Stephanie Hansen won a decisive victory over her opponent Saturday to keep the Delaware Senate in Democratic hands. Republicans had voiced a slight hope they might gain control of District 10 and thus secure a one-vote margin in the 21-seat Senate that was tied 10-10 going into the special election. Such elections typically have low turnouts that favor Republicans.

The turnout, however, was more than a third of the registered 35,673 voters in the district, quite good for a special election. With all precincts counted, Hansen with 7,314 votes had left Republican John Marino trailing far behind with 5,127 votes, just 41 percent of the total. The Libertarian candidate, Joseph Lanzendorfer, got 1 percent of the vote.

Democrats have held the Delaware Senate for 44 years and both chambers of the legislature since 2008. The governorship has been in their hands for 24 years. Republicans’ chance to change that came about because the Democratic Senate president pro tem unexpectedly lost to a Republican, and Democrat Bethany Hall-Long won her race for lieutenant governor, leaving District 10 vacant. The district includes Middletown, Glasgow and southern Newark.

If Republicans had won the seat, they would have gained significant clout to dilute Democratic Gov. John Carney’s goals.

Hansen reportedly raised more than $400,000 for her campaign, and a political action committee raised another $400,000 used to place third-party ads. Marino raised less than $150,000, with a GOP PAC raising a little more than $40,000. A hunk of Hansen’s campaign money was raised by participants at Daily Kos: