Wilmington, Del. — In case you missed it, the Philadelphia Inquirer profiled Lisa Blunt Rochester, emphasizing her early roots in Philadelphia and her inspiring journey from intern to the halls of Congress to her historic run for the U.S. Senate. The piece highlights Lisa’s unwavering commitment to democracy, her dedication to creating good-paying jobs, and her fierce advocacy for reproductive freedom. With a campaign centered on the message of “Bright Hope,” drawn from the church her grandmother attended for 70 years and where Lisa visited with her as a child, Lisa Blunt Rochester is ready to bring her passion and leadership to the Senate.

You can read the full article here.

Recounting Jan. 6 and why fighting for democracy is so important to her:

• A lot of Americans first saw U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester on Jan. 6, 2021. During a live broadcast on CBS, she was seen crouching behind a wall next to fellow lawmakers, eyes squeezed shut, voice rising in prayer inside the U.S. Capitol as it was besieged by a pro-Donald Trump mob. In that video, she can be heard saying all things work together for good and calling on God for peace and protection.
  
  Nearly four years later, Blunt Rochester is poised to become Delaware’s first female and first Black senator. It will not be the first time she made history in the blue state. In 2016, she became Delaware’s first female and first Black congressperson after winning a crowded Democratic primary. She has won every election since.
  
  “I truly believe that seeing each other and really hearing each other and problem-solving together brings that lasting change,” she said in a recent interview.
  Following her experience on Jan. 6, Blunt Rochester felt emboldened to protect voting rights and democracy, something that was already dear to her. That day, she had with her a scarf printed with the document her great-great-great-grandfather, who was formerly enslaved, signed to vote in 1867.
  
  “I want to fight for democracy because I was one of the people trapped up in the gallery on Jan. 6,” she said. “I saw how close we were to losing it.”

On her career in public service:

• “[…] She got her start in politics as an intern for Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.) when he was a congressman in 1989. Carper promoted Blunt Rochester to constituent services caseworker, later taking her with him to his governor’s office. She became the deputy secretary of the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services by 1993 and Delaware’s first female and first Black labor secretary in 1998. She was 36. Before her 40th birthday, Blunt Rochester was appointed to manage Delaware’s workforce as state personnel director.
  
  “More than 25 years after her internship, Blunt Rochester ran for office, at Carper’s relentless urging. He suggested Wilmington mayor. She said she wanted to be a congresswoman instead, he remembered. “And you know what?” said Carper, who has been a visible supporter of Blunt Rochester as she now runs to succeed him in the Senate. “She is.”
  
  […] In her second marriage, to Charles Rochester, whom she calls the love of her life, Blunt Rochester uprooted the career she’d built in Delaware — which included time as the CEO of the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League — to move with her husband to China in 2007. There, she cowrote a book, Thrive, that profiled women who moved abroad on behalf of their spouses.
  
  After the couple returned to the States, her husband died unexpectedly in 2014. “After Charles’ passing, I said to myself, I have nothing to lose and everything to give,” Blunt Rochester said. It was then that she decided to run for Congress.

On tackling issues from supply chain infrastructure to menopause in Congress:

• “On a recent sunny day, Blunt Rochester, wearing a long, beige, hooded all-weather coat, joined Carper for a news conference marking the reopening of Delaware’s St. Georges Bridge.
  The candidate for Senate floated around the swaying bridge, smiling with every muscle and laughing with 8-year-old Cub Scouts, before underscoring the importance of the bridge to commerce.
  
  The bridge project, she said, “shows how strong we are when we do things together … as Democrats, Republicans, independents, Americans.”
  
  As a congresswoman, she introduced the bipartisan “Promoting Resilient Supply Chains Act,” which passed the House in May. Others in the package of eight economic bills aimed at improving things like workforce development and affordable housing allocated varying levels of funding to different initiatives in Delaware […].
  
  Blunt Rochester has also taken up issues that are personal to her, like Black women’s maternal health, created a bipartisan caucus for tech-focused workforce preparation, and wants to start what she calls “a menopause movement.”
  
  She’s an abortion-rights advocate and introduced a criminal justice reform bill to seal the records of people with low-level drug offenses. She’s especially proud of her effort, along with Carper and Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.), to invest in upgrading Delaware’s water infrastructure and the real-life effects of those improvements.
  
  “We can’t afford to go backwards,” she said. “We can’t afford it economically, internationally, even for our own basic rights and freedoms.”

On her close relationship with “comforter-in-Chief” President Joe Biden:

• Blunt Rochester’s family has been connected to President Joe Biden’s for decades, for instance. One of her two sisters worked in Biden’s Senate office, and the president campaigned alongside her father.
  
  “I think it became a more close-knit thing when Beau [Biden] ran for office and our family was out there with him, canvassing,” Blunt Rochester said. When Beau Biden, the president’s older son, died of brain cancer in 2015, Blunt Rochester said, “we stood in line for five hours, just to go and hug them, you know, hug the family and say we’re here.”
  
  In January, when Blunt Rochester’s father died of cancer, Biden and his wife, Jill, reciprocated.
  
  “I had been really strong the whole time until he hugged me,” Blunt Rochester said of Biden’s visit. “[Y]ou could feel this warmth. Like I always say, he’s like the comforter-in-chief.”
  
  Blunt Rochester served as a Biden campaign co-chair and as a member of the committee to select his vice president, where she got to know Vice President Kamala Harris.   

On her commitment to putting people over politics:

• Some people who know Blunt Rochester describe her as empathetic and genuine. “She is a people-over-politics person,” said Jalyn Powell, 28, who interned in Blunt Rochester’s congressional office in 2018. When Powell ran for local office years later, Blunt Rochester canvassed for her. “It was a selfless act, just to show she cares.” Raye Jones Avery, a retired nonprofit executive and longtime activist in the Wilmington area, worked with Blunt Rochester’s father and has known the congresswoman since she was in high school. She described her as compassionate. ”When she comes into a room, she brings joy with her,” she said. What people might not be able to see is Blunt Rochester’s strength, she added. “She has the faith to step out in the middle of a storm and to be of service to others, not to wallow in her own grief,” Jones Avery said.