Maryland’s 6th District candidates bicker about fortunes as voters worry about costs

Affordability is a top issue for voters worried about skyrocketing gas, grocery and electricity bills. But in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District race, two multimillionaire Democrats have put their own wealth front and center.

To be fair, April McClain Delaney, the incumbent, and David Trone, who held the seat before her, are debating more than money. They’re contesting voting records, endorsements and who will stand up more against President Donald Trump.

But they’re also pointing fingers at the other for playing politics with their cash — giving to their own campaigns and to allies. It seems they both are among the majority of Americans who believe that money in politics is one of the nation’s top problems, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

McClain Delaney’s campaign started the feud, calling Trone’s spending “quixotic” and suggesting that he’s fueling a “narcissistic vanity campaign.”

“Multi-Billionaire and one man special-interest David Trone tries to buy just about everything: influence, power, endorsements, and especially elections,” said McClain Delaney’s campaign manager Nick London.

“Unlike David Trone, she doesn’t have the resources to buy elections,” London said.

Trone has personally spent more than $100 million on his last five races and loaned himself $10 million for this one, setting national and state records for self-funding campaigns.

In an interview on Monday, Trone responded to McClain Delaney’s criticism.

“She has as much money as God, and she can spend every dollar that I spend,” Trone said after a campaign event in Frederick. “She’s chosen not to spend it. That’s the irony that people don’t see.”

Trone and his family’s political giving has even drawn a straw donor complaint from a McClain Delaney ally, which Trone rejected as false and called “dirty politics.”

Meanwhile, McClain Delaney has bankrolled herself with $2.2 million so far and has asked for campaign donations in emails blasting Trone for, mostly, being rich.

Keeping the seat in Potomac

The pair are vying to represent a mostly rural Western Maryland district that includes Garrett, Allegany, Washington and Frederick counties and part of Montgomery County. The average household income in the district is $105,000 a year. Take a chunk of that for taxes, healthcare, food and fuel, and there’s not much left for the average constituent to spend on political donations.

Though it’s Maryland’s purplest House district, Democrats have comfortably won the seat over the past decade, and in 2026 the congressional handicappers now consider it safely Democratic.

Neither candidate lives in the district, but the seat they’re battling over has been held by either a Trone or a Delaney since 2013.

The spending potential of both candidates and the anemic Republican field come November make it likely that one of them will hold it again.

John Delaney represented the district beginning in 2013. He did not seek reelection, instead entering the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Trone held the seat from 2019 to 2025.

McClain Delaney has been in office for more than a year after winning her race against GOP challenger Neil Parrott. Trone vacated the spot to run for Senate in 2024, a contest he lost to Sen. Angela Alsobrooks.

Spending his own money on campaigns has allowed Trone to avoid taking special-interest money and remain focused on serving the public, campaign spokesperson Gaby Krevat said, pointing to McClain Delaney’s receipts from political action committees.

But rather than setting themselves apart with talk of money, the 6th District rivals appear to be two sides of the same shiny gold coin.

Both share rags-to-riches tales. They grew up on farms with little money and are now among the wealthiest families in the state, and both have charitable foundations. They live miles apart in Potomac, a Washington, D.C., suburb synonymous with affluence, and their expansive multimillion-dollar homes sit on acres of land, each with at least 12 bathrooms, according to online property records.

“Do we want leaders to earn your vote, or do we want leaders who think they can just buy it?” said Alexis Goldstein, one of six other Democratic candidates competing against McClain Delaney and Trone for the nomination. This is the fired federal worker’s first campaign. She has $36,000 in her campaign account.

“Just like Trump, Trone and Delaney are showing that unless we are willing to fight back, our elections ARE for sale to the highest bidder, and there [are] a lot of buyers,” she said.

How much are we talking about here?

Pinpointing the Delaneys’ or the Trones’ exact wealth is difficult.

Personal financial disclosures required by members of Congress show only a partial balance sheet. Estimates have put Trone’s net worth from his national beer and wine chain, Total Wine & More, in the billions. McClain Delaney’s disclosure provides a ballpark net worth of somewhere between $80 million and $270 million. John Delaney — a majority owner of the state’s second-largest bank, with assets valued at $7.7 billion — had an estimated net worth of around $200 million in 2020, according to Forbes.

Trone has run in three of Maryland’s most expensive races.

In 2016, he spent $12 million on a bid for Maryland’s 8th District against Rep. Jamie Raskin, which set a national record that year. Then, he spent roughly $17 million in his successful race for the 6th District in 2018. He blew that total away, spending more than $62 million in his failed 2024 Senate primary bid against Alsobrooks.

McClain Delaney ally cries foul

Former Frederick County Councilman Kai Hagen, who is backing McClain Delaney, is asking state and federal campaign officials to examine whether Trone is using his four adult children to funnel money to campaign accounts.

Hagen’s complaint detailed more than a decade of the Trone family’s giving and highlighted instances where he and multiple children gave the same amount on the same day.

“There’s not truth to it at all,” Trone said.

Family members can donate money to the same candidates, but it is illegal, according to federal and state law, for one person to give campaign donations in another person’s name. There’s no evidence in the complaint that Trone has reimbursed his children for their campaign giving.

Ellen Weintraub, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, said only the commission has the power to determine whether there’s been any wrongdoing.

But she noted the complaint is unlikely to go anywhere soon: For the last year, the Federal Election Commission hasn’t had enough members to meet.