Within the Margin

Last month, my indoor five-a-side soccer team was languishing near the bottom of the table as the fall/winter season drew to a close. A campaign that had started brightly enough with a decisive win and some encouraging draws had given way to a seemingly endless series of one-goal defeats. The defense (including me) was of middling quality at best, the offense lacked a killer instinct. It was not out of the realm of possibility that we’d finish 17th out of 18, compared to our usual hard-fought mid-table (or just under) placement.We were struggling on all fronts, but our next to last game featured a team one spot below us. Beat them, as just about everyone else had done, and we’d secure 16th with a shot to move up another spot in the final week. Lose, and risk dropping a spot and losing more momentum going into the spring season. Pride was on the line, in other words. There are games you simply have to win.

So naturally I lost my man in the penalty area after a corner and turned around with horror to see him collecting a pass and firing it past a goalkeeper who had worked so many miracles for us all season. That’s my goal, I said, but whatever class I showed in taking the blame didn’t make us feel any better about the 1-0 scoreline. The game stood that way at halftime: we were losing to one of the only two teams that had been worse than us all season.

But it’s a game of two halves, football. We equalized soon after the break and plowed forward with resolve the rest of the way until finally, with two or three minutes to spare, I intercepted a ball in midfield and dashed forward. Spotting my workhorse teammate Ronald – a man who carries the pain of his native Ecuador’s massive 2016 earthquake with him onto the pitch and inspires me to do better, or at least try harder – speeding down the left flank, I threaded a perfectly weighted ball past his marker and onto his feet. He took care of the rest with a thunderous strike. 2-1, and it was never in doubt that we’d hold on and see out the victory after that.

***

There are elections you simply have to win. Not because the Delaware legislature is regarded as one of the nation’s most innovative or influential, and not because Democrats are hurting to develop a bench in a state where they have controlled the governorship since 1992 and both U.S. senators since 2000 and the lone U.S. representative since 2010, not to mention most of the other statewide offices for over a decade – on the whole, Democrats are more or less doing just fine in Delaware. Not because the Trump White House will see the result and suspend their assault on immigrants, on health care, on the environment, on civil rights, on the free press.

But because sometimes in life – on the pitch, on the campaign trail – you need a sense of momentum. You need reliability. You need to know that your team can experience a poor run of form but still spy the winnable game…and then actually win it.

That’s Saturday’s Delaware senate special election. Control of the Delaware Senate hinges upon it. They’ve seen a 15-6 majority in 2008 eroded by one seat in each election since. That would have left them up 11-10 after the 2016 elections, except incumbent senator Bethany Hall-Long vacated her seat upon being elected lieutenant governor. So it’s 10-10 right now, pending Saturday’s outcome. Democrats are the side with everything to lose: the First State is one of only six in the country where Democrats control the governorship and both houses of the legislature. They’re the out-party in much of the nation, but this is a seat – and a senate chamber – that they actually have, or had until November.

Let’s be clear: it’s  a Democratic seat. Obama carried it 59%-40% in 2012 (and unofficial calculations show Clinton carrying it 54%-41% last year). But especially in low-turnout special elections, few seats are actually safe if hotly contested, and that’s certainly happening here. John Marino, a retired New York City police officer and current realtor and small business owner, is the GOP candidate. He’s a solid candidate and he’s been close to winning before: in a previous bid for this seat in 2014, he lost only 51%-49%. Democrats are running former New Castle County council president Stephanie Hansen. Both candidates are well-funded, with lots of outside money in the mix: Hansen is getting plenty of support from a Delaware-specific PAC called First State Strong. Marino is getting less money than her but plenty enough to run a race, and far more than the usual Delaware senate race, from the usual mix of anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-tax groups.

Democrats are spending more because they have more to lose, and anyway it’s funny to listen to a guy complain about being outspent by PACs when his party gleefully opposes campaign finance reforms all around the country. Regardless, Marino has enough funds and existing name recognition to be competitive. What he doesn’t have is a party enthused to find some way to strike back at the party of Trump…and he doesn’t have Joe Biden campaigning for him, as Hansen does.

Democrats have everything to lose and nothing to gain…except a touch of momentum, a bit of confidence, and that little spring in their step that would come from knowing that all the resistance efforts are not for naught, and that the decline of party strength in America’s 50 state legislatures is to be arrested and down the road, reversed.

The party could use a little swagger right now.