Former Maryland Rep. David Trone, who unsuccessfully ran for Senate last year, is seeking a comeback to the House, he announced Thursday.
“I can’t just sit by. We need to all stand up,” Trone said in a launch video posted to social media. “I’ve taken on [Donald Trump] before, voting twice to impeach him, vowing to save Obamacare, and repeatedly standing up for women’s reproductive rights in the face of his threats.”
Trone’s decision sets up a primary battle with his 6th District successor, Rep. April McClain Delaney, whose husband, John Delaney, held the seat before Trone. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales first reported last month that Trone was considering entering the race.
McClain Delaney shot back at Trone on Thursday, saying that representing the 6th District was “not a consolation prize.”
“David Trone thinks I should ‘step aside’ so he can have his old office back after he abandoned the district to run and lose for Senate,” the freshman lawmaker said in a statement. “But not so fast. On behalf of my district, I stand up to bullies.”
Trone is not the first former lawmaker to announce a challenge to his House successor this week. Former Texas Rep. Colin Allred ended his Senate bid Monday and filed for the 33rd District against fellow Democrat Julie Elizabeth Johnson, who succeeded him in the chamber earlier this year.
Maryland’s 6th District, which stretches from the deep-blue Washington suburbs into more rural and heavily Republican territory further west, is the state’s most competitive seat. McClain Delaney defeated Republican former state legislator Neil Parrott last year by 6 points. Parrott has filed paperwork to run again, while another former Maryland delegate, Robin Ficker, is also seeking the GOP nod. Inside Elections rates the race Solid Democratic.
A primary between McClain Delaney and Trone is likely to get expensive. Trone, a co-founder of Total Wine & More, has self-funded his campaigns before, pouring nearly $63 million into last year’s Senate primary against Angela Alsobrooks, who was then the Prince George’s County executive. Alsobrooks defeated him by 11 points on her way to being elected the state’s first Black senator.
In his first run for Congress, Trone spent more than $13 million in an unsuccessful 2016 campaign for the 8th District, losing to Jamie Raskin in the Democratic primary. He poured in more than $17 million the following cycle to win the 6th District, which John Delaney vacated to run for president.
McClain Delaney, a communications lawyer who later served in the Biden administration, also partially self-funded her House run last year, loaning her campaign $3.9 million.
Trone told The Washington Post that his budget for next year’s race was “whatever it takes to win.”
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