Christine O'Donnell
Encyclopedia
Christine Therese O'Donnell (born August 27, 1969) is an American Republican Party politician
who founded two advocacy organizations. She has been an advocate for nonprofit clients and nonprofit causes for nearly 20 years. A Tea Party
favorite, and with strong financial support from the Tea Party movement, she defeated nine-term U.S. Representative
and former governor Michael Castle in Delaware
's September 2010 Republican primary
for the U.S. Senate. She lost the November 2010 U.S. Senate election in Delaware, to Democrat Chris Coons by a margin of 57% to 40%.
O'Donnell's 2010 Senate run was her third try for the office in five years. In the Senatorial election of 2008
, she was the Republican nominee, losing to the incumbent
, Joe Biden
, by 65% to 35%. In 2006, she ran in the Republican primary
for Senate, finishing third, then ran as a write-in in the general election, drawing 4 percent of the vote.
In addition to running for the Senate, O'Donnell has worked as a public relations
and marketing consultant and has provided commentary on the Fox News Channel
and CNN
. She is a conservative on fiscal, social and political issues, including abortion
and sex education
.
. She is the fifth of the six children of Carole and Daniel O'Donnell. Her mother is of Italian
descent and her father is of Irish
descent. O'Donnell has said that at times, her father had to work three jobs to make ends meet. He worked part time in community theater and on local television, and did a brief stint as Bozo the Clown in the 1960s.
O'Donnell graduated from Moorestown High School
in 1987, where she was a member of the drama club and a student announcer. She attended Fairleigh Dickinson University
(FDU) beginning in 1987, initially majoring in theater, but later changing to English literature with a concentration in communications
. In 1993, she participated in FDU's graduation ceremony, but did not receive a diploma due to an unpaid bill. She was issued a diploma after completing a course in the summer of 2010 to settle a dispute with FDU. O'Donnell later told The New York Times she had had three senior years of college.
at age 21 when she saw graphic descriptions and pictures in medical journals of how an abortion
is performed. "'There's only truth and not truth,' O'Donnell said she realized at that moment. 'You're either very good or evil
.'" She dropped her acting aspirations, began thinking about moral issues, and became an evangelical
Christian, due to the appeal of the moral certainty she felt the movement offered. She chose to live a chaste
life, began espousing sexual abstinence
, and joined the College Republicans
.
She is single but has said she is still interested in marrying and having children.
Christian. She has voluntarily discussed her less disciplined life before becoming an evangelical Christian as a contrast to her later different moral standards. O'Donnell remains open to attending both Catholic and Protestant services. Lately however, O’Donnell seems to be backing off from her 1990s evangelical Christian passion, such as that which she exhibited on MTV and on other shows as a representative for Concerned Women for America
(CWA), and her own organization at the time called the Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT). As O’Donnell stated September 4, 2011 during an interview on Florida Daily NewsMakers with Jeff Lytle, she is a devout and practicing Catholic, with O'Donnell later couching her current policy positions now in Constitutional terms, instead of the more outspoken Christian evangelical language that she had shown previously on television.
. She was a youth leader for the Bush-Quayle
campaign and attended the 1992 Republican National Convention. While there she began making media contacts, meeting daily with a CNN
producer and giving television interviews that offered a college student's perspective on the convention. The following year O'Donnell worked for three months in Washington, D.C.
for the anti-pornography organization Enough is Enough
. She then spent two years working in the communications office of the Republican National Committee
(RNC) in Washington D.C. Disappointed that the Republican Party had shifted its emphasis away from pro-life
issues after the 1994 election, she quit the RNC and worked for one year as a spokesperson for Concerned Women for America
, a conservative Christian group that seeks to bring biblical principles into public policy and lobbies against abortion and sex education
in public schools.
In 1996 O'Donnell attended the Republican National Convention
in San Diego, moved to Los Angeles
, and founded her own advocacy organization, The Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth
(SALT), serving as its president. SALT lobbied
the U.S. Congress on moral issues and promoted Christian values
, including sexual abstinence
before marriage, to the college-age generation. In the 1990s, O'Donnell took a public stance against masturbation
, calling it "sinful" and equating it with adultery. Some commentators have noted her comments are consistent with official Roman Catholic doctrine, which condemns masturbation and other forms of non-procreative sex. O'Donnell appeared on Fox News, MSNBC and C-Span as a representative of SALT. She also appeared on MTV
's Sex In The 90s, advocating sexual "purity". and was a regular guest panelist on the ABC
show Politically Incorrect
, appearing in 22 episodes. In a 1996 discussion on CNN, O'Donnell advocated the teaching of creationism
in public schools and criticized Darwin
's theory of evolution
on the ground that it is "merely a theory" or "a myth". She asserted that "there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting [creationism]." In the late 1990s O'Donnell moved back to Washington, D.C., where she continued her advocacy work. In 1998 she published an article in Cultural Dissident entitled, "The Case for Chastity". In 2003 she wrote an article, "The Women of Middle Earth," for the Catholic Exchange.
In February 2003 O'Donnell moved to Delaware to work for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute
(ISI), a non-profit conservative publisher of educational materials and bought a house in Wilmington
. In 2004, she filed a complaint against ISI with the EEOC saying that she had been demoted due to gender discrimination. Later, on February 26, 2004, she was fired, and in 2005 she sued ISI in federal court for $6.9 million for wrongful termination, claiming gender discrimination and that her firing was retaliation for talking to the EEOC. She said ISI's actions caused her mental anguish and were a consequence of "ISI's conservative beliefs". She also claimed that she had lost future financial earning power because ISI's actions had offered a flexible work schedule to allow time for a Master's program while recruiting her to Delaware at half the salary she expected in Washington, D.C., then redefined her employment after she had moved and bought a house. In the ISI lawsuit, O'Donnell claimed she had applied to a master's degree program at Princeton University
, had to drop out of the non-graduate course at Princeton she was attending and abandon her plans to pursue a Master's degree, see ISI defended its action by alleging that O'Donnell had used company resources for her own media consulting work while on their time for Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ
, which O'Donnell contends was agreed to before she was hired, and that ISI cited this reason only months later after the firing as a pretext. O'Donnell dropped the suit in 2008, stating she could no longer afford an attorney.
After leaving ISI, O'Donnell started her own media consulting and marketing company, and worked for both commercial clients and non-profit organizations and other clients. She founded the Catholic Advocacy Network and again began making media appearances. In 2006 she was approached by supporters of the pro-life movement who asked her if she wanted to run against Delaware Senator Tom Carper and ultimately ran three times for a U.S. Senate seat, in 2006, 2008 and 2010. In-between the 2006 and 2008 elections, she did pro bono
advocacy work opposing the disconnection of a feeding tube for a young woman who was in a persistent vegetative state
.
The Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) filed a lien
in 2010, on the house that O'Donnell had not owned for two years, claiming that O'Donnell owed $1,100 in back taxes and penalties as a result of an audit. O’Donnell posted documents on her website showing that the lien was a mistake, as the audit was not yet complete and there was not yet any final determination of whether she owed any further taxes or not, and noted that the IRS agent handling the matter claimed he was perplexed by the agency's actions. In campaign finance reports, she listed herself as self-employed.
