Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware campaign finance rules require political organizations to disclose donors so that voters can know who is trying to sway elections. A recent ad blitz from the national Working Families Party is countering messaging from law firms, but it is not immediately clear whether the group is drawing dollars from any specific individuals within its donor base.
A progressive political action committee backing a slate of Delaware legislative candidates filed a long-delayed state campaign finance report last week that revealed nearly half a million dollars in political advocacy, but did not disclose who funded it.
An official from the WFP National PAC said it omitted its donors because Delaware regulators told the group that the disclosure was not required as long as it filed separately with the Federal Elections Commissions.
Delaware Department of Elections spokeswoman Cathleen Hartsky-Carter called that a “misunderstanding.” She also noted that the state fined the PAC for filing last week’s report late.
Despite the omitted donors, the report did outline how the WFP National PAC — an arm of the national Working Families Party — spent $455,000 during the past month to support six candidates for the Delaware legislature, five of whom are challenging incumbent Democrats.
The spending comes as Delaware’s Democratic primary has increasingly become a front in a national battle over the party’s identity. Much of the recent fight in Delaware has centered on last year’s reforms to the state’s corporate law — which sets the rules for how the 2 million companies domiciled in the state are governed.
Last month, Spotlight Delaware reported about corporate law firms’ million-dollar campaign to back their own slate of largely incumbent Democrats facing challengers from the left.
In an apparent response, the WFP National PAC launched its own campaign, published online ads and sent out mailers in support of favored candidates and in opposition to their opponents.
Many of the ads highlight last year’s legislative battle over a proposed corporate law change that largely limited shareholders’ ability to sue the companies they own stock in.
Supporters of the reform said it would move Delaware’s prominent business courts back into alignment with rulings from a decade ago. They also said it could dissuade companies from leaving the state, following assaults on Delaware’s brand by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
Opponents derisively called the legislation a “billionaire’s bill.“
Among the incumbents targeted by the WFP’s campaign is Rep. Kim Williams (D-Newport) who recounted in an interview how she chuckled when first hearing about ads that linked her with Musk.
She also criticized the Working Families Party for not revealing their donors in their state campaign finance filing.
“Our constituents should know where the money is coming from, and who’s funding it,” she said.
Williams’ critiques add to others expressed to Spotlight Delaware over the past month from many within Delaware‘s more establishment circles.
Get Involved
To find your legislative district, see who’s running in races for seats in the Delaware House of Representative or Senate, or to read candidate Q&As, visit the Spotlight Delaware Election Center.
Still, the WFP National PAC is not the only Delaware organization to file a recent campaign finance report that omits donors. The Delaware Building Trades PAC also submitted a report without donors on Wednesday, though its spending for the past month totaled about $23,000 — a fraction of the WFP expenditures.
Local Working Families Party organizer Karl Stomberg declined to comment on the national PAC’s campaign finance report, stating that a firewall exists between his local activities working with candidates, and those of a PAC that cannot legally coordinate with those campaigns.
“Messages that are put out by the PAC are not preapproved by the candidates or by me,” Stomberg said,
What do the federal filings show?
In an interview with Spotlight Delaware on Thursday, the official from the WFP National PAC, who only spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the group will disclose its donors in an amended Delaware campaign finance report in the coming days.
As of Sunday, no new report appears on the Delaware campaign finance website.
The official also said the money funding its Delaware campaign came from a federal account that is targeted for independent expenditures, meaning it does not directly fund candidates’ campaigns.
The WFP National PAC’s federal campaign finance report shows that it raised more than $10 million in 2026 from more than 500 contributors.
The two largest were separate political organizations. The Democracy PAC has contributed $5.5 million to the group, while the Movement Voter PAC added $1.2 million, according to federal elections data.
The bulk of Democracy PAC’s contributions come from entities linked with the investor and political donor, George Soros.
The Movement Voter PAC derives its dollars from a more dispersed, left-leaning donor base.
