Races to Watch: A crowded Democratic primary field seeks the open House District 23 seat

Delaware Public Media · Jay Shah · September 8, 2026

2026 has been a year full of retirements by longtime legislators, including State Senator David Sokola , whose seat State Representative Mara Gorman is running for. That decision leaves her House District 23 seat open, and four Democrats — Dave Redlawsk, Luann D’Agostino, Dan Seador and Joe Jasper — are looking to fill it.

D’Agostino ran for House District 22 in 2020 and had considered running in 2024 for this seat but decided against it to focus on her business. Redlawsk held an elected position in New Jersey and had been involved in different political committees outside Delaware. Jasper has experience canvassing for the Harris-Walz campaign, working with legislators to change laws and serving on Newark’s Parking Advisory Committee.

Seador is an outlier in a sense as he has no direct political experience, leaning instead on his history as a born-and-raised Newarker, paramedic and volunteer firefighter.

He said, “My real experience has been living it. It’s not been talking about it or teaching it or whatever. It’s been living service to the community. And I really think that experience should put me above the others.”

Redlawsk believes his experience — outside his history in office — as an educator and political scientist at the University of Delaware makes him the most prepared to tackle Delaware issues immediately.

“What differentiates me, really, is this idea that I’m ready to go on Day 1… I’ve been studying, researching, writing about and teaching government for 3 decades. I understand how it works. I understand when it doesn’t work. And I know how the structures are, how they work, how they’re supposed to work,” he said.

D’Agostino feels she’s the best fit because of her varied experience. She credits her volunteer work with Moms Demand Action and providing pet therapy services as a sign, she’s dedicated. She’s also a former engineer at Hewlett-Packard and small-business owner of Take The Lead dance studio.

“I know how to solve real problems and not just talk about them. I don’t just repeat tag lines or protest over something. I look for that solution… So, I’m really asking the voters to look and judge me on the things I have done and the commitment I have had to our community. Not what I’m promising to do for them,” she said.

Jasper has also been a small-business owner; he was the brewmaster for Musings Fermentation Underground which he founded with his partner Lindsay. He shut down their business in late 2024 to avoid impending financial challenges. He says facing those challenges is one factor that makes him the best candidate. Another is wanting to act on his personal beliefs.

He said, “I stand out in this race because I'm listening and I want to build a legislative agenda with the neighbors. People are tired. They can't afford basic things. They're fed up with rate hikes and data centers and politicians. People want change and I'm with them on that. I'm running because I'm fed up too. I'm running because people deserve public servants that listen to them, not politicians that talk at them.”

All four plan to focus squarely on serving the district, if elected. D’Agostino and Redlawsk plan on stepping back from their respective professions. Seador is retired and technically, so is Jasper.

As they campaign this fall, each seeks to address some misconceptions they’ve observed about the district.

For Redlawsk, he wants people to see the community as more than the University of Delaware. He points out the diversity in income that people often overlook.

“I think there's a sense that, with the university and a district like mine, that everybody's well off, everybody's in good shape, everything's fine, nobody's stressed. And that's just not true, whether it's particular economic stress, whether it's other kinds of stress that I hear about at the doors these days. It's a great place to live. It's a great community, but we have challenges too,” he said.

D’Agostino feels people disregard what the district has to offer in terms of culture and quality of life, especially green spaces in the area, which she wants to preserve.

She said, “It's one of the reasons why we don't want data centers sitting in the middle of our community. People move here, I think, because of the communities and the parks and the surroundings that we have. And I would love to see more of the bike trails and accessibility for people, but even the ones we have are much better than a lot of other areas.”

Jasper notices a gap in awareness about several topics including the education system — how public schools vs charter schools are funded and operated — due to people’s assumption the district is a wealthy one.

“And it's something that I've learned a bunch about through friends’ kids being in the system. And yeah, it's very exclusionary, the charter system itself. And then the people that can't afford that, then they get the short end of the stick,” he said.

Seador, on the other hand, focuses on people’s age and political affiliation. He thinks people don’t realize how significant the older, conservative and moderate population is in District 23.

He said, “Across the board, I get a lot of agreement with the people that I've spoken with. I think we're coming from the same space. And then, so going forward legislatively, I think people are much more common sense, middle of the road residents in this district than perhaps others think.”

All four have overlapping priorities, if elected, such as affordability and healthcare, but for D’Agostino and Seador, education takes precedence.

Redlawsk also considers education a top issue, given his background, and based on conversations with constituents. Jasper is the only one who listed environmental issues, first, on his list.

To Seador, education is vital to the state’s overall health.