After the September 14, 2010 primary, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
(CREW) alleged that O'Donnell made false statements on Federal Elections Commission filings and illegally used more than $20,000 of her campaign funds as "her very own personal piggy bank" by claiming campaign expenses during a time when she was not a candidate in 2009. CREW filed a complaint on September 20, 2010 with the FEC and asked the U.S. Attorney in Delaware to investigate these allegations. O'Donnell responded to the accusations, telling reporters there was "no truth to it. I personally have not misused the campaign funds" and refused to answer specific questions about her finances when asked by CNN. In December 2010, the AP reported that federal authorities had opened a criminal investigation into CREW's complaint. On July 15, 2011 the Federal US Attorney's Office announced it had closed the criminal investigation of Christine O'Donnell's campaign finances and has referred the case to the FEC for administrative enforcement. Another FEC complaint filed against the O'Donnell campaign by CREW for improper coordination of events and expenses between O'Donnell's 2010 Primany campaign and the Tea Party Express in California was subsequently dismissed by the FEC when the FEC Commissioner's vote was tied 3-3 on whether to proceed with the case, even through the FEC's own lawyers believed that there was sufficient evidence for the FEC to proceed to investigate these allegations against the O'Donnell campaign and the Tea Party Express.
O'Donnell's year-end campaign financial report to the Federal Election Commission reported that her campaign returned $56,124 of campaign donations between October 2010 and December 2010, and had still retained $654,336.
In a 2006 interview for a campaign profile, O'Donnell told The News Journal that homosexuals
have a psychological defect and that "Homosexuality is an identity adopted through societal factors." During a primary debate against her Republican opponents, O'Donnell said that China could not be a friend of the U.S. because among other things, it forced women to have abortions and prohibited the reading of the Bible. She also said China was plotting to take over the United States, and that she had classified information
which supported her claim. She finished in third place, with 17 percent of the vote, behind winner Jan C. Ting
and second-place finisher Michael D. Protack
. She then ran in the general election against Ting and incumbent Senator Tom Carper as a write-in candidate
, finishing with 11,127 votes, (4 percent of the total votes cast), a number that was considered remarkably large for a write-in and which gave her hope for the 2008 election.
benefits for senior citizens, energy independence to reduce gasoline prices, use of Delaware's agricultural resources as alternative energy to supplement America's gasoline supplies, reducing funding swings in public schools, greater border security and enforcement of America's immigration laws.
O'Donnell's candidacy was endorsed by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour
, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin
, former Delaware Governor Pierre DuPont
, and conservative writer and policy advocate David Horowitz
. Her general election opponent was the incumbent Senator Joe Biden
, who was also running for Vice President
on the Obama-Biden ticket. O'Donnell questioned Biden's dual campaigns, claiming that serving his constituents was not important to him and criticizing his unwillingness to participate in debates and candidate forums. Opinion polling during the race showed that O'Donnell trailed Biden by a two-to-one margin. In the general election on November 4, 2008, Biden defeated O'Donnell by 65 percent to 35 percent.
O'Donnell was criticized when her 2008 campaign ended $19,656.29 in debt, as reflected on the year-end campaign finance report filed by the campaign's Treasurer Timothy Kock on January 29, 2009. O'Donnell was also criticized for routine reminder notices from the Federal Election Commission
inquiring whether there was any activity to be reported. However, no enforcement action, investigation, or citation was ever issued against O'Donnell's campaigns by the FEC.
, to serve out the first two years of Biden's six year Senate term. A special election
would be held coincident with the 2010 general elections to choose who would fill the Senate seat for the remaining four years. O'Donnell quickly announced that she would be running in that election on her campaign website in December 2008, and began fund-raising appeals in February 2009. O'Donnell filed a Statement of Candidacy for the 2010 U.S. Senate race with the FEC on March 20, 2009, a document that is due 15 days after a candidate raises or spends $5,000.
O'Donnell said that her biggest mistake in her earlier campaigns was not having enough funds. In October 2009, she reiterated that she was running despite the entrance into the race of Republican Congressman and former Governor Mike Castle. In January 2010, Beau Biden
, Joe Biden's son, indicated he would not run, and Castle became the favorite to take the seat.
and grassroots anti-incumbent trends would be in her favor.
When a report from The News Journal in March 2010 detailed her personal fiscal difficulties, O'Donnell attributed the problems to misunderstandings and errors. She also said, "I think the fact that I have struggled financially is what makes me so sympathetic." Her financial problems became a focal point of establishment Republican attacks. The chair of the state Republican Party, Tom Ross, said, "She’s a candidate who runs for office that unfortunately lives off the proceeds." Several commentators said the attacks showed elements of sexism
. The Delaware Republican Party sponsored last minute robocall
s from former O'Donnell staff members charging that O'Donnell was "no conservative" and was financially irresponsible. O'Donnell responded by saying the attacks on her finances were an insult to Delaware voters.
In the final weeks before the primary, O'Donnell became firmly allied with the Tea Party movement which provided last minute funding to her campaign amounting to more than $250,000, according to Fox News, with the Tea Party Express saying it might spend as much as $600,000 backing O'Donnell.
Castle ignored O'Donnell's candidacy and refused to debate her, calling her dishonest. In early September a political consulting firm hired by O'Donnell released a Web video insinuating that Castle was having a homosexual affair. O'Donnell attempted to distance herself from the claim, stating that the consulting firm was no longer working for her campaign. She then appeared on Mark Levin
's radio show, accusing Castle of engaging in "unmanly tactics" during the campaign and saying, "this is not a bake-off, put your man-pants on."
National attention brought additional scrutiny of her record, and repeated questions about the accuracy of her statements from national and local political leaders and news media including Karl Rove
, the state’s largest newspaper, The News Journal, and local conservative radio host and former supporter Dan Gaffney of WGMD
radio. O'Donnell's responses consisted of correcting the information, brushing it aside, or downplaying the discrepancies.
O'Donnell won the September 14, 2010, primary election by six percentage points over Castle, garnering more than 30,000 votes altogether, and becoming the eighth Tea Party-backed candidate to oust a GOP establishment candidate in a 2010 primary contest. According to the New York Times, her support largely came from the southern part of the state where Republican voters are socially conservative and against gun control
.
and the Family Research Council
. In the final days before the primary, she received endorsements from the National Rifle Association
, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint
, Sarah Palin
, and conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh
, Sean Hannity
, and Mark Levin
.
in Washington, D.C., on September 17, 2010, saying that anti-American elites were trying to marginalize mainstream, core conservatives.
O'Donnell's educational record came under media scrutiny during her 2010 general election campaign. Her 2010 bio on the Claremont Institute website says O'Donnell is a college graduate with a major in English and communications. Some controversy involved a 2005 lawsuit in which O'Donnell claimed her employer broke its promise to give her time to pursue a master's degree at Princeton, forcing her to drop out of attending non-degree courses there. Journalists confirmed that O'Donnell took non-degree courses at Princeton, as she had claimed. Other criticisms involved hoax versions of profiles on LinkedIn and MySpace claiming she had studied at Oxford University in England (O'Donnell is confirmed to have attended the Phoenix Institute who rented space at Oxford University and deny it was represented, "as a course run by Oxford University") and at the Claremont University in Southern California. O'Donnell's attendance at the Claremont Institute was confirmed, but critics confused this with the Claremont Graduate University
. The MySpace page was presented as dating from 2008, but actually listed her age at 41 years old, thereby dating it from August 2010. O'Donnell responded "I never established a LinkedIn profile or authorized anyone to do so on my behalf.”
On September 17, 2010, comedian Bill Maher
aired a clip of O'Donnell from the October 29, 1999 episode of his old show Politically Incorrect
on his current show Real Time with Bill Maher
, in which O'Donnell said, "I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven...I hung around people who were doing these things... We went to a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar. And I didn't know it." Her admission received widespread media coverage, and O'Donnell explained that she had been referring to high school experiences. O'Donnell followed up with a TV campaign ad for the general election which featured her declaring she was "not a witch". This ad inspired many video parodies and O'Donnell later said that the ad backfired and focused attention on her decade-old statement.
