More than three years after beginning her campaign, Republican Lacey Lafferty has made her candidacy for Delaware’s soon-to-be vacant gubernatorial seat official.

Lafferty, a 54-year-old Laurel resident, announced her intentions shortly after Gov. Jack Markell was sworn into office for his second term in 2013. She filed with the Department of Elections March 10.

“I’ve been campaigning up and the down the state,” said Lafferty. “The response I’ve received from voters has been very humbling.”Lafferty said, time and time again, voters have told her they’re sick and tired of having to vote for the lesser of two evils.

“Delaware voters have been speaking, and they’re all frustrated,” she said. “They want a change. This is the year of the citizen politician.”

When Lafferty says up and down the state, she literally means up and down the state – shortly after announcing her campaign she has walked both across Sussex County and the length of the entire state.

Lafferty, a Cape Henlopen High School graduate and single mother of an 11-year-old girl, has never held a publicly elected office, but she said her numerous career fields offer experience: she’s a retired state trooper; she’s been a farmer; she owns her own trucking business; she’s an author; and she’s raced stock cars.

“I have a lot of skills I’ve gained over my lifetime,” she said. “I’m not about a party affiliation. I’m about representing the people of Delaware as a whole.”

As of March 22, Lafferty is the only person to officially file for the seat, but two longtime Delaware politicians – one Democrat and one Republican – have expressed their desire to hold the seat in the state’s top office.

U.S. Rep. John Carney, a Democrat who has represented Delaware in Congress since 2011, announced his candidacy in September.

This will be Carney’s second run for the governor’s seat. In 2008, he lost to Markell in the Democratic primary. Prior to that, he served as the state’s lieutenant governor for eight years, elected in 2000.

Sen. Colin Bonini, R-Dover South, has represented his district continuously since in 1994. He announced his candidacy days after winning a November 2014 re-election campaign.

Lafferty said both of these potential opponents are exactly what voters have told her they don’t want in office anymore – career politicians.

The filing deadline for candidates to enter the statewide primary is noon, Tuesday, July 12. The deadline to register to vote for the Tuesday, Sept. 13 state primary is Saturday, Aug. 20.

The deadline to register the for the Tuesday, April 26 presidential primary is Saturday, April 2.