WILMINGTON, Del. — Senate hopeful Christine O’Donnell has a simple message in her campaign ads — “I’m you.” With three weeks to the election, many Delaware voters have their doubts.
Although O’Donnell’s quirky past has made her famous, she remains something of an enigma at home — a talented public speaker and occasional television pundit with a thin resume and a long list of unanswered questions.
Her ability to overcome the doubts could determine whether Republicans can take back the Senate on Election Day.
“I just don’t know anything about her,” said Sallie Wilson, 71, a Wilmington retiree and registered Republican who wants to vote with her party but is having a hard time supporting O’Donnell. “I can’t believe that half the stuff they say about her is true because if it was, she’d probably be in jail . . . but I just don’t know what she’s all about.”
O’Donnell, a New Jersey native who moved to Delaware in 2003, stunned the state last month by defeating GOP Congressman and former Gov. Mike Castle in the Republican primary. She previously had run two shoestring campaigns for Senate that went nowhere. Few paid her much attention this time until the Tea Party embraced her and she won an endorsement from Sarah Palin.
Her win, despite unusually strong opposition from the GOP establishment, set up a clear test of Tea Party strength in a general election. O’Donnell is an underdog, struggling to gain appeal beyond her conservative base.
In a small, Democratic-leaning state, O’Donnell, 41, is known mostly for the conservative social positions and evangelical religious views she espoused as a television commentator, objecting to homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex and even masturbation.
She hasn’t provided such basic information as how she makes a living and pays her rent. In Senate financial disclosures filed in July, she reported earning just $5,800 in 2009 and 2010, and said she had no bank accounts, retirement accounts or other savings.
She hasn’t explained why she spent years of energy and resources running for Senate while leaving behind a trail of debt.
On issues, her views are often just as murky, with little more than one-liners on her website.
In her first ads, which aired last week, she acknowledges some of her difficulties and seeks to define herself as someone who would take her life experiences, financial problems and all, to Washington and do what most Delawareans would do — tax cuts, the budget, health care and more.
“I’m not a witch,” she says, smiling, referencing remarks about teenage dabbling in witchcraft. “I’m nothing you’ve heard. I’m you.”
Recent polls, however, show O’Donnell has a long way to go to convince voters.
A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released last week found her trailing Democrat Chris Coons by 17 percentage points — with about two-thirds of independents and one-third of Republicans opposing her.
