Former Rep. David Trone, D-Md., fell short in his comeback bid to return to Congress after pouring millions of his personal fortune into the race to unseat an incumbent Democrat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rep. April McClain Delaney, D-Md., defeated Trone on Tuesday in a bruising primary battle for a gerrymandered House seat in western Maryland, according to The Associated Press.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The intraparty contest was one of the costliest primaries of the 2026 cycle, with more than $32 million spent between both candidates, who had considerable wealth at their disposal to boost their respective campaigns.<\/p>\n
It is unclear whether total spending eclipsed the Kentucky primary battle that resulted in the defeat of Rep. Thomas Massie,<\/a> R-Ky., which recently earned the title of the nation’s most expensive House primary.\u00a0<\/p>\n DHS FIRES BACK AFTER DEM BILLIONAIRE DAVID TRONE CLAIMS ICE IS \u2018EXECUTING PEOPLE\u2019<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Trone, the billionaire founder of the alcohol retailer Total Wine & More, put more than $25 million of his wealth into the race. Delaney, a freshman lawmaker who served in the Biden administration, spent at least $7 million of her own money to fend off Trone\u2019s primary challenge for a second House term.\u00a0<\/p>\n She previously served in the Biden administration as a political appointee in the Commerce Department.<\/p>\n Though both candidates had few policy differences, Trone sharply criticized Delaney for voting for the GOP-authored Laken Riley Act in early 2025. Delaney later said she regretted supporting the law, which requires the detention of illegal immigrants accused or convicted of certain crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Delaney also denounced Trone for touting support from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton<\/a> in an advertisement focused on his defense of abortion rights, despite not receiving a formal endorsement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trone, who represented the district for three terms, previously bankrolled a failed 2024 Senate bid with more than $60 million of his fortune, losing to now-Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md. He notably endorsed Delaney to succeed him in Congress.<\/p>\n FROM WASSERMAN SCHULTZ TO GOLDMAN, DEMOCRATIC INCUMBENTS ARE FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Maryland\u2019s Democratic establishment rallied around Delaney\u2019s campaign in a notable display of unity against Trone\u2019s insurgent campaign. Gov. Wes Moore, D-Md., Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and former House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., endorsed Delaney\u2019s re-election campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,<\/a> D-Calif., also backed Delaney\u2019s campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Trone touted the endorsement of the state\u2019s largest teachers union.<\/p>\n Neither Delaney nor Trone reside in the district, which stretches from the rural, Republican-leaning northwestern corner of the state to the heavily Democratic and suburban Montgomery and Frederick counties. Both Democrats live in the affluent Potomac, Md., suburb near Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump came within six points of winning the Democratic-leaning district in 2024, but national Republicans do not view the seat as a top pickup opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Delaney’s husband, John Delaney,<\/a> previously represented the seat from 2013 to 2019 before launching a failed campaign for president in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Rep. David Trone, D-Md., fell short in his comeback bid to return to Congress after pouring millions of his personal fortune into the race to unseat an incumbent Democrat.\u00a0 Rep. April McClain Delaney, D-Md., defeated Trone on Tuesday in a bruising primary battle for a gerrymandered House seat in western Maryland, according to The … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}