After winning the primary, O'Donnell began employing staffers from various states, including Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia, and hired a Virginia public affairs firm, Shirley & Banister, that has served major conservative clients. In early October, it was noted that O’Donnell's campaign had raised more money from outside Delaware than within the state, leading to questions of whether out-of-state contributors will have more influence over the general election than Delaware residents. By September 30, O'Donnell's general election campaign had received nearly $4 million in contributions from all over the country. Those contributions continued despite an October 28 Fairleigh Dickinson University
PublicMind poll that showed O'Donnell trailing Democrat Chris Coons 36% to 57%.
During a debate between O'Donnell and her opponent Chris Coons on October 13, 2010 at the Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, O'Donnell brought up her opposition to activist judges and stated her objection to a recent court decision to ban the military from discharging homosexual service members who reveal their sexual orientation. She was asked the follow-on question, "What opinions, of late, that have come from our High Court, do you most object to?" O'Donnell did not have any objection to recent precedents. Coons, when asked the same question, said he disagreed with the Supreme Court's
recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
, which cited the First Amendment to the Constitution
to strike down restrictions on corporate funding of independent political broadcasts just prior to candidate elections.
In that same October 13 debate, O'Donnell challenged Coons on the topic of the separation of church and state
, asking, "Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" After laughter from the audience, Coons responded, "The First Amendment establishes the separation and the fact that the federal government shall not establish any religion, and decisional law by the Supreme Court over many, many decades clarifies and enshrines that there is a separation of church and state that our courts and laws must respect." O'Donnell replied, "Let me just clarify. You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?" To which Coons said, "Government shall make no establishment of religion." O'Donnell replied, "That's in the First Amendment?" The phrase "separation of church and state" is not found in the U.S. Constitution, but is derived from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The phrase itself first appears in a private letter from then-President Thomas Jefferson
to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. In a later interview, O'Donnell said that she and her team "were high-fiving each other" after the debate, "thinking that we had exposed [that Coons] doesn't know the First Amendment. And then we read the reports that said the opposite, we were all like 'what?'" She stated, "Well, I think it says exactly what it says: that the government will not create -- will not dictate -- that every American has to believe a certain way, but it won't do anything to prevent the free exercise thereof."
During the debate O'Donnell criticized Coons for agreeing with the United States Supreme Court that teaching creationism in the public schools violates the Constitution. She also stated that Coons' belief that the theory of evolution should be taught in public schools was an example of how he believes in big government mandates and "imposing...beliefs on the local schools". O'Donnell was asked whether she supported the repeal of the Fourteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. She knew that the Seventeenth Amendment concerned the direct election of Senators by popular vote and said she would not repeal it, but could not recall the other two.
In the week prior to the general election, the talk radio station WDEL
reported that O'Donnell and her campaign manager had threatened to sue if it released a video of an interview she gave at the station. The campaign manager, Matt Moran, was alleged to have threatened to "crush WDEL" with a lawsuit. The O'Donnell campaign subsequently apologized, saying that the incident had been the result of a misunderstanding.
showed O'Donnell running ahead of Chris Coons by a margin of 2 points (41 to 39 percent), while a similar poll in August had her trailing Coons by ten points (46 to 36 percent).
A post primary poll by Fox News on September 21, 2010 found O'Donnell trailing Coons by 15 points (54 to 39 percent) with 5 percent of voters undecided. A poll taken September 26, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports
showed support for Coons at 49 percent; O'Donnell was at 40 percent. The Real Clear Politics average, calculated from polls taken between September 11 and October 3, showed Coons with 53 percent of the vote, O'Donnell with 37 percent. A Fairleigh Dickinson University
poll released October 6 showed Coons ahead among likely voters by 17 percentage points, 53%-36%, and a CNN/Time poll released on October 13 immediately before the candidates' first debate had O'Donnell trailing Coons by 19 percent among likely voters; with 57 percent saying they would be voting for Coons and 38 percent for O'Donnell. Results from a post debate poll taken October 14 by Rasmussen showed Coons holding on to an 11 percent lead. A Monmouth University poll taken between October 25 and 27, 2010 indicated Coons had the support of 51% of likely voters to 41% for O’Donnell, while a second poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University showed her shoring up support from conservative voters, but nonetheless trailing significantly.
On November 2, 2010, O'Donnell lost the general election to Coons by a margin of 57% to 40%.
, rather than her personal beliefs. She specifically disavowed her 1996 anti-masturbation stance, saying "I was a pundit. I was very passionate in my 20s and wanted to share my beliefs."
O'Donnell has identified herself as a member of the "values movement", and is pro-life. She opposes abortion
, including in cases of rape
and incest
, but if the woman was otherwise going to die, she would allow family members to decide which life to save. O'Donnell opposes human embryonic stem cell research, human cloning
, and research into cloning monkey embryos.
O'Donnell says that she will never vote to increase taxes. She is in favor of a balanced budget amendment
, opposes Congressional earmarks
, and supports a simplification of the tax code
.
O'Donnell has said that Democrats have prevented the U.S. from attaining energy independence by curtailing the drilling of oil in the Gulf of Mexico
. She supports the building of more refineries, and the use of Delaware's agricultural products in gasoline. She opposes cap and trade
legislation.
O'Donnell says the first thing she would like to do if elected is to vote to repeal health care legislation
enacted by Congress in 2010. She signed the Tea Party activists' "Contract from America
," which pledges to replace the act with a health insurance system that is "competitive, open, and transparent free-market".
O'Donnell favors increasing penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants.
She supports raising the age for receiving Social Security
benefits.
In reply to a question as to whether she would support Senator Mitch McConnell
of Kentucky
's continuing as the Republican leader of the Senate, O’Donnell shrugged, and said “I wouldn’t not support him.”
(PAC) called “ChristinePAC” to address health care and tax issues. Paperwork for the PAC was filed with the Federal Election Commission
in January 2011. The filing indicated that the funds of the PAC will not be used to fund candidates for federal office. In a letter to supporters on February 8, 2011, O'Donnell stated that her PAC would allow her to "counter attack left-wing groups," fight the "liberal media" and support conservative candidates against the "liberal-controlled GOP establishment".
on his CNN
talk show, Piers Morgan Tonight
. O'Donnell stated that she had agreed to be interviewed to discuss fiscal policy and how to improve America, and refused to answer Morgan's questions relating to her views on gay marriage, saying they were not relevant, despite the large amount of content in her book dedicated to the topic. After Morgan stated that she was acting "weird", O'Donnell reiterated she was there to talk about her book, was not a politician and stated Morgan was being "a little rude". Morgan argued that she had touched upon the issue in the book and therefore they were pertinent questions.
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
who founded two advocacy organizations. She has been an advocate for nonprofit clients and nonprofit causes for nearly 20 years. A Tea Party
Tea Party movement
The Tea Party movement is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009...
favorite, and with strong financial support from the Tea Party movement, she defeated nine-term U.S. Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
and former governor Michael Castle in Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
's September 2010 Republican primary
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
for the U.S. Senate. She lost the November 2010 U.S. Senate election in Delaware, to Democrat Chris Coons by a margin of 57% to 40%.
