Kerri Evelyn Harris, part of a disruptive force of liberal candidates across the US, is hoping to unseat Democratic senator Tom Carper

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shocked the New York political world this summer when she toppled Joe Crowley, the fourth-ranking House Democrat. Boston city councillor Ayanna Pressley stunned the Massachusetts political class on Tuesday with a major victory over Michael Capuano, a 10-term Democratic congressman.

Now, as the primary season nears its end, all eyes are on a Senate race in Delaware, where progressives hope to pull off another upset against the Democratic establishment in Washington.

Boston's Ayanna Pressley follows trail blazed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Read more

Kerri Evelyn Harris, a military veteran who has not run for office before, is hoping to unseat US senator Tom Carper, a veteran politician who has not lost a statewide race since 1976.

“I’m tired of lip service,” Harris said. “We can’t keep waiting for change. We have bills to pay now. We have children to feed now. In Delaware, 80 to 90% of us have healthcare but we can’t afford to use it.”

Harris is part of a disruptive force of young, diverse and fiercely liberal candidates who are rattling elections around the country in an ideological and intergenerational battle for the Democratic party’s future.

Sign up to receive the top US stories every morning

Like many of the insurgent candidates this cycle, she is championing a populist message that aims to tap into a growing impatience with the political status quo. Her campaign platform includes support for a $15 federal minimum wage, universal healthcare and a federal jobs guarantee program. She also favors abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and eliminating all student debt.

The 38-year-old openly gay, biracial community activist is running to Carper’s left and asking voters to trust her lived experience over his political experience.

“It’s not that I am inexperienced. I have different experiences,” she said.

A working-class outsider who cut grass, fried chicken and worked on cars to make ends meet after retiring from the military, Harris has tried to paint Carper as an out-of-touch “pipeline politician” who has prioritized the state’s financial industry over its voters. “Any old blue just won’t do,” she said during their only debate.

Carper, who was expected to coast to a fourth term, has responded to the challenge by sharpening his rhetoric against Donald Trump and embracing more liberal positions on a handful of issues.

But his closing argument is that after serving Delaware as treasurer, congressman, governor and senator, he is uniquely qualified to represent the state and its voters in Washington.

"I come home every night on the train and I am in every county in Delaware, visiting with constituents, nearly every week. That's why I have 485,000 on my minivan,” Carper said in a statement.

Carper’s supporters say his brand of political centrism and record of working across the aisle are more reflective of a state that is heavily dependent on its financial industry and where Democrats only narrowly control the legislature.

He has earned endorsements from much of the state’s Democratic establishment. Former vice-president Joe Biden, who represented Delaware for 36 years in the Senate, recorded an ad for him.

“I know how to get things done for Delaware – and have been – and I want to continue to grow our economy, protect our environment and provide affordable, quality healthcare for all Americans,” Carper said.

Republicans have watched Carper closely for any signs of vulnerability as he navigates his first real Senate challenge. A Carper campaign aide said the senator is taking the primary race “seriously” and running “like his opponent is 10ft tall and that he's 20 points behind in the polls”.

Julia Salazar: the progressive aiming to follow in Ocasio-Cortez’s footsteps Read more

The state’s Republican primary pits the former PayPal executive Gene Truono against Sussex county councilman Rob Arlett, who was Trump’s state campaign chairman in 2016.

Harris, meanwhile, brushes off skepticism that her populist economic platform sounds off-key in a low-tax haven that is home to more corporations than people.

“We're the Cayman Islands of the United States,” she said. “We can afford to put a little more pressure on corporations to make sure people are pushed forward. These companies are not going to run away from Delaware because we're still the best option."

She has picked up endorsements from Justice Democrats, a coalition dedicated to electing progressives and backed Ocasio-Cortez, and the New York-based Working Families party, which has attacked Carper with digital ads.

Last month, Ocasio-Cortez joined Harris on the campaign trail in Delaware, telling a crowd of mostly students that they had each other’s backs “because that’s how the progressive movement really works”.

While progressives have notched a handful of successive upsets including recently in Massachusetts and in Florida, where the Tallahassee mayor, Andrew Gillum, pulled off a surprise win in the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, they have yet to unseat a senator.

The odds of doing so on Thursday are long. But that has consistently been the case for insurgents attempting to dismantle the party establishment.

"We had some wins that were huge. We had some losses that were a bit painful but they weren't failures,” Harris said. "We're building the playbook that is necessary to change the dynamics of a campaign and 2018 is just the beginning.”



