DE-AL: On Tuesday, Iraq vet Sean Barney became the fourth Democrat to join the race for Delaware's lone House seat, which Rep. John Carney is vacating to run for governor. Barney quickly earned the backing of the increasingly influential group VoteVets, which supports progressive veterans for office and had previously pledged to endorse Barney if he ran. Last year, Barney, who survived a sniper shot in the neck in Fallujah, lost a bid for state treasurer by 10 points, but that may have had more to do with 2014's GOP wave than anything else.
It will also be interesting to see whether an issue Barney raised at the time of his campaign launch winds up resonating in his primary and appearing in others: the Syrian refugee crisis. Barney wanted the U.S. to accept 100,000 refugees in the next year, 10 times as many as Barack Obama has called for, and he also castigated the House for passing a bill that "scapegoats people who are fleeing ISIS tyranny."
Two other Democrats in the race—state Sen. Bryan Townsend and former state Secretary of Labor Lisa Blunt Rochester—have vocally opposed the House legislation (which Carney shamefully voted for), while a third, state Rep. Bryon Short, has equivocated. The lone Republican running, former Wyoming Mayor Hans Reigle, unsurprisingly supports the bill, but Democrats are heavily favored to hold this seat.