Mike Ramone, said in a conversation with Fox News Digital that he intends to beat what he called one-party rule in President Biden’s home state.
Currently serving as the minority leader of the state House, Ramone said he intends to flip the governor’s office red for the first time in more than three decades come November.
“Delaware has been controlled by one party for 32 years. And I am here to give Delaware a choice,” Ramone said. “Balance brings discussion and discussion brings vetting, and vetting avoids unintended consequences…. There is the far red and the far blue that both will be out to vote. But I believe that many far-blue might even consider that they can do better also in the state of Delaware.”
Under Democratic leadership, Ramone argued that Delaware has morphed into one of the worst states when it comes to education, health care, safety, traffic, and business friendliness.
He said it’s the only state in the nation that had negative GDP.
“We need to go back to line item reviews of every single expense we make because we’re spending people’s taxes. It’s not our money. It’s their money. And I do think Ronald Reagan had it best, you know, ‘Are you better off today than you were then?’ And if people feel they’re better off, we won’t have a Republican,” Ramone said. “But if they feel that they’re tired of the drama in politics, if they feel they want to have a leader who leads from the front but supports from the back, if they feel that it’s time to move into the technology and the job development in fintech, in pharma, in other aspects like Pete DuPont did for our state when he moved us into being the corporate capital of the world, then they’re going to vote for Mike Ramone. They’re going to vote for a business person.”
Ramone, who has more than 40 years of experience in the business sector, said Delaware voters need to consider “management style” when electing their leaders.
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Mike Ramone has won eight elections in a state House district dominated by Democrat voters. (Mike Ramone Campaign )
“The way we manage our state currently is dysfunctional. Our education system is one of the highest funded and one of the lowest in results. Our health care system is absolutely havoc-ridden,” he said. “I do not believe digesting hatred or negativeness or tainting facts is something I will ever be part of … I just think there are so many things we can do better. We need to stay focused. We need to create a vision.”
According to latest voter registration data available this month, Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one in the state. Delaware also has about 16,600 more independent voters than registered Republicans, and Democrats currently control nine statewide offices. Additionally, Ramone’s campaign comes at a pivotal point nationally after Biden exited the presidential race.
“Joe Biden. We are all proud of Joe. I’m a Republican, and I can say that because he’s the first Delawarean to ever become a president of the country,” Ramone said. “And I think that’s just wonderful. However, I don’t think the style of leadership we watched in the last years of presidential campaigns and so forth are what’s indicative of Delaware.”
Mike Ramone said Delaware has one of the highest funded and lowest performing education systems in the country. (Mike Ramone Campaign )
Ramone, who first went into business at age 20, taking out an $8,000 loan to open his first flower shop, said he’s willing to put his reputation on the line to run the state in a way that’s “fiscally responsible” again.
Delaware lost the three c’s – credit cards, chemicals and cars – when two major car manufacturers, the juggernaut DuPont, and MBNA closed their doors, Ramone said.
He argued the state has the ideal location to become a fintech hub with Silicon Valley-esque initiatives to bring higher-paying jobs in different sectors to the state, not what he called the “$15 Amazon jobs.”
Ramone described education as a “catastrophe” in the state, arguing that most funding gets tied up in administration in the state’s 19 school districts and department of education, rather than being used in classrooms.
First elected to the state House 16 years ago, Ramone has survived eight separate elections to hold onto his district, which has more registered Democratic voters per capita than the state has as a whole.
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Mike Ramone is running as a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Delaware. (Mike Ramone Campaign )
“My belief is simple. My district is 8,000-something Democrats,” Ramone said. “It’s somewhere around 5,000 Republicans and around 5,200 independents. I’m the only elected official lucky enough to be reelected eight times in the state of Delaware, representing the third party, not the second party. I was in the minority minority. There’s more independents than Republicans, so I think I have a pretty good feel of building relationships. I think I have a pretty big feel of listening, and I think I have my fingers on the pulse of what Delaware is about. Delaware is a state that has an enormous amount of people who are fiscally reasonable, financially conservative, and socially moderate to liberal. In other words, leave people alone. Let them live their lives. But don’t clobber me for taxes and have overzealous government.”
A father and grandfather, Ramone said he intends to make Delaware a state where younger generations can afford to live and prosper, instead of having to move elsewhere.
Delaware’s last Republican governor was Mike Castle, who served in the position from 1985 to 1993.
