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Former Rep. David Trone, D-Md., has failed in his bid to return to Congress after pouring millions of his fortune into the race to unseat the incumbent Democrat.
Rep. April McClain Delaney, D-Md., defeated Trone on Tuesday in a tough battle for a gerrymandered House seat in western Maryland, according to the Associated Press.
The intraparty contest was one of the most expensive primaries of the 2026 cycle, with more than $32 million spent between the two candidates, who had considerable wealth to boost their campaigns.
It’s not clear if the overall spending surpassed the Kentucky primary battle that led to the defeat of Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who recently earned the title of the nation’s most expensive House Speaker.
Rep. April McClain Delaney, D-Md., speaks during a rally outside the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., on March 3, 2025, protesting recent employee firings. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc.)
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Trone, the billionaire founder of Total Wine & More, has put more than $25 million of his fortune into the race. Delaney, a freshman attorney who worked in the Biden administration, has used at least $7 million of his own money to tackle Trone’s primary challenger for a second term in the House.
He previously served in the Biden administration as a political appointee to the Department of Commerce.
Although both candidates had minor policy differences, Trone heavily criticized Delaney for voting for the GOP-approved Laken Riley Act in early 2025. Delaney later said he regretted supporting the law, which calls for the detention of illegal immigrants suspected or convicted of certain crimes.
Delaney also criticized Trone for recommending the support of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an ad focused on her defense of abortion rights, even though she did not receive official approval.
Trone, who has represented the district for three terms, previously bankrolled a failed 2024 Senate bid with more than $60 million of his own money, and lost to Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md. He authorized Delaney to follow him to Congress.
The primary battle between former Rep. David Trone, D-Md., and April McClain Delaney, D-Md., turned ugly and could surpass spending records. (JP Yim/Getty Images for New York Hilton Midtown; Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for MISTR, Free Online PrEP)
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The Democratic Alliance of Maryland joined the Delaney campaign in a remarkable show of unity against Trone’s treasonous 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’s re-election campaign.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also supported Delaney’s campaign.
Meanwhile, Trone recommended the ratification of the largest teachers’ union in the state.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Reps. Don Beyer, D-Va., and April McClain Delaney, D-Md., attended a news conference with Maryland and Virginia congressional Democrats across from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Oct. 14, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc.)
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Neither Delaney nor Trone live in the district, which stretches from the rural, Republican northwest corner to Democratic and suburban Montgomery and Frederick counties. Both Democrats live in the affluent suburb of Potomac, Md., near Washington, DC.
President Donald Trump is within six points of winning the Democratic-leaning district in 2024, but Republicans nationally don’t see the seat as a high-stakes opportunity.
Delaney’s husband, John Delaney, held the seat from 2013 to 2019 before launching an unsuccessful bid for president in 2020.