O'Donnell's 2010 Senate run was her third try for the office in five years. In the Senatorial election of 2008
United States Senate election in Delaware, 2008
The 2008 United States Senate election in Delaware was held on November 4, 2008. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Biden won re-election to a seventh term and won the Vice Presidency of the United States on the same day.-Campaign:...
, she was the Republican nominee, losing to the incumbent
Incumbent
The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent. For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W...
, Joe Biden
Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...
, by 65% to 35%. In 2006, she ran in the Republican primary
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
for Senate, finishing third, then ran as a write-in in the general election, drawing 4 percent of the vote.
In addition to running for the Senate, O'Donnell has worked as a public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
and marketing consultant and has provided commentary on the Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
and CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
. She is a conservative on fiscal, social and political issues, including abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
and sex education
Sex education in the United States
Sex education in the United States is taught in two main forms: comprehensive and abstinence-only. Comprehensive sex education covers abstinence as a positive choice, but also teaches the benefits of contraception and the avoidance of sexually transmitted diseases between sexually active individuals...
.
Early life and education
O'Donnell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Moorestown Township, New JerseyMoorestown Township, New Jersey
-Demographics:At the 2000 census, there were 19,017 people, 6,971 households, and 5,270 families residing in the township. The population density was 1,287.3 per square mile . There were 7,211 housing units at an average density of 488.1 per square mile...
. She is the fifth of the six children of Carole and Daniel O'Donnell. Her mother is of Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
descent and her father is of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
descent. O'Donnell has said that at times, her father had to work three jobs to make ends meet. He worked part time in community theater and on local television, and did a brief stint as Bozo the Clown in the 1960s.
O'Donnell graduated from Moorestown High School
Moorestown High School
Moorestown High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Moorestown Township in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Moorestown Township Public Schools...
in 1987, where she was a member of the drama club and a student announcer. She attended Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university founded as a junior college in 1942. It now has several campuses located in New Jersey, Canada, and the United Kingdom.-Description:...
(FDU) beginning in 1987, initially majoring in theater, but later changing to English literature with a concentration in communications
Communication studies
Communication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
. In 1993, she participated in FDU's graduation ceremony, but did not receive a diploma due to an unpaid bill. She was issued a diploma after completing a course in the summer of 2010 to settle a dispute with FDU. O'Donnell later told The New York Times she had had three senior years of college.
Personal life
Originally a political liberal who believed in abortion rights, O'Donnell has said she experienced an epiphanyEpiphany (feeling)
An epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something...
at age 21 when she saw graphic descriptions and pictures in medical journals of how an abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
is performed. "'There's only truth and not truth,' O'Donnell said she realized at that moment. 'You're either very good or evil
Evil
Evil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. Evil is usually seen as the dualistic opposite of good. Definitions of evil vary along with analysis of its root motive causes, however general actions commonly considered evil include: conscious and deliberate wrongdoing,...
.'" She dropped her acting aspirations, began thinking about moral issues, and became an evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Christian, due to the appeal of the moral certainty she felt the movement offered. She chose to live a chaste
Chastity
Chastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion....
life, began espousing sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence is the practice of refraining from some or all aspects of sexual activity for medical, psychological, legal, social, philosophical or religious reasons.Common reasons for practicing sexual abstinence include:*poor health - medical celibacy...
, and joined the College Republicans
College Republicans
The College Republican National Committee is a national organization for college and university students who support the Republican Party of the United States...
.
She is single but has said she is still interested in marrying and having children.
Religious views
Raised as Catholic, O'Donnell's interest in her family religion waned during her teenage years, while she considered various beliefs and searched for spiritual truth. In college, O'Donnell became a born-again Christian and has been described as a former Catholic turned evangelicalEvangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Christian. She has voluntarily discussed her less disciplined life before becoming an evangelical Christian as a contrast to her later different moral standards. O'Donnell remains open to attending both Catholic and Protestant services. Lately however, O’Donnell seems to be backing off from her 1990s evangelical Christian passion, such as that which she exhibited on MTV and on other shows as a representative for Concerned Women for America
Concerned Women for America
Concerned Women for America is a conservative Christian public policy group active in the United States best known for its stance against abortion...
(CWA), and her own organization at the time called the Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT). As O’Donnell stated September 4, 2011 during an interview on Florida Daily NewsMakers with Jeff Lytle, she is a devout and practicing Catholic, with O'Donnell later couching her current policy positions now in Constitutional terms, instead of the more outspoken Christian evangelical language that she had shown previously on television.
Career
O'Donnell first became involved in politics in 1991 when she worked the polls for the College RepublicansCollege Republicans
The College Republican National Committee is a national organization for college and university students who support the Republican Party of the United States...
. She was a youth leader for the Bush-Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....
campaign and attended the 1992 Republican National Convention. While there she began making media contacts, meeting daily with a CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
producer and giving television interviews that offered a college student's perspective on the convention. The following year O'Donnell worked for three months in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
for the anti-pornography organization Enough is Enough
Enough Is Enough (organization)
Enough Is Enough is an American non-profit organization whose stated purpose is to make the Internet safer for families and children. It carries out lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., and played a role in the passage of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 , the Child Online Protection Act...
. She then spent two years working in the communications office of the Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
(RNC) in Washington D.C. Disappointed that the Republican Party had shifted its emphasis away from pro-life
Pro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
issues after the 1994 election, she quit the RNC and worked for one year as a spokesperson for Concerned Women for America
Concerned Women for America
Concerned Women for America is a conservative Christian public policy group active in the United States best known for its stance against abortion...
, a conservative Christian group that seeks to bring biblical principles into public policy and lobbies against abortion and sex education
Sex education
Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...
in public schools.
In 1996 O'Donnell attended the Republican National Convention
1996 Republican National Convention
The 1996 National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States convened at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California, from August 12 to August 15, 1996...
in San Diego, moved to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, and founded her own advocacy organization, The Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth
The Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth
The Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth, commonly known as The SALT, is an evangelical Christian organization founded in 1996 by Christine O'Donnell, a Christian public relations and marketing consultant who ran for the United States Senate, hoping to represent the State of Delaware, in 2006,...
(SALT), serving as its president. SALT lobbied
Lobbying in the United States
Lobbying in the United States targets the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, and state legislatures. Lobbyists may also represent their clients' or organizations' interests in dealings with federal, state, or local executive branch agencies or the courts. Lobby...
the U.S. Congress on moral issues and promoted Christian values
Christian values
The term Christian values historically refers to the values found in the teachings of Jesus.The biblical teachings of Jesus include:* love of God: "You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" ,...
, including sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence is the practice of refraining from some or all aspects of sexual activity for medical, psychological, legal, social, philosophical or religious reasons.Common reasons for practicing sexual abstinence include:*poor health - medical celibacy...
before marriage, to the college-age generation. In the 1990s, O'Donnell took a public stance against masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
, calling it "sinful" and equating it with adultery. Some commentators have noted her comments are consistent with official Roman Catholic doctrine, which condemns masturbation and other forms of non-procreative sex. O'Donnell appeared on Fox News, MSNBC and C-Span as a representative of SALT. She also appeared on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
's Sex In The 90s, advocating sexual "purity". and was a regular guest panelist on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
show Politically Incorrect
Politically Incorrect
Politically Incorrect is a late-night, half-hour political talk show hosted by Bill Maher that ran from 1993 to 2002. It premiered on Comedy Central from 1993 to 1997, and later on ABC in 1997, which cancelled it in 2002....
