Democratic House candidate breaks spending record

Millionaire wine retailer David Trone has dumped an extra $2.5 million of his own money into the Democratic primary contest for a Maryland congressional seat, cementing him as the biggest spending House candidate in history.

Trone’s new spending, which adds to the roughly $10 million he’s already thrown into his primary for Maryland’s 8th district, was revealed in Federal Election Commission filings, and was first reported by The Washington Post.

The Hill reported recently that Trone was on course to pour more of his own money into the House race than any other candidate in history, and the new spending makes him a certain record-breaker. 

{mosads}To boost his profile against well-known competitors, including former news anchor Kathleen Matthews, Trone has been blanketing the Maryland airwaves, dispatching glossy mailers and hiring expensive consultants. The primary is scheduled for April 26. 

The new FEC filings also reveal that Trone spent an unusually large amount of money on the process of deciding whether to run for office. 

Under federal election rules, before deciding to run for office, a person can say he is “testing the waters”— in other words, exploring the feasibility of becoming a candidate.

During this period, the person does not have to register or report as a candidate and can spend money on activities such as polling and staff without disclosing the spending to the public.

But while potential presidential candidates often spend large sums on polling and travel to decide whether to run, it’s highly unusual for a House candidate to make large such expenditures. 

Trone spent $3.9 million between July 23 — when his campaign says it began its exploratory phase — and Feb. 1, when he filed his statement of candidacy. 

Even allowing for Trone’s statement to the FEC that he made his decision to run for office some time in the 15 days prior to Feb. 1, the wine retailer had by that stage spent $450,000 of his own money simply on deciding whether to run.

Asked whether Trone believes it’s credible to say he did not decide to run until mid-January, when he had spent nearly half a million dollars on research, salaries and other political expenses, his spokeswoman Mary Werden declined to comment.

“We do not comment on campaign strategy,” she said later via email.

The FEC rules for “testing the waters” are vague and it’s unlikely Trone would face a negative ruling regardless, given that the election commission is mired in partisan gridlock. 

But on the face of it, Trone appears to be challenging at least one of the regulations — namely that he has “raised more money than what is reasonably needed to test the waters.”

Trone’s campaign declined to respond to a question about whether so much money was required to explore a bid and would not answer questions about his record-breaking spending, though the candidate said in a full-page ad in last Tuesday’s Washington Post that he believes his self-financing allows him to avoid being controlled by special interest donors.

“We need campaign finance reform,” Trone said in the ad. “I’ll fight for it for public funding of campaigns, total transparency in political contributions, eliminating dark money, and ending the special interests’ stranglehold.

“Campaigns shouldn’t be this expensive.”