Spotlight Delaware editors Tim Carlin and Jake Owens recently spoke with Krista Griffith and Rob Bansen, who are seeking the Democratic nomination for House District 12 in the Sept. 15 primary election.
Griffith is a four-term incumbent who will be looking to defend her seat from Bahnsen, a progressive emergency room psychiatrist.
The winner will face Republican Steve Pickering in the November general election.
Readers can find condensed versions of the candidates’ answers below, while the accompanying podcasts feature unedited excerpts from our conversations.
Rep. Krista Griffith
What is something that you think voters should know about you that they maybe would not be able to glean from reading your campaign platforms or looking on your website?
I think the image that I would want voters to see is of a mom in a hospital room holding a 1-year-old who’s receiving chemotherapy treatments for acute myeloid leukemia. And as she holds that child in her arms in the middle of the night because he’s sick from the toxicity of the treatments, she notes that she is so fortunate to be able to hold him because in the room next door, there’s a child crying out for his mother.
And that moment was one of those moments in life that fundamentally alter what you think your purpose should be.
So that mom was me, and it was in 2016, and the child was my son, Nate. And the other child was receiving cancer treatments in the same ward that we were in, and he was not able to have a mom or dad at his side because of whatever reason that prevented that mom or dad from being there.
Most likely, it was because they didn’t have the right kind of insurance, or they couldn’t leave their job to take care of a child because the choice they had at that point in history was between a paycheck and sitting with their child. And when you have to work to pay for your insurance, then the question is almost made for you, and you don’t have that opportunity.
I had been serving in public service law for a long period of time, as a deputy attorney general, representing the most vulnerable children at the Department of Services for Youth and Their Families, and then later prosecuting elder abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse. So the body of my work over the last eight years has touched upon healthcare access, protecting important rights, standing up to Big Tech and making sure that survivors of abuse have access to the care and the response that they deserve.
You have a primary challenger, Rob Bahnsen. He’s running very explicitly to the left of you, and he’s kind of framing this as establishment versus reform in this coming primary. What’s one thing that you think that Rob is actually getting right about voters’ frustration with the state government, even if you may disagree with his proposed solutions or fixes?
So I’ll tell you this. I view being progressive a choice rather than a slogan.
I have fought for, sponsored, and championed numerous bills that are “progressive.” Bills that ensure that we are protecting freedoms, that we are looking at our most vulnerable and figuring out ways to protect them, including from [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] infringement.
So I don’t think it’s accurate to say that he would be more left of me. I think again, that’s a choice that someone makes between using the word progressive as a slogan rather than a choice.
So I think if you look at the body of my work and the General Assembly in the past eight years, you’ll be hard-pressed to say that I am not progressive.
One of the biggest bills that you have sponsored was Senate Bill 21, the 2025 rewrite of Delaware’s General Corporation Law.
I think that critics would say that bill weakened shareholders’ ability to challenge corporate boards in the state’s Chancery Court.
Your primary opponent has made this one of the centerpieces of his campaign, kind of pointing to one of those instances of maybe reform versus establishment. What is your response to the argument that Delaware traded away its reputation of strong corporate accountability in order to keep companies incorporated in the state?
I will note that every single senator voted to support Senate Bill 21 and a vast majority of House members voted to support SB 21.
So I think it’s important to note that the bill passed overwhelmingly in both chambers and was signed by the governor.
I’m gonna bring us back to January-February of 2025. The cushion of pandemic-related funding was dissipating. Trump had just been reelected and presented us with the looming darkness of deep federal cuts to the most significant parts of the budget that touch the neediest.
And the point of the legislation, above and beyond the technical changes and nuances, was the need to show that Delaware will maintain its consistency and the rules that are contained within corporate law are clear, so companies and shareholders alike have the ability to understand them and apply them.
I would be very uncomfortable for shareholders of a company that moved to Texas or Nevada, where you won’t get that thoughtful, reasonable, reasoned, expert eyes on an issue. Here in Delaware, shareholders should want Delaware judges to decide their cases.
We hear from people who are unhoused. We hear from parents who are the caretakers of their adult children with disabilities. We hear from bus drivers who aren’t getting health insurance correctly. We hear from educators who want more in their classroom. The list goes on and on.
And the corporate franchise, which consists of those taxes that corporations pay, represent a third of the state’s budget.
For me, it was about protecting Delaware. It was about protecting our resources so that we could keep schools open, keep people fed, keep healthcare available for our elderly, keep our roads clean and safe and pay for public safety. It was about maintaining the services for the people of Delaware.
