GOVERNOR MATTHEW S. MEYER’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS PREPARED
DOVER– Today, Matthew S. Meyer was officially sworn in as the 76th Governor of Delaware, marking the beginning of a new chapter in the state’s history.
In a ceremony held at the William B. DeLauder Education and Humanities Theatre at Delaware State University, Governor Meyer took the oath of office, pledging to build a Delaware that is more equitable, innovative, and forward-thinking.
Following his swearing-in as Governor of Delaware, Governor Matthew S. Meyer delivered his inaugural address.
The following is the Inaugural Address as prepared:
“Good morning, everyone! Good morning, Delaware!
Thank you so much for being here. The original plan was for me to give this speech outside. As the temperature in the forecast was dropping, so was the length of this speech.
We’re inside now. So sit back. Get comfortable.
This may be the first time in US history that any governor has been sworn into office in a historically black college or university.
Thank you to Dr. Allen and the great leadership here at Delaware State University.
Let’s be worthy of this moment.
Just ten years ago I was teaching sixth grade Math on the East Side of Wilmington. It was hard. It was very hard. All I wanted to do was stand and deliver.
I stood and too often we did not deliver.
I believed our students deserved more.
I believed our teachers deserved more.
Recently returned from 12 months as a diplomat, embedded with the US Army in Mosul, Iraq, I had learned a lot more about America than many of my teacher colleagues. I thought bigger about the promise of our country and of our kids. I knew we could do so much better. We had an obligation to their generation.
I started a journey then, a journey based on a basic belief that we can do much better. Our kids and their families deserve so much better. This journey started with just me.
Moments ago, I took an oath of office for this journey to be about all of us. About you. And about us.
Doing better by our kids. Doing better by all of our friends and neighbors, left out and forgotten by a school system that does not effectively educate and an economy that fails to deliver on the promise of America, a Delaware that fails to deliver for too many of us.
Thank you for coming, and thank you, also, to the folks tuning in from Sussex County, Kent County, New Castle County and every part of our great state. I’m excited and grateful to stand before you as your 76th governor.
I ran for governor because I love this state—but not only that.
I ran for governor because I believe in this state—but not only that.
I ran for governor because I’m determined to help our government work better and deliver more.
You, the people of Delaware, have given me that chance.
It is the greatest honor of my life.
To work for you.
To work with you.
To build on the acts and ideas of leaders who came before me.
I want to thank former Governors Hall Long and John Carney for your service to our state. I look forward to working with Mayor Carney in Wilmington.
I also want to recognize two extraordinary governors starting with Jack Markell. Jack, it was a tremendous privilege to be part of your team when you were Governor. I listened, and I learned, and I could not have asked for a better mentor. Thank you and Carla for being there for Lauren and me. And welcome home, Mr. Ambassador.
I’m grateful that Tom Carper is here as well: treasurer, congressman, governor, senator, the last Vietnam Veteran to serve in the United States Senate—no one has won more statewide elections in our state’s history than Tom Carper, and in every one of these roles, he’s left big shoes to fill.
Senator Carper, you may not remember this, but when I taught a seventh grader named Brian Coverdale, he came into school one day ecstatic. We had just started a new school baseball team, and his mentor had actually bought uniforms for the whole team. His mentor’s name was Tom Carper.
And I also want to thank one of the most dedicated public servants in Delaware’s history. I want to thank him for his lifelong commitment to uplifting the people of our state, our country, and the world. I want to thank him for repeatedly coming to my high school as a Senator and helping to plant the seeds of service that landed me here today.
He has set a standard of service to which all of us should aspire. I’m speaking, of course, about President Joe Biden.
With deep appreciation and Delaware pride, we take up your call to put service above self.
That goes both for me and for our new lieutenant governor, Kyle Evans Gay.
Kyle, I can’t tell you how excited I am to have you as a partner—a partner in leading our state to win the future.
