Almost every Republican congressional primary in America is about which candidate is more MAGA.
Western Maryland, though, is the rare corner of the country lucky enough to have a Democratic primary devolve into a brawl over which candidate is more MAGA.
Former Rep. David Trone (D-Md.), who previously represented Maryland’s 6th District and wants the seat back, and Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-Md.), its current representative, have been trading accusations that the other candidate actually secretly supports President Donald Trump’s agenda.
“April McClain Delaney has voted with Donald Trump and his MAGA enablers in Congress 22% of the time,” Trone’s campaign said last week. In its latest TV ad, Trone’s campaign slammed McClain Delaney for being “the only Maryland Democrat who voted to allow ICE to detain people without any criminal convictions or due process.” A Trone campaign website devoted to trashing McClain Delaney calls her the “only Maryland Democrat to repeatedly back and expand Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.”
This week, McClain Delaney fired back with a TV ad accusing Trone of being friends with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and highlighting donations he and his company made to Republicans over the years during his time as a beer and wine entrepreneur.
“Trone and his company have donated nearly $800,000 to Republicans, including MAGA right-wingers,” the ad’s narrator says. “Trone, DeSantis and MAGA. He’s out for himself.”
The ads, which are targeting two members who were, by and large, consistent Democratic votes, showcase how sensitive primary voters have become to any possible tie to the president or to an immigration system they view as cruel and a tool of Trump’s authoritarian ambitions.
And voters in the 6th District, which starts in the Democratic-leaning D.C. suburbs of Montgomery County and stretches northward to include more rural and conservative Western Maryland, are going to hear this message a lot before the June 19 primary. Trone and Delaney were both among the wealthiest members of Congress during their tenures and are pouring their own money into the contest. The most recent federal elections data show Delaney has loaned her campaign $2.2 million, while Trone has given his campaign $10 million.
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Trone campaign spokesperson Gabriella Krevat said in an email that voters in the district know Trone voted to impeach Trump twice when he previously held the seat from 2019 to 2025.
“Just because McClain Delaney lies, doesn’t mean voters will buy it, but she is desperate to distract from being the only Democrat in Maryland that took critical votes with Trump and MAGA to give ICE the ability to deport 600,000 immigrants with no due process,” Krevat said.
Nick London, manager of McClain Delaney’s campaign, said Trone “has spent vast amounts of money lying about Congresswoman April McClain Delaney to distract voters from the fact that he voted with Republican Speaker Mike Johnson 33% of time, more than any other member of the Maryland Delegation, has funneled nearly $800,000 to Republican candidates, and is ‘friends’ with Ron DeSantis.”
Robin Ficker, one of three candidates in the Republican primary for the district (and a legendary NBA heckler), scoffed at the Democrats’ back-and-forth MAGA accusations. (The district has been intermittently competitive over the years, but is considered safely Democratic in 2026.)
“They’re not remotely close to being MAGA,” Ficker told HuffPost. “I don’t see any difference between the two of them. They’re trying to manufacture differences.”
But immigration is likely a real vulnerability for McClain Delaney in her contest with Trone, since she herself has said she regrets voting in January 2025 for the Laken Riley Act, which requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain non-U.S. nationals arrested for theft.
“I never thought that ICE immigration and the horror of what has happened would happen,” McClain Delaney told The Baltimore Banner in December.
McClain Delaney was one of 46 House Democrats who voted for the bill. It’s become a flashpoint in Democratic primaries across the country. Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), Rep. Jahana Hayes (Conn.) and Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) have also said they regret their votes. Craig recently lost a high-profile endorsement in her Senate race over her support for the bill.
Despite her vote for the Laken Riley Act, McClain Delaney has not staked out a pro-Trump position on Capitol Hill. She’s voted with party leadership on every high-profile question, and she’s said Trump should be impeached — though Trone’s campaign noted the pro-impeachment statement came in January, after Trone announced his candidacy in December.
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In its most recent ad, Trone’s campaign plays a short clip of McClain Delaney saying “you have to work with the administration.” It runs on an endless loop on Trone’s diss website without any context.
It’s from a November 2024 C-SPAN interview during which McClain Delaney was actually quoting Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D). The interviewer asked how she envisioned working with Republicans in control of the House, Senate and White House.
“We are blessed in Maryland to have a governor, Wes Moore, and he had a beautiful prism and focus of looking at this. He said, ‘You know, we have to stand for our values of who we are as Democrats, but you have to work with the administration and work across the aisle to really uplift, you know, the issues of the people of Maryland, and for me, within — the people of the 6th District of Maryland.’”
Ficker, the Republican candidate, said the anti-Trump Democratic primary rhetoric is damaging to the state. He pointed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency refusing to provide relief funds in response to flooding in Westernport — which is in the 6th District that McClain Delaney represents — in an apparent act of political retaliation against Moore for criticizing Trump.
“If the representative from the district says they want to impeach him, he is not about to start doing favors for that representative or that district,” Ficker said.