There are five corporate law firms that have created a PAC with about $1 million that is running ads in opposition to your opponent and in favor of your candidacy, among other races.
Your opponent has said that he won’t take any corporate or lobbyist money and he’s also openly questioned what that spending is actually buying.
Even though there’s no formal coordination between you and this PAC, does that level of outside spending on your behalf complicate your ability to regulate this industry?
The only people I answer to are my constituents. I don’t answer to anybody else.
Absolutely not. In fact, you have to look at my record of standing up to Big Tech to prove that. And, as we all know, Big Tech is the biggest players right now in corporate America.
So in terms of the PAC, I don’t have anything to do with them, as you know. I raise my own funds. I’m restricted to the $600 per individual limit.
So proud of this. Eighty percent of my funds are individuals who live in Delaware. More than half of the contributions that I receive are from individuals — people, hardworking men and women who live in the 12th district. So my support comes from my constituents and fellow Delawareans.
Is there anything that we haven’t touched on either about your tenure in the legislature, your reelection campaign that you think is important for voters to know before they head to the polls?
I’m running because I have the skills and experience to protect Delaware at this very challenging time. I have a proven ability to protect the freedoms and rights of Delawareans and the rights and the freedoms that they deserve despite Trump’s chaos and cruelty.
Uniquely, I know what you need to be successful, and sometimes it’s taking on major issues like curbing and preventing data centers, standing up to Big Tech, or enshrining marriage equality in the state’s Constitution.
But it’s also about hyper local issues that impact the people I serve.
The constituent call asking for help is just as important as a piece of legislation that I’m passing.
Rob Bahnsen
What’s something you think voters should know about you that they would not be able to glean from reading your website?
Probably just that I’m a total dork. I am a gardener. I’m a video gamer. I love to read.
Gosh, I love getting to know people. This process, this campaign has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
I’ve made friends for life, and I’m just so genuinely grateful to have run this race.
Your opponent, Krista Griffith, has been in the legislature since 2018 and has been a sponsor of, many bills covering topics like victims’ rights, gun control, and of course, the state’s corporate franchise. I think there’s plenty that you guys maybe disagree about, but I’m curious if there’s a bill or an initiative, that Representative Griffith has undertaken that you have, thought she got right?
I think one of the things that I would like to give her props on is her work with gun legislation. She’s done a pretty good job with that.
I’d like to continue to expand her work on that if I were honored to win, especially surrounding gun prevention for people with acute, serious psychiatric issues.
I believe that there are laws in the books that are not being enforced, and those laws need to be bolstered.
What’s your answer to Democratic voters who like Griffith’s record broadly but are being asked to replace her? What explicitly has she gotten wrong on the job and maybe warrants a change in direction for the district?
I think before we answer that question, it’s just important to recognize that neither of us are evil.
There’s no good and evil in this race. We’re both Democrats. We both have a significant amount of overlap.
However, I think that I offer, something very special to the district, and I think that that is resonating with the voters. One, I’m a physician. I’d be the only doctor in elected office in Delaware if I were to win this election.
And as our state is facing down a budget crisis, as we are seeing an absolute explosion in healthcare costs in this state — up to 30% of a person’s income can be spent on healthcare. We’re the fourth most expensive state in the nation for healthcare costs. I think it’s incredibly important to have somebody who understands how healthcare is delivered and could be delivered better in this state.
Second, I believe that campaign finance is an incredibly important — it’s part of the authenticity and integrity of a politician and what they can do and what they won’t do.
For me, I am an entirely grassroots, guy. I don’t take any corporate money. I don’t take any PAC money. For Representative Griffith, unfortunately, the majority of her funds come from corporations, their attorneys, lobbyists, special interests, and PACs.
I challenge people to find one future-forward policy point on anything that she has written on any of the many mailers that she sent to the people of our district. For me, I am coming as the candidate of substance with specific, well-researched policy points on healthcare, on our public schools, on our economy, and I believe that that will help to bring our state forward.
You’ve made Senate Bill 21 as well as the influence of Delaware’s corporate law establishment pretty central to your campaign. And you’ve said that you don’t want Delaware to abandon its corporate franchise altogether.
So where exactly is that line, and how do you square protecting the franchise with restoring the Chancery Court’s discretion when critics say that’s precisely the uncertainty SB-21 was written to remove?
I think that I would respectfully push back on the framing of the question a little bit.
I think that SB 21 has become a central flashpoint in our race simply because of Krista’s prime sponsorship of the bill in the House.
