Nearly all the spending in this Maryland primary comes from two self

The Democratic primary in one Maryland district is shaping up as one of the nation’s most expensive House races – and nearly all of the money is coming from the two leading candidates’ own pockets. The incumbent in the 6th district, Rep. April McClain Delaney, and former Rep. David Trone have combined to raise nearly $34.8 million in their fight for western Maryland’s House seat. But only a sliver of that money has come from the voters they hope to represent. Instead, the candidates themselves supplied 94% of the total – about $32.8 million – through loans or contributions to their own campaigns, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of Federal Election Commission pre-primary filings through June 3. That includes $25 million in self-loans by Trone and $7.4 million by McClain Delaney. “It’s certainly unusual to have two candidates face off who are in a position to self-finance to this extent,” David Karol, an associate professor in the University of Maryland’s department of government and politics, told OpenSecrets. “It’s a House race – it’s not even a race for senator or governor – but it’s a remarkable amount of spending.” With the general election still five months away, the fundraising total in this Democratic primary alone exceeds that in the most expensive House race of 2024 by nearly $10 million, according to OpenSecrets data. The filings depict a contest driven far more by personal wealth than by grassroots support, with several leading Democrats – and even the top Republican – relying overwhelmingly on their own money to power their campaigns. “It’s a lot easier if you can just write yourself a check,” Karol said. “Fundraising is time-consuming, and it’s sometimes difficult. It’s not always easy to make the sale, and a lot of politicians don’t enjoy it. And these two individuals are very wealthy.” While McClain Delaney and Trone are by far the biggest fundraisers in the race, they aren’t the only ones leaning on personal wealth. The other six Democrats in the June 23 primary have raised just over $161,000 combined, FEC records show. George Gluck, a mathematician and software engineer, accounts for most of the total, reporting more than $102,000 – all but $558.76 of it from a personal loan to his campaign. The trend even crosses party lines. The top fundraiser in the Republican primary – Robin Ficker, a disbarred attorney and frequent candidate for office in Maryland – reported more than $391,000 in receipts, with $390,000 of that coming from a loan he made to his own campaign. Ficker previously loaned his unsuccessful 2024 Senate campaign more than $2 million. OpenSecrets reached out to the campaigns for McClain Delaney, Trone, Gluck and Ficker but did not immediately receive any responses. Self-funding in western Maryland reflects a broader national trend. In 2024, 33 federal candidates self-funded their campaigns with at least $2 million, up from 26 in 2022 and 17 in 2020, according to OpenSecrets data. “Now it’s commonplace, I guess, to have some multimillionaire – and, in Trone’s case, billionaire – come in and say, ‘I want this’ and basically outspend” an opponent, said Tim Magrath, a political science professor at Frostburg State University – located in the heart of the district. “The average voter … doesn’t necessarily understand where, for instance, Trone gets his money or where April [McClain] Delaney gets hers. … I don’t think they necessarily understand that they’re extremely wealthy.” Candidates have long histories in the district In addition to their reliance on self-funding, McClain Delaney and Trone share a long political history in a district that stretches from Washington’s northwest suburbs to the West Virginia border and has a largely balanced party split. McClain Delaney’s husband, John, represented it for three terms before opting not to seek reelection in 2018 and briefly running for president in 2020. Trone was elected in 2018 and served three terms before leaving the House to run for Senate in 2024. When he vacated the seat, he endorsed McClain Delaney as his successor. After losing the Senate primary to Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, Trone returned to challenge McClain Delaney for the seat he once held. “Trone burned quite a few bridges by doing that,” Magrath said. “I hate to say it, but he has a sense of entitlement, maybe, with all that money. … I think the average Democrat or the Democratic primary voter probably has a sour taste in his mouth or her mouth because of it.” But while their personal wealth has dominated the balance sheets, experts say it hasn’t been a central issue for primary voters. Instead, the focus has been on ideology and electability, said Matthew Burger, an assistant professor of political science at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He characterized Trone as more progressive than the more centrist McClain Delaney, pointing to her vote for a GOP-backed bill to expand Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s authority to detain undocumented immigrants. “In the