, appearing in 22 episodes. In a 1996 discussion on CNN, O'Donnell advocated the teaching of creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
in public schools and criticized Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's theory of evolution
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
on the ground that it is "merely a theory" or "a myth". She asserted that "there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting [creationism]." In the late 1990s O'Donnell moved back to Washington, D.C., where she continued her advocacy work. In 1998 she published an article in Cultural Dissident entitled, "The Case for Chastity". In 2003 she wrote an article, "The Women of Middle Earth," for the Catholic Exchange.
In February 2003 O'Donnell moved to Delaware to work for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Inc., or ', is a non-profit educational organization founded in 1953 as the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists...
(ISI), a non-profit conservative publisher of educational materials and bought a house in Wilmington
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
. In 2004, she filed a complaint against ISI with the EEOC saying that she had been demoted due to gender discrimination. Later, on February 26, 2004, she was fired, and in 2005 she sued ISI in federal court for $6.9 million for wrongful termination, claiming gender discrimination and that her firing was retaliation for talking to the EEOC. She said ISI's actions caused her mental anguish and were a consequence of "ISI's conservative beliefs". She also claimed that she had lost future financial earning power because ISI's actions had offered a flexible work schedule to allow time for a Master's program while recruiting her to Delaware at half the salary she expected in Washington, D.C., then redefined her employment after she had moved and bought a house. In the ISI lawsuit, O'Donnell claimed she had applied to a master's degree program at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, had to drop out of the non-graduate course at Princeton she was attending and abandon her plans to pursue a Master's degree, see ISI defended its action by alleging that O'Donnell had used company resources for her own media consulting work while on their time for Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ is a 2004 American drama film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...
, which O'Donnell contends was agreed to before she was hired, and that ISI cited this reason only months later after the firing as a pretext. O'Donnell dropped the suit in 2008, stating she could no longer afford an attorney.
After leaving ISI, O'Donnell started her own media consulting and marketing company, and worked for both commercial clients and non-profit organizations and other clients. She founded the Catholic Advocacy Network and again began making media appearances. In 2006 she was approached by supporters of the pro-life movement who asked her if she wanted to run against Delaware Senator Tom Carper and ultimately ran three times for a U.S. Senate seat, in 2006, 2008 and 2010. In-between the 2006 and 2008 elections, she did pro bono
Pro bono
Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...
advocacy work opposing the disconnection of a feeding tube for a young woman who was in a persistent vegetative state
Persistent vegetative state
A persistent vegetative state is a disorder of consciousness in which patients with severe brain damage are in a state of partial arousal rather than true awareness. It is a diagnosis of some uncertainty in that it deals with a syndrome. After four weeks in a vegetative state , the patient is...
.
Financial issues
In October 2007 O'Donnell stopped paying the mortgage of her Wilmington house and the mortgage company obtained a judgment against her in the spring of 2008 for $90,000. The house was to be sold at a sheriff's auction in August 2008 when she sold it the month prior to her Senate campaign attorney who was also her boyfriend at the time.The Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
(IRS) filed a lien
Lien
In law, a lien is a form of security interest granted over an item of property to secure the payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation...
in 2010, on the house that O'Donnell had not owned for two years, claiming that O'Donnell owed $1,100 in back taxes and penalties as a result of an audit. O’Donnell posted documents on her website showing that the lien was a mistake, as the audit was not yet complete and there was not yet any final determination of whether she owed any further taxes or not, and noted that the IRS agent handling the matter claimed he was perplexed by the agency's actions. In campaign finance reports, she listed herself as self-employed.
After the September 14, 2010 primary, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is a nonprofit 501 organization that describes itself as "dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in government and public life by targeting government officials – regardless of party affiliation – who sacrifice the common good to...
(CREW) alleged that O'Donnell made false statements on Federal Elections Commission filings and illegally used more than $20,000 of her campaign funds as "her very own personal piggy bank" by claiming campaign expenses during a time when she was not a candidate in 2009. CREW filed a complaint on September 20, 2010 with the FEC and asked the U.S. Attorney in Delaware to investigate these allegations. O'Donnell responded to the accusations, telling reporters there was "no truth to it. I personally have not misused the campaign funds" and refused to answer specific questions about her finances when asked by CNN. In December 2010, the AP reported that federal authorities had opened a criminal investigation into CREW's complaint. On July 15, 2011 the Federal US Attorney's Office announced it had closed the criminal investigation of Christine O'Donnell's campaign finances and has referred the case to the FEC for administrative enforcement. Another FEC complaint filed against the O'Donnell campaign by CREW for improper coordination of events and expenses between O'Donnell's 2010 Primany campaign and the Tea Party Express in California was subsequently dismissed by the FEC when the FEC Commissioner's vote was tied 3-3 on whether to proceed with the case, even through the FEC's own lawyers believed that there was sufficient evidence for the FEC to proceed to investigate these allegations against the O'Donnell campaign and the Tea Party Express.
O'Donnell's year-end campaign financial report to the Federal Election Commission reported that her campaign returned $56,124 of campaign donations between October 2010 and December 2010, and had still retained $654,336.
2006
O'Donnell ran in the Republican primary for the 2006 U.S. Senate election in Delaware.In a 2006 interview for a campaign profile, O'Donnell told The News Journal that homosexuals
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
have a psychological defect and that "Homosexuality is an identity adopted through societal factors." During a primary debate against her Republican opponents, O'Donnell said that China could not be a friend of the U.S. because among other things, it forced women to have abortions and prohibited the reading of the Bible. She also said China was plotting to take over the United States, and that she had classified information
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
which supported her claim. She finished in third place, with 17 percent of the vote, behind winner Jan C. Ting
Jan C. Ting
Jan C. Ting is a Professor of Law at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator from Delaware in the 2006 U.S. Senate election, but two years later Ting left the Republican Party in a dispute over his endorsement of Democratic presidential...
and second-place finisher Michael D. Protack
Michael D. Protack
Michael Protack is an American commercial airline pilot and businessman from Yorklyn, New Castle County, Delaware. He is a member of the Republican Party. Protack was a candidate for Governor of Delaware in the 2008 election cycle....
. She then ran in the general election against Ting and incumbent Senator Tom Carper as a write-in candidate
Write-in candidate
A write-in candidate is a candidate in an election whose name does not appear on the ballot, but for whom voters may vote nonetheless by writing in the person's name. Some states and local jurisdictions allow a voter to affix a sticker with a write-in candidate's name on it to the ballot in lieu...
, finishing with 11,127 votes, (4 percent of the total votes cast), a number that was considered remarkably large for a write-in and which gave her hope for the 2008 election.
2008
O'Donnell became the nominee of the Republican Party for the United States Senate in 2008 after defeating businessman Tim Smith at the May 3, 2008 state party convention with more than 60 percent of the GOP delegate vote. O'Donnell ran on a fiscal conservative platform in 2008, as documented by her 2008 U.S. Senate campaign platform, opposing tax increases, improving oversight over foreign aid, repeal of taxes on Social SecuritySocial Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
benefits for senior citizens, energy independence to reduce gasoline prices, use of Delaware's agricultural resources as alternative energy to supplement America's gasoline supplies, reducing funding swings in public schools, greater border security and enforcement of America's immigration laws.
O'Donnell's candidacy was endorsed by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour
Haley Barbour
Haley Reeves Barbour is an American Republican politician currently serving as the 63rd Governor of Mississippi. He gained a national spotlight in August 2005 after Mississippi was hit by Hurricane Katrina. Barbour won re-election as Governor in 2007...
, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history...
, former Delaware Governor Pierre DuPont
Pierre S. du Pont, IV
Pierre Samuel "Pete" du Pont IV is an American lawyer and politician from Rockland, in New Castle County, Delaware, near Wilmington. He is a member of the Republican Party, who served three terms as U.S...
