The road turns northeast and passes under CSX's Philadelphia Subdivision railroad line before it leaves Newark and continues through residential areas, briefly becoming undivided as it crosses White Clay Creek.

The highway continues through suburbs and reaches an intersection with Delaware Park Drive, an access road that leads south to Delaware Park, which consists of a Thoroughbred horse racetrack, casino, and golf course.

[3][4] Following this interchange, DE 2 narrows to four lanes and continues east through a mix of homes and businesses, crossing Little Mill Creek and passing to the south of the Wilmington VA Medical Center before it heads across Chestnut Run.

At this point, the route enters the town of Elsmere and briefly turns southeast before curving back to the east and reaching an intersection with DE 100 (Dupont Road).

Past this intersection, the road comes to a bridge over a junction between CSX's Philadelphia Subdivision and an East Penn Railroad line and then CSX's Market Street Industrial Track line and South Grant Avenue before running past homes and businesses as South Union Street.

[3][4] DE 2 leaves Elsmere and crosses into the city of Wilmington in the Canby Park Estates neighborhood.

The one-way pair, which carries two lanes in each direction, passes urban homes and businesses and reaches an intersection with DE 48 (Lancaster Avenue) in the Union Park Gardens neighborhood.

The highway enters the Little Italy neighborhood, where it intersects the northern terminus of DE 9 at West 4th Street.

The Lincoln Highway name continued northeast of Wilmington along the Philadelphia Pike, which is present-day U.S. Route 13 Business (US 13 Bus.)

[13] In the 1930s, plans were made to build a divided highway alignment of the Capitol Trail between Wilmington and Stanton, including a bypass of Marshallton, as a result of the construction of the Delaware Park racetrack, which opened in 1937.

[6] In 1936, DE 2 was designated to run from the Maryland state line southwest of Newark, where it connected to MD 279, east to DE 52 in Wilmington, following Elkton Road, Main Street, Capitol Trail, New Road, and Union Street.

[2] In 1938, construction began on widening DE 2 into a divided highway between Prices Corner and Elsmere, with plans to extend the divided highway westward to bypass the two-lane section through Marshallton to the north along a new alignment.

The bypassed former alignment of the route between Pike Creek Road and Prices Corner became known as Old Capitol Trail.

On May 9, 1941, the new alignment of DE 2 between Pike Creek Road and the east end of New Road in Elsmere was named the Robert Kirkwood Highway in honor of Robert Kirkwood, an American Revolutionary War soldier from Newark.

The portion of the route between DE 273 and Pike Creek Road retained the name Capitol Trail.

[6] In 1940, plans were made to eliminate the grade crossing with the railroad junction in Elsmere by replacing it with a bridge over the tracks along with a new alignment for DE 2 between the end of the divided highway in Elsmere and Union and Lincoln streets in Wilmington.

[22] The portion of DE 2 along Elkton Road between the Maryland state line and Newark was widened into a divided highway in 1972.

The road changed names to South Main Street and became undivided as it passed businesses before reaching downtown Newark.

At the intersection with South College Avenue, the concurrency in both directions with northbound DE 896 ended.

[26] In 2012, the Newark city council voted in favor of renaming the portion of Elkton Road carrying DE 2 Bus./DE 896 between West Park Place and West Main Street to South Main Street in order to promote businesses along this stretch of road.