I’m not running because of the corporate franchise. I’m running because I’m worried about the state of healthcare in our state. I’m worried that we are spending $2.5 billion to be near last in ranking for the quality of our schools. I’m worried about our economy. I’m worried that Delaware in many ways is withering on the vine with regards to economic opportunity, especially for our working families.
Having said that, I think that the corporate franchise is integral to everything that we do here in Delaware. It is the second-largest source of our revenue, and it needs to be protected, preserved and expanded in every possible way that we can.
I think that when you get down to it, there’s two sides to the story. There’s one side that says appeasement of controlling shareholders is the way to preserve the franchise and attract more companies to come here. And there are good people on that side of that aisle and I give them that.
There is also a side that believes that the corporate franchise is as special as it is here in Delaware not necessarily because we are pro-managerial, but because of the fairness, neutrality, and excellence of our courts.
And SB 21 took power away from our courts.
I think that for me, if I am honored to be the next representative from our district, one of the very first things that I have to do is find a way to get the corporate bar back together again. This bill has caused the corporate franchise to become a national news story.
It has been a national news story for a long, long time now, and I do not want the microscope on our franchise any more than it needs to be. For me, I think about this process as akin to a healthcare administrator coming into my examination room and telling me how to treat a patient. Politicians should not be telling the corporate bar how to run the franchise.
This has been going on for over a century. We know what we’re doing. We need to mediate this conflict. We need to make it quieter. We need to get the corporate bar back to doing what it does again so that frankly, I can move on to the policy that I’m running on, which is improving our healthcare system, improving our schools, and making sure that we have a better economy.
Do you think that it’s a case of the politicians are setting policy? In this case it was several of the more prominent litigators in the state, along with some professors and former chancellors, who actually wrote the majority of SB 21. Is this where we can expect the franchise to go in your estimation, or do you think there needs to be kind of a reset?
I have no plans to take up any legislation regarding the corporate franchise myself.
I’m a psychiatrist. I want to work on healthcare. I want to work on our schools. To the extent that my training as a mediator and a communicator can help to calm down the conflict, I would be of better use than my opponent.
I can speak to both progressives and the establishment alike. I think that we need to bring ourselves back together. I think we really need to mediate this conflict, make it quiet again, and move on.
That being said, of course, nearly a million dollars from those corporate law firms have gone into ads defending Representative Griffith as well as other incumbents, many of them tied to SB 21, and you’ve publicly said, “Nobody gives away a million dollars for free.”
You’ve significantly outraised her in 2025. So I guess walk me through your own donor base, and are there interests funding your campaign that you’d expect people to scrutinize in the same way?
Well, I think that this is one of the most important things to do with a politician is to take a look at who’s funding them.
So for me, every single one of my donations comes from an actual person. There were mailers that were sent by this, First State Future PAC and the other additional PACs that are being funded by the First State Future PAC, to suggest that I have “rich out-of-state donors.”
The vast majority of my funds come from Delaware. My husband and I gave ourselves $45,000 to help run this campaign because we knew who we were going up against, and we believe very strongly in our message. But I also think that it’s important to just take a look at the names and look them up.
The vast majority of those “rich out-of-state donors” are physicians who work with me elbow-to-elbow in the hospital here in Delaware, but they choose to live in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, because of the quality of the schools. They want their kids to go to better schools.
I’d much rather them live here in Delaware and send their kids to good schools. This is a big, big flashpoint here in Delaware. We are losing young families. They are leaving the state en masse. We’re losing their tax revenue. We’re losing their skilled labor, and when skilled labor leaves, we lose their industry as well.
Reversing that by investing in families is at the heart of my platform and what I really wanna work on in Dover.
You work in the medical field and many of the biggest pieces of legislation this past session sought to drive down healthcare costs for Delawareans with the caveat that some of those bills were watered down through negotiations with the healthcare systems. What is your take on some of these recently reenacted reforms and what still needs to be done?
You’re referring to Senate Bill 1 this year and House Bill 350 from a couple of years prior.
So Senate Bill 1 was a bill for your listeners that purported to, cap the amount of money that a hospital can charge for a procedure to insurance, and then take the money that’s saved from that and invest in rural health and in primary care.
The intention of that is fantastic, right? That sounds like a really, really great bill. The problem is that we exist in a broken healthcare system. I’m a Medicare for All guy. I believe that healthcare is a human right. I think that we need to work toward that. But the problem is that we’re not gonna get that for a long time because of the corporate interests and money involved in our politics at a national level.