, and conservative writer and policy advocate David Horowitz
David Horowitz
David Joel Horowitz is an American conservative writer and policy advocate. Horowitz was raised by parents who were both members of the American Communist Party. Between 1956 and 1975, Horowitz was an outspoken adherent of the New Left before rejecting Marxism completely...
. Her general election opponent was the incumbent Senator Joe Biden
Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...
, who was also running for Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
on the Obama-Biden ticket. O'Donnell questioned Biden's dual campaigns, claiming that serving his constituents was not important to him and criticizing his unwillingness to participate in debates and candidate forums. Opinion polling during the race showed that O'Donnell trailed Biden by a two-to-one margin. In the general election on November 4, 2008, Biden defeated O'Donnell by 65 percent to 35 percent.
O'Donnell was criticized when her 2008 campaign ended $19,656.29 in debt, as reflected on the year-end campaign finance report filed by the campaign's Treasurer Timothy Kock on January 29, 2009. O'Donnell was also criticized for routine reminder notices from the Federal Election Commission
Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission is an independent regulatory agency that was founded in 1975 by the United States Congress to regulate the campaign finance legislation in the United States. It was created in a provision of the 1975 amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act...
inquiring whether there was any activity to be reported. However, no enforcement action, investigation, or citation was ever issued against O'Donnell's campaigns by the FEC.
2010
Following the 2008 election, Joe Biden resigned his Senate seat to become Vice President, and the Governor of Delaware appointed Biden's chief of staff, Ted KaufmanTed Kaufman
Edward E. "Ted" Kaufman is an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Delaware from 2009 to 2010. Since 2010, he has chaired the Congressional Oversight Panel in the United States federal government; he is the second person to hold that post, succeeding inaugural holder...
, to serve out the first two years of Biden's six year Senate term. A special election
United States Senate special election in Delaware, 2010
The 2010 United States Senate special election in Delaware took place on November 2, 2010 concurrently with elections to the United States Senate in other states as well as elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. It was a special election to...
would be held coincident with the 2010 general elections to choose who would fill the Senate seat for the remaining four years. O'Donnell quickly announced that she would be running in that election on her campaign website in December 2008, and began fund-raising appeals in February 2009. O'Donnell filed a Statement of Candidacy for the 2010 U.S. Senate race with the FEC on March 20, 2009, a document that is due 15 days after a candidate raises or spends $5,000.
O'Donnell said that her biggest mistake in her earlier campaigns was not having enough funds. In October 2009, she reiterated that she was running despite the entrance into the race of Republican Congressman and former Governor Mike Castle. In January 2010, Beau Biden
Beau Biden
Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III is an American lawyer, Army JAG officer, and politician from Wilmington, Delaware. He serves as the Attorney General of Delaware and a Major in the Delaware Army National Guard...
, Joe Biden's son, indicated he would not run, and Castle became the favorite to take the seat.
Primary election
On March 10, 2010, O'Donnell officially announced her candidacy before a small group of supporters at University of Delaware's Wilmington campus. In her remarks, O'Donnell criticized reckless government spending, said that Castle was the most liberal Republican in the House, and predicted that the Tea Party movementTea Party movement
The Tea Party movement is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009...
and grassroots anti-incumbent trends would be in her favor.
When a report from The News Journal in March 2010 detailed her personal fiscal difficulties, O'Donnell attributed the problems to misunderstandings and errors. She also said, "I think the fact that I have struggled financially is what makes me so sympathetic." Her financial problems became a focal point of establishment Republican attacks. The chair of the state Republican Party, Tom Ross, said, "She’s a candidate who runs for office that unfortunately lives off the proceeds." Several commentators said the attacks showed elements of sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
. The Delaware Republican Party sponsored last minute robocall
Robocall
Robocall is a term for an automated phone call that uses both a computerized autodialer and a computer-delivered pre-recorded message. The implication is that a "robocall" resembles a telephone call from a robot...
s from former O'Donnell staff members charging that O'Donnell was "no conservative" and was financially irresponsible. O'Donnell responded by saying the attacks on her finances were an insult to Delaware voters.
In the final weeks before the primary, O'Donnell became firmly allied with the Tea Party movement which provided last minute funding to her campaign amounting to more than $250,000, according to Fox News, with the Tea Party Express saying it might spend as much as $600,000 backing O'Donnell.
Castle ignored O'Donnell's candidacy and refused to debate her, calling her dishonest. In early September a political consulting firm hired by O'Donnell released a Web video insinuating that Castle was having a homosexual affair. O'Donnell attempted to distance herself from the claim, stating that the consulting firm was no longer working for her campaign. She then appeared on Mark Levin
Mark Levin
Mark Reed Levin is a lawyer, author and the host of American syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show. Levin served in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese...
's radio show, accusing Castle of engaging in "unmanly tactics" during the campaign and saying, "this is not a bake-off, put your man-pants on."
National attention brought additional scrutiny of her record, and repeated questions about the accuracy of her statements from national and local political leaders and news media including Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
, the state’s largest newspaper, The News Journal, and local conservative radio host and former supporter Dan Gaffney of WGMD
WGMD
WGMD is a radio station licensed to serve Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The station is owned by Resort Broadcasting Company, LLC. It airs a talk radio format. The station has been assigned these call letters by the Federal Communications Commission since March 30, 1981.WGMD-FM is a commercial "Class...
radio. O'Donnell's responses consisted of correcting the information, brushing it aside, or downplaying the discrepancies.
O'Donnell won the September 14, 2010, primary election by six percentage points over Castle, garnering more than 30,000 votes altogether, and becoming the eighth Tea Party-backed candidate to oust a GOP establishment candidate in a 2010 primary contest. According to the New York Times, her support largely came from the southern part of the state where Republican voters are socially conservative and against gun control
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
.
Endorsements
By July 2010, she had received endorsements from the Tea Party Express, which called her a “strong voice for conservative constitutionalist principles”. She was also endorsed by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony ListSusan B. Anthony List
The Susan B. Anthony List, or simply SBA List, is a 501 non-profit, non-partisan organization that seeks to eliminate abortion in the U.S. by supporting pro-life politicians, primarily women, through its SBA List Candidate Fund political action committee...
and the Family Research Council
Family Research Council
The Family Research Council is a conservative or right-wing Christian group and lobbying organization formed in the United States in 1981 by James Dobson. It was fully incorporated in 1983...
. In the final days before the primary, she received endorsements from the National Rifle Association
National Rifle Association
The National Rifle Association of America is an American non-profit 501 civil rights organization which advocates for the protection of the Second Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and the promotion of firearm ownership rights as well as marksmanship, firearm safety, and the protection...
, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint
Jim DeMint
James Warren "Jim" DeMint is the junior U.S. Senator from South Carolina, serving since 2005. He is a member of the Republican Party and a leader in the Tea Party movement. He previously served as the U.S. Representative for from 1999 to 2005.-Early life and education:DeMint was born in...
, Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
, and conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
, Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
, and Mark Levin
Mark Levin
Mark Reed Levin is a lawyer, author and the host of American syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show. Levin served in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese...
.
General election
Following her primary victory, O'Donnell urged voters to keep an open mind about the unflattering picture that was being painted of her, and suggested that media reports are not always accurate. She delivered a speech to the Values Voter SummitValues Voter Summit
The Values Voter Summit is an annual political conference for American social conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States....
in Washington, D.C., on September 17, 2010, saying that anti-American elites were trying to marginalize mainstream, core conservatives.