Despite running during a presidential election year, Ramone said he believes his resume and business acumen will win him the governor’s office.
“When I ran in my district, Mike Ramone signs were right next to a lot of Joe Biden signs, Mike Ramone signs right next to a lot of Donald Trump signs and Mike Ramone signs were in a lot of yards with no signs. So Delaware is small enough that I believe the national rhetoric may involve a higher level of turnout. But I don’t believe that turnout will help nor hurt me,” Ramone said.
Mike Ramone promised to make Delaware a state where his grandchildren can afford to live and thrive. (Mike Ramone Campaign)
Any traction for former President Trump in Kent and Sussex counties, Ramone argued, would be offset in New Castle County, where more Democrats would be motivated to bring out the vote against Trump.
“I think it’s almost what you call revenue neutral. I think it’s going to offset itself. I’m not worried about what goes on nationally. I’m worried about what goes on in my community, in my state, and in each one of our three wonderful counties,” Ramone said. “You get into these campaigns, and they get so busy throwing bombs at each other, they forget to say why they should even be there. I’ll be focused on why I should be there. I’ll be focused on what I can do to help people. I will be focused on making Delaware a better place to live.”
In Delaware, the governor’s office is term limited, so current Democratic Gov. John Carney cannot run for re-election this year.
Ramone will still need to advance through the Sept. 10 Republican primary.
Jerry Price, a former New York Police Department officer, first announced his GOP bid for governor of Delaware in December. Ramone entered the primary race in May, and a third Republican, Bobby Williamson, launched his bid just earlier this month. For Democrats, current Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long and New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer are competing in the gubernatorial primary.
The winner from each party will face off in the Nov. 5 general election.
The Justice Department has closed about half of its open investigations into bribery by U.S. businesses overseas, but plans to initiate prosecutions to more narrowly focus on misconduct that hurts the country’s capacity to compete with foreign companies, officials said on Tuesday.
President Trump signed an executive order in February pausing all of the department’s investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, pending a review of enforcement policies by Todd Blanche, the department’s No. 2 official.
Good government groups criticized the freeze as the elimination of guardrails needed to prevent corporate abuses. The move coincided with the closing of investigations into the aircraft manufacturer Bombardier and the medical device maker Stryker, among others.
But Mr. Blanche, in a statement, said the decision was made to align enforcement of the act with the administration’s broader goal of increasing U.S. leverage against foreign businesses and governments, by “shifting prosecutorial resources to cases that clearly implicate U.S. national security and competitiveness.”
Mr. Blanche, a former criminal defense lawyer for Mr. Trump, accused the Biden administration under Attorney General Merrick B. Garland of opening too many cases, “burdening companies” and damaging national interests.
Critics said the new guidelines were a dangerous reversal that abandoned major investigations, including a deal the Justice Department struck in May with Boeing that spared the company from taking criminal responsibility for deadly 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019. Many families of the victims vigorously opposed the agreement.
“This retreat from enforcing laws against corporate crime is a perversion of justice that further concentrates the administration’s power to corruptly reward insiders and punish perceived enemies,” said Rick Claypool, a research director at the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen.
“American corporations that engage in criminal bribery schemes abroad will no longer be prosecuted,” he added. “That’s the bottom line.”
The department plans to offload responsibility for investigating bribery by U.S. businesses and people overseas to local law enforcement and regulatory bodies, officials said.
Matthew R. Galeotti, the head of the department’s criminal division, deflected criticism that the department planned to sharply scale back its prosecutions of all corporate offenders, in the wake of the Trump administration rightward policy shift and the firings, forced transfers and mass retirements of experienced career prosecutors at the department.
The criminal division “has not and will not close meritorious investigations or dismiss meritorious cases” involving foreign bribery and other white-collar crimes, Mr. Galeotti told attendees of a conference in Manhattan on Tuesday, according to his prepared remarks.
“We will vigorously pursue these investigations and open new ones,” added Mr. Galeotti, a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn.
In a previous memo, Mr. Galeotti outlined other changes, including a new policy of declining to prosecute some offenses reported to the department by companies in a good-faith effort to self-police. Critics believe the move undermines the deterrence of a potential prosecution.
Mr. Galeotti defended the protocols, saying they had already yielded whistle-blower tips and self-reporting related to “drug trafficking, procurement fraud, health care fraud and more.”
