A service of Salisbury University and University of Maryland Eastern Shore
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Return Day Celebrated in Georgetown

Delaware Way (File Photo)

GEORGETOWN, Del. (AP) - Following the nation's rancorous midterm elections, Delaware politicians have gathered for a time-honored, post-campaign ritual to settle their partisan differences, if only for the moment.

Politicians of all stripes came together in the southern Delaware hamlet of Georgetown on Thursday for Return Day, where winners and losers ride together in horse-drawn carriages in a show of goodwill before a tuxedoed town crier announces local election results from a courthouse balcony.

Local party leaders then join hands to symbolically "bury the hatchet" in a box of sand.

U.S. Sen. Tom Carper walked the parade route with his vanquished Republican opponent Rob Arlett, a member of the local county council who was President Donald Trump's 2016 state campaign chair.

Carper says maybe the whole country could use a Return Day.

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.