O'Donnell's educational record came under media scrutiny during her 2010 general election campaign. Her 2010 bio on the Claremont Institute website says O'Donnell is a college graduate with a major in English and communications. Some controversy involved a 2005 lawsuit in which O'Donnell claimed her employer broke its promise to give her time to pursue a master's degree at Princeton, forcing her to drop out of attending non-degree courses there. Journalists confirmed that O'Donnell took non-degree courses at Princeton, as she had claimed. Other criticisms involved hoax versions of profiles on LinkedIn and MySpace claiming she had studied at Oxford University in England (O'Donnell is confirmed to have attended the Phoenix Institute who rented space at Oxford University and deny it was represented, "as a course run by Oxford University") and at the Claremont University in Southern California. O'Donnell's attendance at the Claremont Institute was confirmed, but critics confused this with the Claremont Graduate University
Claremont Graduate University
Claremont Graduate University is a private, all-graduate research university located in Claremont, California, a city east of downtown Los Angeles...
. The MySpace page was presented as dating from 2008, but actually listed her age at 41 years old, thereby dating it from August 2010. O'Donnell responded "I never established a LinkedIn profile or authorized anyone to do so on my behalf.”
On September 17, 2010, comedian Bill Maher
Bill Maher
William "Bill" Maher, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and...
aired a clip of O'Donnell from the October 29, 1999 episode of his old show Politically Incorrect
Politically Incorrect
Politically Incorrect is a late-night, half-hour political talk show hosted by Bill Maher that ran from 1993 to 2002. It premiered on Comedy Central from 1993 to 1997, and later on ABC in 1997, which cancelled it in 2002....
on his current show Real Time with Bill Maher
Real Time with Bill Maher
Real Time with Bill Maher is a talk show that airs weekly on HBO, hosted by comedian and political satirist Bill Maher. Much like his previous show, Politically Incorrect on ABC , Real Time features a panel of guests that discuss current events in politics and the media...
, in which O'Donnell said, "I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven...I hung around people who were doing these things... We went to a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar. And I didn't know it." Her admission received widespread media coverage, and O'Donnell explained that she had been referring to high school experiences. O'Donnell followed up with a TV campaign ad for the general election which featured her declaring she was "not a witch". This ad inspired many video parodies and O'Donnell later said that the ad backfired and focused attention on her decade-old statement.
After winning the primary, O'Donnell began employing staffers from various states, including Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia, and hired a Virginia public affairs firm, Shirley & Banister, that has served major conservative clients. In early October, it was noted that O’Donnell's campaign had raised more money from outside Delaware than within the state, leading to questions of whether out-of-state contributors will have more influence over the general election than Delaware residents. By September 30, O'Donnell's general election campaign had received nearly $4 million in contributions from all over the country. Those contributions continued despite an October 28 Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university founded as a junior college in 1942. It now has several campuses located in New Jersey, Canada, and the United Kingdom.-Description:...
PublicMind poll that showed O'Donnell trailing Democrat Chris Coons 36% to 57%.
During a debate between O'Donnell and her opponent Chris Coons on October 13, 2010 at the Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, O'Donnell brought up her opposition to activist judges and stated her objection to a recent court decision to ban the military from discharging homosexual service members who reveal their sexual orientation. She was asked the follow-on question, "What opinions, of late, that have come from our High Court, do you most object to?" O'Donnell did not have any objection to recent precedents. Coons, when asked the same question, said he disagreed with the Supreme Court's
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, , was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment prohibits government from censoring political broadcasts in candidate elections when those broadcasts are funded by corporations or unions...
, which cited the First Amendment to the Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
to strike down restrictions on corporate funding of independent political broadcasts just prior to candidate elections.
In that same October 13 debate, O'Donnell challenged Coons on the topic of the separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
, asking, "Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" After laughter from the audience, Coons responded, "The First Amendment establishes the separation and the fact that the federal government shall not establish any religion, and decisional law by the Supreme Court over many, many decades clarifies and enshrines that there is a separation of church and state that our courts and laws must respect." O'Donnell replied, "Let me just clarify. You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?" To which Coons said, "Government shall make no establishment of religion." O'Donnell replied, "That's in the First Amendment?" The phrase "separation of church and state" is not found in the U.S. Constitution, but is derived from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The phrase itself first appears in a private letter from then-President Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. In a later interview, O'Donnell said that she and her team "were high-fiving each other" after the debate, "thinking that we had exposed [that Coons] doesn't know the First Amendment. And then we read the reports that said the opposite, we were all like 'what?'" She stated, "Well, I think it says exactly what it says: that the government will not create -- will not dictate -- that every American has to believe a certain way, but it won't do anything to prevent the free exercise thereof."
During the debate O'Donnell criticized Coons for agreeing with the United States Supreme Court that teaching creationism in the public schools violates the Constitution. She also stated that Coons' belief that the theory of evolution should be taught in public schools was an example of how he believes in big government mandates and "imposing...beliefs on the local schools". O'Donnell was asked whether she supported the repeal of the Fourteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. She knew that the Seventeenth Amendment concerned the direct election of Senators by popular vote and said she would not repeal it, but could not recall the other two.
In the week prior to the general election, the talk radio station WDEL
WDEL
WDEL is a news/talk radio station in Wilmington, Delaware. WDEL first signed on in 1922 and is one of the first 100 broadcast radio stations licensed in the US. WDEL is a class B station, currently operating at 5,000 watts....
reported that O'Donnell and her campaign manager had threatened to sue if it released a video of an interview she gave at the station. The campaign manager, Matt Moran, was alleged to have threatened to "crush WDEL" with a lawsuit. The O'Donnell campaign subsequently apologized, saying that the incident had been the result of a misunderstanding.
Polls and final result
A July 2010 hypothetical match-up poll by RasmussenRasmussen Reports
Rasmussen Reports is an American media company that publishes and distributes information based on public opinion polling. Founded by pollster Scott Rasmussen in 2003, the company updates daily indexes including the President's job approval rating, and provides public opinion data, analysis, and...
showed O'Donnell running ahead of Chris Coons by a margin of 2 points (41 to 39 percent), while a similar poll in August had her trailing Coons by ten points (46 to 36 percent).
A post primary poll by Fox News on September 21, 2010 found O'Donnell trailing Coons by 15 points (54 to 39 percent) with 5 percent of voters undecided. A poll taken September 26, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports
Rasmussen Reports
Rasmussen Reports is an American media company that publishes and distributes information based on public opinion polling. Founded by pollster Scott Rasmussen in 2003, the company updates daily indexes including the President's job approval rating, and provides public opinion data, analysis, and...
showed support for Coons at 49 percent; O'Donnell was at 40 percent. The Real Clear Politics average, calculated from polls taken between September 11 and October 3, showed Coons with 53 percent of the vote, O'Donnell with 37 percent. A Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university founded as a junior college in 1942. It now has several campuses located in New Jersey, Canada, and the United Kingdom.-Description:...
poll released October 6 showed Coons ahead among likely voters by 17 percentage points, 53%-36%, and a CNN/Time poll released on October 13 immediately before the candidates' first debate had O'Donnell trailing Coons by 19 percent among likely voters; with 57 percent saying they would be voting for Coons and 38 percent for O'Donnell. Results from a post debate poll taken October 14 by Rasmussen showed Coons holding on to an 11 percent lead. A Monmouth University poll taken between October 25 and 27, 2010 indicated Coons had the support of 51% of likely voters to 41% for O’Donnell, while a second poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University showed her shoring up support from conservative voters, but nonetheless trailing significantly.