He concluded with a warning to lawyers representing corporations, suggesting they should not assume that they will get a sweetheart deal if they seek “premature” plea agreements or make false claims of prosecutorial misconduct in an effort to gain leverage.
“Be an honest broker,” he said.
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‘Can’t Handle the Ratio’
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was brutally mocked by critics over a “delusional” X post describing the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles as “peaceful demonstrations” while pinning blame on President Donald Trump for sowing “chaos” in southern California.
“Comments off lol. She can’t handle the ratio. This is what Hillary Clinton calls ‘peaceful demonstrations,’” popular conservative X account Libs of TikTok posted, referring to how comments on Clinton’s post were restricted to only permit ones from accounts Clinton follows on the social media platform and accompanied by footage of the destruction in LA.
The message was in response to Clinton posting her first and only comment as of Tuesday morning regarding the Los Angeles riots, describing them as “peaceful demonstrations” before Trump mobilized the National Guard over the weekend…READ MORE.
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California on Tuesday asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s deployment of both state National Guard forces and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles amid mass protests over sweeping federal immigration enforcement efforts.
The request was filed in the same federal lawsuit the state and California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed Monday, in which they alleged Trump had exceeded his authority and violated the U.S. Constitution by sending military forces into an American city without the request or approval of the state governor or local officials.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, whose office is handling the litigation on behalf of both Newsom and the state, said the restraining order was necessary to bring an immediate stop to the deployments, which local officials have contended are not needed and only adding to tensions sparked by sweeping immigration detentions and arrests in communities with large immigrant communities.
“The President is looking for any pretense to place military forces on American streets to intimidate and quiet those who disagree with him,” Bonta said in a statement Tuesday. “It’s not just immoral — it’s illegal and dangerous.”
Newsom, in his own statement, echoed Bonta, saying the federal government “is now turning the military against American citizens.”
“Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy,” Newsom said. “Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President.”
The state’s request Tuesday asked for the restraining order to be granted by 1 p.m. Tuesday “to prevent immediate and irreparable harm” to the state.
Absent such relief, the Trump administration’s “use of the military and the federalized National Guard to patrol communities or otherwise engage in general law enforcement activities creates imminent harm to State Sovereignty, deprives the State of vital resources, escalates tensions and promotes (rather than quells) civil unrest,” the state contended.
The request specifically notes that the use of military forces such as Marines to conduct domestic policing tasks is unlawful, and that Trump administration officials have stated that is how the Marines being deployed to Los Angeles may be used.
“The Marine Corps’ deployment for law enforcement purposes is likewise unlawful. For more than a century, the Posse Comitatus Act has expressly prohibited the use of the active duty armed forces and federalized national guard for civilian law enforcement,” the state’s request states. “And the President and Secretary Hegseth have made clear — publicly and privately — that the Marines are not in Los Angeles to stand outside a federal building.”
At Trump’s direction, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mobilized nearly 2,000 members of the state’s National Guard on Saturday after Trump said L.A. was descending into chaos and federal agents were in danger, then mobilized another 2,000 members on Monday. The Pentagon approved the deployment of 700 U.S. Marines from the base in Twentynine Palms to the city Monday, with the stated mission of protecting federal buildings and agents.
Hegseth said the deployments would last 60 days, and the acting Pentagon budget chief said the cost would be at least $134 million. He told members of the House appropriations defense subcommittee that the length of the deployments was intended to “ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere.”
Local officials have decried acts of violence, property damage and burglaries that have occurred in tandem with the protests, but have also said that Trump administration officials have blown the problems out of proportion and that there is no need for federal forces in the city.
Constitutional scholars and some members of Congress have also questioned the domestic deployment of military forces, especially without the buy-in of local and state officials — calling it a tactic of dictators and authoritarian regimes.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass questioned what Marines would do on the ground, while Police Chief Jim McDonnell said the arrival of military forces in the city without “clear coordination” with local law enforcement “presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us tasked with safeguarding this city.”
Bonta had said Monday that the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution limits federal power around such deployments, that the deployment of National Guard forces to quell protests without Newsom’s consent was “unlawful” and “unprecedented,” and that the deployment of Marines would be “similarly unlawful.”
On Tuesday, he said the state was asking the court to “immediately block the Trump Administration from ordering the military or federalized national guard from patrolling our communities or otherwise engaging in general law enforcement activities beyond federal property.”
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