Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long announces 2024 run for governor. To face Matt Meyer in primary

Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long said on Tuesday that she will run for governor in 2024.

It was a long-awaited announcement from the politician, who has spent two decades in Delaware public office. Hall-Long, if elected, would be the state’s second female governor, following Ruth Ann Minner, who served in the early 2000s.

“There’s work to do to improve access to health care, create good-paying jobs, protect our rights and strengthen our education system – and I’m up for the challenge, because when you give a nurse a job -- that job gets done,” Hall-Long said in her campaign announcement.

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She will face off against New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer. The gubernatorial Democratic primary race is among the handful of competitive races in 2024, an election cycle many view to be a transformational one for Delaware.

When Hall-Long was elected lieutenant governor in 2016, she and U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester were the only women elected to statewide seats. As of today, Delaware has elected a female attorney general, auditor, treasurer and, most recently, seen the first woman become state speaker of the House of Representatives.

During her time as lieutenant governor, Hall-Long has served as the face of the Carney Administration on issues related to mental health and substance use. A trained nurse, Hall-Long has often walked the streets handing out opioid-reversing Naloxone and more recently, test strips for Xylazine, an animal tranquilizer that's increasingly being cut into fentanyl.

Hall-Long, who has a PhD in health policy and nursing administration, also chairs the Behavioral Health Consortium, which looks to expand access to mental health and addiction treatment.

She would likely be the first ever nurse to be elected governor and the first medical professional in more than a century to serve in the role.

Hall-Long is one of the few Democrats from Sussex County, where she was raised on her family’s farm. She served in the Delaware House of Representatives from 2002-2008 and the Delaware Senate from 2008-2017.

A 2022 University of Delaware poll found Hall-Long to be the one of most popular statewide politicians in Delaware, with a favorable opinion percentage of 65%. This was higher than the other polled elected officials which consisted of Gov. John Carney and U.S. Sens. Tom Carper and Chris Coons.

Hall-Long, in her gubernatorial announcement, said her leadership “helped move Delaware forward” on issues such as investments in public education and child care as well as on gun safety measures. She noted that she was an early supporter of the paid family and medical leave legislation, which passed last year.

She notably broke from the governor in 2022 regarding her views on recreational marijuana. Hall-Long publicly supported the bills passed by the General Assembly, even as Carney vetoed them. The governor, the following year, allowed the bills to become law without his signature.

Hall-Long, according to January campaign finance reports, began 2023 with a campaign war chest of about $423,000, which was about half of what Meyer, her primary opponent, reported around that time period.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long announces run for Delaware governor