On November 2, 2010, O'Donnell lost the general election to Coons by a margin of 57% to 40%.
Political positions
On September 16, 2010, O'Donnell said she does not believe in regulating private sexual behavior, and if elected, she will base her political actions on the ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
, rather than her personal beliefs. She specifically disavowed her 1996 anti-masturbation stance, saying "I was a pundit. I was very passionate in my 20s and wanted to share my beliefs."
O'Donnell has identified herself as a member of the "values movement", and is pro-life. She opposes abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, including in cases of rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
and incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
, but if the woman was otherwise going to die, she would allow family members to decide which life to save. O'Donnell opposes human embryonic stem cell research, human cloning
Human cloning
Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human. It does not usually refer to monozygotic multiple births nor the reproduction of human cells or tissue. The ethics of cloning is an extremely controversial issue...
, and research into cloning monkey embryos.
O'Donnell says that she will never vote to increase taxes. She is in favor of a balanced budget amendment
Balanced Budget Amendment
A balanced-budget amendment is a constitutional rule requiring that the state cannot spend more than its income. It requires a balance between the projected receipts and expenditures of the government....
, opposes Congressional earmarks
Earmark (politics)
In United States politics, an earmark is a legislative provision that directs approved funds to be spent on specific projects, or that directs specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees...
, and supports a simplification of the tax code
Internal Revenue Code
The Internal Revenue Code is the domestic portion of Federal statutory tax law in the United States, published in various volumes of the United States Statutes at Large, and separately as Title 26 of the United States Code...
.
O'Donnell has said that Democrats have prevented the U.S. from attaining energy independence by curtailing the drilling of oil in the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
. She supports the building of more refineries, and the use of Delaware's agricultural products in gasoline. She opposes cap and trade
Emissions trading
Emissions trading is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants....
legislation.
O'Donnell says the first thing she would like to do if elected is to vote to repeal health care legislation
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The law is the principal health care reform legislation of the 111th United States Congress...
enacted by Congress in 2010. She signed the Tea Party activists' "Contract from America
Contract from America
The Contract from America was the idea of Houston-based attorney Ryan Hecker. Hecker states that he developed the concept of creating a grassroots call for reform prior to the April 15, 2009 Tax Day Tea Party rallies. To get his idea off the ground, he launched a website which encouraged people to...
," which pledges to replace the act with a health insurance system that is "competitive, open, and transparent free-market".
O'Donnell favors increasing penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants.
She supports raising the age for receiving Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
benefits.
In reply to a question as to whether she would support Senator Mitch McConnell
Mitch McConnell
Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr. is the senior United States Senator from Kentucky and the Republican Minority Leader.- Early life, education, and military service :...
of Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
's continuing as the Republican leader of the Senate, O’Donnell shrugged, and said “I wouldn’t not support him.”
ChristinePAC
In December 2010, O'Donnell announced the formation of a Political Action CommitteePolitical action committee
In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
(PAC) called “ChristinePAC” to address health care and tax issues. Paperwork for the PAC was filed with the Federal Election Commission
Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission is an independent regulatory agency that was founded in 1975 by the United States Congress to regulate the campaign finance legislation in the United States. It was created in a provision of the 1975 amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act...
in January 2011. The filing indicated that the funds of the PAC will not be used to fund candidates for federal office. In a letter to supporters on February 8, 2011, O'Donnell stated that her PAC would allow her to "counter attack left-wing groups," fight the "liberal media" and support conservative candidates against the "liberal-controlled GOP establishment".
Troublemaker
St. Martin's Press in December 2010 signed O'Donnell to write a book about her 2010 Senate campaign and her frustrations with the political process, which was eventually published in August 2011 as Troublemaker: Let's Do What It Takes To Make America Great Again. On August 18, 2011, O'Donnell walked out of an interview with Piers MorganPiers Morgan
Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan , known professionally as Piers Morgan, is a British journalist and television presenter. He is editorial director of First News, a national newspaper for children....
on his CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
talk show, Piers Morgan Tonight
Piers Morgan Tonight
Piers Morgan Tonight is a talk show on CNN, hosted by Piers Morgan. The show premiered on January 17, 2011 and filled the former Larry King Live timeslot. The theme music is written by Anthony James, composer and CEO of British company Music Candy, and his writing partner Yiorgos Bellapaisiotis,...
. O'Donnell stated that she had agreed to be interviewed to discuss fiscal policy and how to improve America, and refused to answer Morgan's questions relating to her views on gay marriage, saying they were not relevant, despite the large amount of content in her book dedicated to the topic. After Morgan stated that she was acting "weird", O'Donnell reiterated she was there to talk about her book, was not a politician and stated Morgan was being "a little rude". Morgan argued that she had touched upon the issue in the book and therefore they were pertinent questions.
Electoral history
| Year | Office | Election | Winner | Party | Votes | Pct | Opponent | Party | Votes | Pct | Opponent | Party | Votes | Pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | U.S. Senator | Primary | Jan C. Ting Jan C. Ting Jan C. Ting is a Professor of Law at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator from Delaware in the 2006 U.S. Senate election, but two years later Ting left the Republican Party in a dispute over his endorsement of Democratic presidential... |
Republican | 6,110 | 43% | Michael D. Protack Michael D. Protack Michael Protack is an American commercial airline pilot and businessman from Yorklyn, New Castle County, Delaware. He is a member of the Republican Party. Protack was a candidate for Governor of Delaware in the 2008 election cycle.... |
Republican | 5,771 | 40% | Christine O'Donnell | Republican | 2,505 | 17% |
| General | Thomas R. Carper Thomas R. Carper Thomas Richard "Tom" Carper is the senior United States Senator from Delaware and a member of the Democratic Party. He was previously the 71st Governor of Delaware and a United States Representative.... |
Democratic | 170,567 | 70% | Jan C. Ting Jan C. Ting Jan C. Ting is a Professor of Law at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator from Delaware in the 2006 U.S. Senate election, but two years later Ting left the Republican Party in a dispute over his endorsement of Democratic presidential... |
Republican | 69,734 | 29% | Christine O'Donnell | Write-in Write-in candidate A write-in candidate is a candidate in an election whose name does not appear on the ballot, but for whom voters may vote nonetheless by writing in the person's name. Some states and local jurisdictions allow a voter to affix a sticker with a write-in candidate's name on it to the ballot in lieu... |
11,127 | 4%Write-in votes were not counted as part of the official tally of election results for candidates on the ballot, which is why the vote totals add up to 103%. See, | ||
| 2008 | U.S. Senator | Primary | Christine O'Donnell | Republican | n/a | n/a | Uncontested | |||||||
| General | Joe Biden Joe Biden Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama... |
Democratic | 257,484 | 64.7% | Christine O'Donnell | Republican | 140,584 | 35.3% | ||||||
| 2010 | U.S. Senator (Special) |
Primary | Christine O'Donnell | Republican | 30,561 | 53.1% | Michael N. Castle Michael N. Castle Michael "Mike" Newbold Castle is a former Governor and former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1993 until 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party.... |
Republican | 27,021 | 46.9% | ||||
| General | Chris Coons | Democratic | 173,900 | 56.6% | Christine O'Donnell | Republican | 123,025 | 40.0% |
External links
- Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org (2006)
- Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org (2010)
- Class as a way of Understanding Christine O’Donnell and the Tea Party by The Christian Science MonitorThe Christian Science MonitorThe Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
- Stunning Primary Season Reaches A Stunning End by NPRNPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
- Macmillan Speakers Bureau profile