Delaware Candidate Spotlight: Delaware 6th District Senate Primary

DELAWARE- With the retirement of Senator Ernie Lopez, Delaware’s 6th Senatorial seat is up for grabs with Democrats Russ Huxtable and John “Jack” Bucchioni facing off for the seat.

Bucchioni tells us he has a history of advocating for the district that includes Rehoboth, Lewes, and Dewey Beach and that issues of transit are among the top concerns that matter to voters. His solution is high-speed rail.

“Delaware lends itself to building the infrastructure and I believe the funding is there with state and federal grants we can start to build east-west trains to get workers over to the restaurants,’ Bucchioni said.

He says this will help restaurants and businesses get more workers looking to work in Rehoboth, Dewey, and Lewes.

He tells us that’s a sharp contrast between him and Huxtable who he says is looking to continue building in the district.

“Stopping overbuilding and protecting the coast is paramount to me I’m running against a builder my opponent works for a housing development corporation I couldn’t be further from what he wants to do,” he said.

But Huxtable tells 47abc he shares those same environmental concerns and that his focus is on affordable housing. He says he feels that rail options would be of limited use, and a better way of getting workers to the beaches is to make housing affordable for them to live within the district.

“You go to the restaurant for lunch the person that’s serving you needs an affordable place to live,” Huxtable said, adding ” these are the people in our neighborhood and they deserve an affordable safe place to live this is foundational.”

He says affordable housing efforts across the state have been left unimplemented or underfunded, which he says needs to change, by raising the state’s current 4 million dollars affordable housing investment.

“We get thousands of units behind because our investment does not match the population of growth and there are millions of federal dollars that if we invested a bit more we could get even more dollars,” he said.

Both candidates say they want to boost businesses and growth in the district, improve infrastructure and want development to be better planned in the district, but differ on the ways to make it happen.
Voters are set to hit the polls Tuesday to decide.

The winner will face Republican Steve Smyk and Non-partisan candidate Gwendolyn “Wendy” Jones in November.