I think that what most people don’t quite understand is that when a hospital charges that extra money, they’re not using it to line their own pockets. What they’re doing is they’re subsidizing teams that don’t make money. For example, I think about teams like palliative care or, frankly, my own team.
I’m an emergency room psychiatry doctor, and I treat people who frankly can’t pay their hospital bills. But they come to the hospital all the same. They deserve the same level of world-class care. I think about only 50% of the patients that I see actually pay for the services that we provide.
We can work around these things. We can be very intelligent about these things. We can contain costs and increase access and quality at the same time. But I don’t think that we need to be reactionary about it. I think we need to be calm and measured about, folks and their healthcare. It’s incredibly important.
With House Bill 350, it was much the same thing, right? I was worried about the bill. What that bill purported to do was to create a hospital review board where, the governor would be able to appoint people to this board to veto items in a hospital’s budget. The intention of that was great.
It was meant to constrain hospitals from spending Delaware’s taxpayer dollars to expand into other states. That sounds like a great bill. The intention of that was fantastic. The problem though was I don’t think that they quite understood how much of a Trojan horse that could have been.
If we were to have a Republican governor, God forbid, here in Delaware at any point, that governor would have had the opportunity to appoint folks to that board that could have selectively defunded abortion care in this state. And I am incredibly pro-choice. A woman’s bodily autonomy is sacred here in the state of Delaware, and it should maintain that way.
I think one of the arguments for bills like SB 1 and HB 350 is the ballooning cost of healthcare to consumers. Many of these costs maybe are legitimate and just part of where we are with healthcare, but what can you do or what can the state do to help drive down healthcare costs?
One of the bills that I would like to, work on in my first term is actually reining in pharmacy benefit managers here in Delaware. So, as just one example, when you combine CVS and Cigna, they own 75% of the pharmacy benefit managers in the state of Delaware.
A PBM is an entity that buys drugs from a manufacturer at a low cost and sells it back to pharmacies and hospitals at higher cost, and they pocket the profit. Now, it’s interesting because, CVS owns the PBMs.
They buy drugs themselves, sell it back to their own pharmacies at higher costs, and then they push that cost off to insurance, that then pushes the cost off to regular hardworking Delawareans in the form of higher insurance premiums. The reason why you don’t see, that being talked about is because of corporate financing in our elections.
My opponent maxed donations from the Delaware hospital lobby, from AstraZeneca, from Pfizer, from Cigna, and the list goes on and on. That is part of the reason why the status quo is not changing.
I think that we need to really have a discussion in our state about campaign finance, about the authenticity and integrity of our politicians and where our financing is coming from.
What else have we missed in terms of maybe personal attributes about yourself you want voters to know before they go to the polls or other issues, policy initiatives that you’re hearing about on the campaign trail?
One of the things that actually worries me the most is what’s going on with young families in our state, and especially in my district.
Almost universally, when I knock on the door of somebody who is raising a young child, what they tell me is that, “As soon as my kid turns 5, the for sale sign is going up and I’m moving to Pennsylvania.” And the reason that they tell me that is because of the quality of our schools. When we started this race, we were ranked 47th by the NEA for the quality of our schools.
Only 20% of Delaware’s fourth graders knew how to read at a fourth-grade level; 13% of our high schoolers didn’t graduate on time; 5% of our children didn’t have health insurance; 3% of our children here in Delaware lived in extreme poverty. That’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable for a solidly blue state like ours to be spending $2.5 billion on our public education, system and seeing those kinds of results.
Now, good work is happening. There are folks who are doing good work now in the General Assembly, but I would like to lend my voice to theirs and get that fixed.
I myself am the product of a public school education where I grew up in New York. Because of my teachers, I am who I am now: the first person in my family to go to college, and first doctor in my family.
One of the things that worries me the most is how many young souls here in Delaware are caught in a public education system that is perceived to be poorly performing, and will not have the same opportunity to do what I’m doing with my life that they could be doing with theirs.
Fixing our schools is the absolute key to the future cultural and economic success of our state. And the truth is this, you bring young families back into our state, you bring tax revenue, you bring skilled labor. When you bring skilled labor into our state, you create the fertile soil for Delaware industry to thrive again.
I wanna focus on things like climate resilience. I wanna focus on things that Delaware can easily position itself due to its size and history to be the national leader in the future. But, for me, you can expect me to get down there, be a strong progressive voice, work on healthcare as the only physician in elected office in Delaware, work on our public schools, and work on making sure that we have better job opportunity for the people in our district.