primary, I think [self-funding] actually plays generally less, because both sides are just looking for the candidate that’s going to be the most ideological,” Burger said. “Primary voters seem to care a lot less about potential general election baggage than they used to … [and] are much more willing to send the candidate into the general election that has some baggage – as long as they’re more ideologically aligned with the party. And so the fact that David Trone is slightly to the left – and that he’s self-funded – doesn’t seem to be to his detriment. In fact, I haven’t actually seen anything – not to say it’s not out there, but I haven’t seen a lot of play around David Trone’s wealth.” McClain Delaney, an attorney and former official in President Joe Biden’s administration, has raised more than $8.5 million this cycle, FEC filings show. About $1.1 million has come from donors and committees – including about $741,000 in itemized contributions and more than $360,000 from political action committees and other fundraising committees. Among PACs maxing out at $10,000 apiece this cycle: leadership PACs for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), as well as PACs for FirstEnergy Corp. and AFSCME PEOPLE. Most of her receipts, however, come from her own pocket. In May and early June, she reported a rapid series of large self-loans filed on Mondays: $1 million on May 4, $1 million on May 11, $2 million on May 18 and $1.2 million on June 1. The only Monday missing from that sequence was May 25, Memorial Day. Self-loans also were central to McClain Delaney’s first House run two years ago, accounting for more than 65% of the $5.9 million she raised. Her nearly $3.9 million in personal loans were spread over 10 payments ranging from $50,000 to $825,000 between March and November 2024. The practice drew criticism from her primary opponent in that race, state Del. Joe Vogel, who said she “thinks she can buy her way to victory.” Trone has made more than $107 million in campaign loans since 2018 Trone, the billionaire founder of alcohol retailer Total Wine & More, has raised $26.2 million during the current cycle. The overwhelming majority came from $25 million in loans across five separate $5 million payments between Dec. 18, 2025, and May 29, 2026. He also reported more than $406,000 in 17 candidate contributions, each classified in the FEC database as an in-kind contribution, with values ranging from nearly $99,000 for advertising on Dec. 7, 2025, to $60 for legal services on Nov. 17, 2025. In addition, he reported less than $187,000 in individual contributions – $179,000 itemized and just $7,842 unitemized. Trone has long been one of the nation’s most prolific self-financing candidates, ranking in the top 15 on OpenSecrets’ list of top self-funders every year he has sought a seat in either the House or Senate. Since his first run for Congress in 2016, he has loaned his campaigns more than $107 million across 46 separate payments. The nearly $63 million he poured into his unsuccessful 2024 Senate bid made him the year’s top self-funding candidate, according to OpenSecrets’ analysis. He ranked eighth in 2022, when he spent nearly $10 million on his House race, and 13th in 2020. “And it seems not to have really put a big dent in his fortune, to the extent that he’s willing to do this,” Karol said. “He is even wealthier than Congresswoman Delaney, but she has substantial resources of her own.” Yet Trone has recovered only a small portion of those loans, repaying just $3.2 million. Most of that came on a single day – Dec. 19, 2022 – when he reimbursed himself $2.6 million across six payments. That repayment occurred 41 days after his general election victory and seven months after the Supreme Court cleared the way for such transactions. Meanwhile, the FEC database contains no record of McClain Delaney reimbursing herself for her loans. In FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate, the court’s conservative majority struck down federal restrictions that had capped how much of a candidate’s personal loans could be repaid with post-election contributions. They are no longer limited to repaying themselves up to $250,000, nor are they restricted to using money raised within three weeks after Election Day – a shift that experts say has encouraged larger and more frequent self-loans. Magrath also pointed to several other landmark Supreme Court cases – including Buckley v. Valeo, the 1976 decision that held that candidates may spend unlimited amounts of their own money because such spending is protected political speech. “It’s opened the floodgates for very wealthy people to basically buy a seat,” Magrath said. “And I think we’ve seen that overwhelmingly represented in both the House and Senate, where now there’s no limit to how much a wealthy person can spend.” Republish this article We encourage you to republish our content. Please review our republication policy for guidelines. Support Accountability Journalism At OpenSecrets.org we offer in-depth, money-in-politics stories in the public interest. 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