He said, “So all of these things, these three main things: revenue for the state and keeping our tax revenue distributed better, building out small businesses and education; all these things are tied together. If I'm a small or medium-sized business and I want to come to Delaware, one of the things I'm going to look at is, okay, what's the education system look like?”

He supports the state’s move to a new funding formula focused on allocating money to schools based on need, but he feels it isn’t being implemented fast enough.

“As I keep saying, every year that we don't implement these changes, if we aren't fixing the system, is another year lost. And that is impactful to Delaware over the long term. And the longer we take to get it fixed, the longer it's going to be, I think, a drag on Delaware's economy,” he said.

D’Agostino also feels the revamped school funding formula is a step in the right direction, but she wants to explore additional ideas so public schools aren’t limited in how they can use funds allocated to them

“Districts have very little freedom in... In other words, they can't move funding around to where they need it in a lot of cases. If they say we need money for this, they are held to using it for that purpose. That's not the case with charter schools. So the same money that goes out of the district to charter schools, they can use it however,” she said.

Jasper supports the new school funding formula, but wants to make sure the state’s system balances quality with affordability and accessibility while considering different demographics.

“It needs to factor in the marginalized populations and the low income or no income populations. So that comes [with] not just free education, but also free meals and free pre-K and free healthcare,” he said.

Jasper also feels the Public Education Compensation Committee’s work to address teacher pay was a good step, but believes the state needs work on attracting outside talent.

Redlawsk sees the new school funding formula as a significant improvement, but wants it monitored to ensure it’s working as anticipated.

He is also focusing on early childhood education and pre-K. To him this intersects with impact on workforce and affordability.

“We need, for example, also to be looking more seriously at early childhood, in particular pre-K. We have a very... We don't have a universal pre-K system in Delaware. And we know that getting kids started early makes all the difference,” he said.

Hyperscale and mega data centers are another top issue for district residents.

All four candidates support a moratorium on all new and proposed data center development in Delaware, until their impacts can be evaluated.

D’Agostino wants each environmental impact addressed separately through individual legislation in preparation for possible development.

“So if we're protecting our water, protecting our power, and we have these things that are going to grow with us, that's not going to change. We don't want the noise. Great. That's covered now. It's on the books. We don't want this side effect. Great. It's on the books. So wherever data centers do evolve to, wherever technology evolves to, we have those things in place that are looking forward, looking to the future. And put the right guardrails in place,” she said.

She feels due to her experience as an engineer — who worked with traditional data centers — she understands the consequences from a waste-generation perspective as well. She said during her time at HP, the equipment kept shrinking as the technology kept getting upgraded and no longer needed the same floor space.

D'Agostino said, "There's still things we're going to find out because data centers haven't been around... These types of data centers have not been around long enough. What's gonna happen when the technology does move on and some of these states that have data centers, they start abandoning them? With the equipment and whatever is left behind from however they were cooling and powering, and walk away from these?"

And she also wants more consideration given to regional impacts if hyperscale and mega data centers are built across state lines near Delaware.

Seador wants to build relationships with local lawmakers in other states in anticipation of data center development, but doesn’t think Delawareans should shut the door on them yet.

“I think it's a bit unfair to kind of leap that middle step, again, without more information. And because I do think that... Are there ways for data centers to be built that would have low or no impact on surrounding areas? Yeah, if you build them out in the desert where they're not around anybody.”

If the state were to consider data centers, Jasper agrees that concerns raised about their potential harmful effects need to be addressed.

But he thinks there are two solutions that could be implemented as a compromise. The first is tied to their scale, “I forget the terminology for it, but just do much, much smaller localized versions of AI, so it doesn't need nearly the same amount of computing power,” he said.

And the second is their cooling technology.

“And treat it like the brewing industry does, actually. The way they cool the liquid down in the tank is to have an external jacket that doesn't touch the liquid. And it's called propylene glycol, and it's food grade. If you accidentally drink it, you're not going to die. And it just stays. And yeah, you might have a little bit of evaporation — have to top it up here and there — but that doesn't affect the environmental challenges and problems that everyone is really upset about across the country,” he said.

Aside from the data centers themselves, Redlawsk wants to highlight what he sees as a larger issue — the entities pushing to build these.

“Right now, it's another example of — honestly, to put it pretty bluntly right — the billionaires taking the profits and socializing the costs. Right, putting the costs on everybody else, whether they're economic or environmental,” he said.

He strongly believes the state won’t gain anything from data centers — just more risks — but if an assessment shows Delawareans can benefit from data centers without paying the environmental and economic costs, he would be open to a conversation.

None of the candidates received an endorsement from Gorman. Since no Republican filed to run in House District 23, the winner of this Primary will run unopposed in November’s General election.

Read the full story at Delaware Public Media