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Craig Hudson

In the high-stakes Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, Rep. David Trone has offered Maryland voters something they have never seen on this scale: a statewide candidate with seemingly unlimited personal resources devoted to capturing their attention.

Weeks ago, Trone shattered records for <a href="https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1779998287853961218" target=_blank>self-funding in a primary campaign</a>. As of this week, he’s dropped more on political advertisements to target Maryland’s 2.2 million Democrats than the Biden for President campaign has spent on ads nationwide since the start of 2023, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.

After the latest infusion, Trone as of Wednesday had poured $61.77 million of his own money into the campaign, outspending his leading rival 10 to 1 in a bid to face popular former governor and likely GOP nominee Larry Hogan in November.

As his opponents have sought to paint his wealth as concerning, Trone has embraced it. Keeping the race in Democratic hands is critical to the party’s ability to maintain control of the chamber, and he sees the resources he accrued in the alcohol business as a selling point: Democrats can spend their cash defending other seats in November, and he’ll handle Maryland.

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Maryland voters will decide the winners of several hotly contested races, including a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/05/14/maryland-democratic-senate-primary/" target=_blank>U.S. Senate seat</a> and House seats in the competitive <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/05/14/maryland-third-district-primary/" target=_blank>3rd</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/05/14/maryland-primary-election-6th-district/" target=_blank>6th Districts</a>. Get <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/results/2024/05/14/maryland-primary/" target=_blank>live election results here</a>.

Asked if there was a limit to what he would spend, Trone replied, “We’re going to do whatever it takes to win.”

Less than a week before he pumped another $4.5 million into his already record-breaking Senate campaign, Trone hopped up the steps of a campaign-chartered bus outside an early-voting center in Laurel opened ahead of this Tuesday’s election.

“I just want to say hi to everybody,” Trone said onboard, as he sought to make a last-minute, personal pitch to assisted-living facility residents he has been courting for months — both in visits and with an unprecedented deluge of campaign ads.

As voters filed off the bus, 92-year-old Delores Blahnik said she picked the three-term congressman over his top opponent, Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks, who governs the county where Blahnik lives.

“He has a lot of advertisements, and those cost a lot of money. Is he a millionaire? Or does he have a lot of supporters?” Blahnik said. She said she vaguely recalled there is a woman in the race. “They were promoting her. Also-, also-something. I forgot her name.”

Alsobrooks has spent about $4 million on political advertising this cycle, a respectable sum in any other year in Maryland politics and a tally built on the typical array of corporate and political action donors atop personal contributions.

Trone’s $46 million tab for political ads, according to AdImpact data, exceeds the total amount spent on political ads by all Maryland candidates in the past two Senate races and the past two campaigns for governor combined. He’s self-funded every campaign he has ever run: $13.4 million in the 2016 primary he lost to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.); $17.4 million in 2018 to win his current seat in the neighboring district, $2.3 million to hold it in 2020; and $12.6 million to defend it in 2022.

Erin Cox

Hogan told reporters last weekend that the GOP, which recruited him to the race, is “very limited in what they can do” to assist him, adding, “I assume that they were going to give us all the help they can if I’m the Republican nominee. But that’s not going to win the race for us.”

A Hogan fundraising message Wednesday told supporters that “this election is going to be one for the history books” and noted “one opponent has smashed the spending record for self-funders from both parties in every senate campaign in history.”

Already, Trone is less than $2 million from surpassing the record for self-funding in a Senate campaign, set by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)<a href="https://rollcall.com/2018/12/10/rick-scott-spent-record-64-million-of-his-own-money-in-florida-senate-race/" target=_blank> in his 2018 bid</a>.

Trone’s critics accuse the brusque businessman of buying a race against a woman who would be the first Black person whom racially diverse Maryland has sent to the Senate.

Alsobrooks and her allies have sought to focus voters on Trone’s political donations to antiabortion Republicans in other states where his national liquor retailer, Total Wine &amp; More, sought to change liquor laws and improve its business climate. Emily’s List, which backs Alsobrooks, spent $1.5 million on an attack ad about it last week.

Trone hit back with two new attack ads. He’s aired more than 30 different ads so far, according to AdImpact.

Alsobrooks spokeswoman Gina Ford said in a statement that, after “trying to buy this race,” Trone’s late influx of cash suggests “he’s now using his millions to attack Angela because he knows what we know — we are the campaign with the momentum and we’re on track to win this race.”

