Whether Marylanders took time to watch last Friday’s candidate forum between the top two Democratic candidates vying for a seat in the U.S. Senate or have simply been following the news, there’s one element of this matchup between U.S. Rep. David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks that they’ve already heard plenty about. And it probably isn’t about their views on abortion rights (both are strongly supportive) or the death penalty (both want it repealed on the federal level) or even on the Israel-Hamas war (both favor seeing Hamas defeated, a cease-fire declared and hostages returned).
No, the loudest message so far can be distilled to this: Trone sure is rich. The 68-year-old, 3-term congressman’s deep pockets aren’t exactly a new development. As the co-founder of Total Wine & More, the nation’s largest wine retailer, his family fortune has been pegged at north of $2 billion. And those dollars sure come in handy when one is running for the seat to be vacated by U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin. Trone is one of the biggest self-funded candidates in the country. He’s already steered more than $41 million toward his Senate campaign since last year. One can barely get around the Free State without seeing or hearing one of his slickly produced campaign messages. He was on the air months before Larry Hogan, Maryland’s two-term Republican former governor, even threw his hat in the ring.
And here’s the most important part: He’s proud of it. That’s right, he’s literally running ads pointing out that he’s “never taken a nickel” from political action committees, lobbyists or corporations. It’s one of the top claims on the candidate’s website. “David only answers to the people of Maryland,” his campaign promises.
That’s a compelling argument. As we’ve noted before, money is at the heart of much of what’s wrong with U.S. politics these days. Deep-pocketed special interest groups and their campaign donations have inordinate power over elected officials who need their support. Maryland isn’t the only state where record amounts are being spent. Texas, California and Ohio have seen even more spending in their Senate contests, they just haven’t been a product of one largely self-funded candidate. Yet isn’t someone who self-funds likely to be more independent if elected? To whom would he be beholden? Himself?
Alsobrooks has correctly pointed out that Trone has been on the other side of that deep-pocketed special interest equation doling out donations to anti-abortion GOP officeholders. Trone counters that those donations were made for business, not political reasons. Yet here’s the big question: If self-funding a campaign is the only alternative to taking special interest money, does that mean that the candidate pool has been reduced to the mega-rich? That doesn’t speak well for a country founded on all people being created equal. It sounds a bit more like a plutocracy. And where does that leave people like Alsobrooks, a Black woman whose father was a newspaper distributor and mother a receptionist? One doesn’t generally get rich working as a criminal prosecutor, but that’s the path the 53-year-old followed. She can’t reasonably expect to win without raising millions from traditional campaign donors.
There is, however, a better way. The only practical solution is for Congress to approve public financing of campaigns for the U.S. Senate and House so that small donations from average people would be matched by the federal government, squeezing out the need for special interest money. We’ve seen similar approaches at the local level in recent years including in Maryland where Thiru Vignarajah, Democratic candidate for Baltimore mayor, is due $150,000 from the Baltimore City Fair Election Fund. As it happens, a Marylander has been at the center of this particular push on the national level: U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, who is stepping down after his ninth term, has long advocated for just such a system through his For the People Act and related legislation. It passed the House when Democrats were in control in 2021 but couldn’t win favor in the Senate where it would have to overcome a filibuster.
Until some form of small donor matching fund is created to free candidates from the yoke of special interest money, Americans will continue to face the difficult choice of whether to favor the rich or those who may owe the rich some favors.
Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.