American Democrat sensitive being trapped in zip (10)

'american' is the definition.
(Delawarean is an example)

'democrat sensitive being trapped in zip' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'democrat' could be 'd' and 'd' is present in the answer.
'sensitive' could be 'aware' ('aware' can be similar in meaning to 'sensitive') and 'aware' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'elan' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?