Trone is unapologetic that his business made political investments to get access and about his wealth in general. He said voters are connecting with his story about building the multibillion-dollar business from almost nothing, after his family lost their farm to the bank. (Forbes reported Total Wine &amp; More, co-owned by Trone and his brother Robert Trone, is now <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizthach/2024/02/14/how-total-wine--more-became--largest-us-wine-retailer/?sh=5c5540eb437d" target=_blank>the country’s biggest alcohol retailer</a>, with $6 billion in revenue in 2023.)

Alsobrooks and her surrogates have embraced the historic potential of her candidacy; Trone has said the race would be cheaper if his opponent hadn’t been endorsed by a lot of Maryland’s Democratic Party leaders who don’t want him to win.

“We are up against an establishment that doesn’t want to change,” Trone said. “They like the fact they take special interest money. They like the fact there’s no term limits. They like to endorse each other. And our position is, well, all that should go out the window. … I mean, it just takes resources to tell people what you stand for. And unfortunately, Washington’s media markets are not cheap.”

Some of those party leaders held a news conference Wednesday urging Trone to turn down the attacks, saying a bruising primary jeopardizes Democrats’ ability to beat Hogan.

“We’ve seen an onslaught of commercials, some that have been misleading, some that have been simply factually wrong and in many parts of our community, somewhat disrespectful,” said Ike Leggett, a former chair of the Maryland Democratic Party and two-term Montgomery County executive who backs Alsobrooks.

“Put all those together, you have a combination of things that call for us to come together to say, ‘Hey. This has to stop because if it does not, then we are blowing away our chance to be successful in November.’ ”

Trone’s called some of her endorsers “low-level” officials. He aired an ad, and repeated himself in an interview, a suggestion that Alsobrooks, a former prosecutor and two-term executive, would need “training wheels” in the U.S. Senate. Another ad highlights a fight over school funding, and another details Alsobrooks donors.

Trone told reporters Tuesday evening those aren’t attacks, “that’s just putting it out there. And, of course, it’s important for voters to understand where the money comes from. When folks are taking money from special interests, people need to know that.”

Alsobrooks released <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=souVH7NN2tw" target=_blank>a television ad </a>in response Wednesday, saying “my parents taught me to lift people up, not tear them down” and that when she sees attacks from Trone, “I know it’s just another way we’re different.”

For some voters, the fact he’s spending time with them rather than dialing for dollars makes all the difference.

“People say, ‘Oh, he’s got money.’ I don’t care because he’s reaching out,” said Jessie Ifill, 82, after Trone helped her off the bus in Laurel and she cast a ballot for him. “I don’t care how much money you have or don’t have. ”

His outreach paid off when he gaffed, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/21/david-trone-congress-racial-insult/" target=_blank>using a racial slur</a> at a congressional budget hearing. (He later apologized, saying he didn’t know what it meant and had intended to say “bugaboo.”)

“When it happened, it was a good thing that I had already met him, talked with him and knew him,” Jessie Ifill’s daughter Georgena Ifill, 60, said at the polls. “I accepted his apology.”

The spending leaves others with a bad taste. Outside a Chevy Chase early voting site last week, small-business owner Susan Cooper, 55, said Trone’s willingness to donate to Republican candidates who don’t share his politics exhibits his interest in himself.

Robb Hill

“Angela’s my girl,” Cooper said after voting for Alsobrooks. “I really hope Angela gets the seat. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Talking to his own backers Tuesday night at a rally in Silver Spring alongside Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Trone again made the case that funding his own campaigns is an asset.

He talked about how many gun deaths are suicides, but said that gun-control laws get blocked by the National Rifle Association. He argued it’s easier to work on climate change when you don’t take money from energy companies and easier to work on lower drug costs when you haven’t taken money from drug companies.

And besides, he said, not spending time raising money gives him 30 percent more time than all the other elected officials — time he uses to build relationships.

In the audience, his wife, June, and one of their four adult children, Michelle, listened from the front row.

Trone said in an interview that his kids supported his mission and didn’t mind that he was potentially spending their inheritance — understanding that electoral politics could increase his ability to make an impact.

“Their position is: Fantastic, have at it. You made the money. Go spend it. Really. That’s it: You made it, go spend it,” he said.

University of Colorado, BS in journalism

University of Colorado, BA in biochemistry

Erin Cox is a politics reporter covering Maryland. She joined The Washington Post in 2018 and has written about Maryland since 2007.

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, M.A.

Lateshia Beachum is a reporter covering Prince George's County. She joined The Washington Post as a general assignment reporter in 2019. She previously worked for The Center for Public Integrity. 

Lateshia Beachum

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Rep. David Trone smashes spending records in bid for U.S. Senate

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