Let me also thank the heroes in my own life. My parents, who moved our family to Delaware when I was an infant and gave me the foundation of values I bring to my work and my life.
A shoutout to my sister Alli and brother Jeremy, who tortured me here and there along the way. And my sister-in-law Becky as well.
And most important, I want to thank my wife, Lauren, and our 11-month old son, Levi.
Lauren, thank you for being my moral compass, the brains behind our joint operation, and my best friend. I know, I know. We have discussed this a lot the last few months. Governors still do need to take out the trash.
And Levi, you are truly the MVP of the 2024 election. There was no way we would have won without you giving us a solid, uninterrupted 11 hours of sleep every night throughout the campaign. You’re a team player.
That’s not a joke. I’m serious. My wife Dr. Lauren is a Master Sergeant of sleep.
And to the best big brothers, Wyatt and Owen, a math question. How come ten plus ten and eleven plus eleven equal the same thing? Ten plus ten is 20. Eleven plus eleven is 22.
I’m incredibly proud to call Delaware my home.
Delaware instilled in me a deep sense of purpose. An understanding of right and wrong. A belief in the dignity of hard work. Delaware is my community. My family. My land of possibility.
It’s often said that we’re a state of neighbors.
We’re close-knit here. We have to be. We’re only 96 miles, north to south. And we like it that way.
It shapes the way we interact. We value compromise. Decency. Humility. We hear each other out, even when we disagree. We pull together when things are tough. We bury the hatchet—sometimes literally.
Civility is a word you don’t hear much these days.
But in Delaware, civility is alive and well. It’s who we are.
At the same time, we cannot afford to shy away from speaking the truth. From taking a stand.
From taking a bold step in a new direction.
And that, I think, is what this moment demands.
In Delaware—and across our country—we feel unsettled in these tumultuous times. Life’s essentials still cost too much, and wages aren’t keeping pace.
Our schools aren’t preparing our kids like they should. Inequalities are becoming more extreme.
So it’s not just the speed and volume of change that’s got people concerned—it’s the direction those changes threaten to take us. That’s true whether we’re talking about our economy, our climate, or our politics.
The winds of change hit Washington yesterday, as we know.
Let me say this about the new president. I will work with anyone, of any party, who is ready to advance the best interests of the people of Delaware.
But I want to make this absolutely clear: if the president or his administration try to take away your health care coverage, or further restrict your reproductive rights, or undermine our schools, or try to come into our communities to harass folks who came to our country, and our state, in search of a better life.
If they do these things, I will use every power you’ve vested in me as governor to protect our residents, our livelihoods, and our values. That is my pledge to you.
But today, I extend a hand in the spirit of partnership.
Now’s not the time to settle scores, or score political points.
We have a job to do—for the people who sent us here.
If we get that job done, if we get it done right, the opportunities before us are incredible.
We live, as I said, in tumultuous times, but also times of amazing innovation. Biomedicine is cracking the code of disease, discovering new ways to improve and extend our lives. Technology is getting smarter, making us more efficient, more effective, in our jobs and daily lives.
Delaware can and should be leading these transformations.
We have one of the highest number of PhDs per capita in America.
But we also have one of the five worst-performing public school systems in America.
Delaware, we can’t fulfill our potential unless we all have a chance to contribute.
That will be my focus every day of these next four years.
Students aren’t failing; our schools are failing our students.
As a teacher and as governor, I refuse to accept that. I refuse to write off any of our kids.
Because I’ve seen what they can do when they’re given a chance and thats why right after this I’ll be signing our first Executive Order, to create and expand job opportunities so students can learn AND earn at the same time.
Ten years ago, I remember one math class. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the students engaged in the subject. I couldn’t get them to care, for example, how you calculate the slope of a line.
The answer, by the way, is to divide the rise by the run.
My approach was failing. So I shifted gears. Instead of putting equations on the whiteboard, I arranged for the kids to get hands-on—and taught them how to code. Just basic programming tasks, really. Suddenly every student was not just engaged but thriving. Suddenly they could see why math mattered—how it animates the world around them, how it might shape their future careers.
For many of my seventh grade students, this was more than an engaging math class. It was a pathway to success.
Teachers live for moments like that. I know I do.
But as I’ve also experienced, there’s a lot of struggle. You never really get the resources you need in order to do right by our kids. You do what you can with what little you have. I’ve seen teachers make a lot of sacrifices and do heroic work.
They need support. And that’s the promise I’m making today.
I’ve shared many of my plans for reform, and I’ll discuss more details in the coming weeks. But for now, let me say to Delaware’s schools, teachers, and students: you all have an ally in the governor’s office
Of course, schools are only as strong as their communities. And we know that many of our communities are under strain. It shouldn’t be this hard to afford a home or just to pay the rent.
Housing is a human right.
So we’re not going to rest until every Delawarean has access to safe, stable, affordable housing.
Health care, too, is a human right.
But the health care system often treats us as less than human.
As many of you know, my wife is an emergency room doctor. Dr. Lauren comes home with stories, lots of stories, of doctors and nurses and physician assistants and other health care professionals doing selfless and heroic work. But patients are suffering, even dying, during the long wait at the emergency room.
Delawareans are being denied coverage for essential health care and Delawareans are driving to Philadelphia or Baltimore or DC to get the basic care they need.
These are national problems. Delaware is not alone. But that doesn’t mean we have to accept this.
And if Washington moves backwards, or downwards, we’re not going with them. In Delaware, we move forward.
I’m going to work every day to make health care in Delaware more affordable, more accessible, more reliable and more innovative.
Which brings me back to innovation. We’re proud of our reputation as a home to thriving businesses—but we can do even better by them.
Starting a business is really hard. I know that from experience.
We want Delaware to be a state where all businesses—whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, or a mom-and-pop shop—can prosper. Where a person with a bold idea can build a business, create good jobs, and strengthen the economy of the state we call home.
Some see our size as a disadvantage.
I disagree.
Being small can be our superpower. We can be nimble. We can move quickly and work closely together. We can take measured risks and experiment.
I want to take advantage of our smallness to create true greatness.
I want us to be a model for what any state can achieve.
At a time when nearly half our country is wondering what future there is for America, we right here can come together and realize the promise of an America that truly does work for everyone.
I want “The First State” to describe our future, not just our proud past.
I am confident we can do these things.
Everywhere I travel across our state, I ask you, “How can I help? What can I do to make things better?”
But really, that’s a question I need all of us to ask.
“How can we help? What can we do, together, to make things better?”
Because it’s going to take more than a governor to solve these problems. You and I, we’re in this together.
I often think back to my time in Iraq. I wasn’t a soldier; I was a diplomat. But I’ll never forget being on the move with fifteen US Army soldiers when our vehicle broke down a couple hours outside Mosul. It was 120 degrees outside in what was then the most dangerous region of the most dangerous country in the world.
None of us knew what was going to happen next. But all of us knew that whatever happened, we were in it together.
Whatever differences we had dissolved in that moment. Differences of region, race, income, education. None of it mattered.
We got home safe. I feel very lucky.
And I carry that lesson with me every day.
Yes, Delawareans, we do have differences. Real differences that sometimes run deep.
But we share a mission. That mission, as I see it, is to show you every day that government can deliver. That democracy can deliver. That the vote those delegates took in 1787 was a smart bet when they created our country—a vote of confidence in succeeding generations, a vote of confidence in us. They believed that whatever challenges their states and our nation faced, we would rise to them.
My friends, let us be worthy of their belief in us.
There are too many sixth and seventh grade teachers out there, too many parents of public school students who simply do not see that promise of America, that promise of Delaware.
Let us rise to the challenges at hand. Let us work better and deliver more.
And let us build a future even better than our past.
That future starts now.
Thank you. God bless the great state of Delaware, and God bless our country.
