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A Democratic congressman who spent millions of his own money on a failed Senate bid is being mocked as a “loser” and “pathetic” after getting trounced by his closest rival.
Rep. David Trone, D-Md., a wealthy co-founder of Total Wine & More, lost his state’s Democratic Senate primary to Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks by a double-digit margin on Tuesday despite spending around $60 million and holding a significant polling advantage early in the race.
“Total Wine and More founder David Trone just spent approximately 5,922,000 bottles worth of Josh to lose a not-particularly close Senate primary,” one critic joked in a post on X, referencing a brand of wine.
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“David Trone spent $60M on a Democrat primary he isn’t going to come close to winning and Maryland has 6.1M residents, which means he could have given every person in MD $9.83 with the money that he wasted,” digital strategist Greg Price wrote.
One critic posted a meme joking about how Trone would look realizing the “mistake” he made, and another referenced one of Trone’s previously reported controversies where he allegedly threatened to kill a delivery man at a Total Wine store.
“David Trone spent $62,000,000 to lose a primary[.] I wonder how many staffers he’s threatening to ‘execute’ today[.] My DMs are open if David Trone is threatening to ‘f—ing end’ you,” the critic wrote.
“Imagine being a billionaire who sells *booze* and you can’t get people to like you. Lmao Trone must be the biggest loser in history,” another critic joked, while another one wrote, “Over $60 million dollars down the drain for David Trone. Pretty sad and pathetic honestly.”
Trone was no stranger to controversy on the campaign trail, or off it, and was frequently caught making wild statements.
He once dropped a disparaging term for Black people while speaking during a House Budget Committee hearing about tax policy in March with Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Budget and Management, who was testifying before the committee.
“So this Republican jigaboo that – it’s the tax rate that’s stopping business investment, it’s just completely faulty by people who have never run a business,” he said. “They’ve never been there. They don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.”
Trone attempted to play cleanup following his use of the word, telling Fox News Digital he misspoke while trying to use a different word.
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Rep. David Trone, D-Md. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On a more recent occasion, he yelled at a reporter who pressed him concerning a controversial remark he made on social media about police.
The tense exhange happened during a campaign stop in Rockville, Maryland, where Trone expressed his anger about the outlet’s reporting from the previous day on his claim that an “increased police presence” does not make people feel safe.
“You should be ashamed of the journalism that you did yesterday,” Trone said as he approached the reporter who had just asked him about his widely panned X post focused on crime and policing. In the post, Trone claimed the American justice system is “systemically racist,” and that an “increased police presence” doesn’t “make everyone feel safer.”
“I should be ashamed? I’m not ashamed, congressman,” the reporter responded before Trone accused him of cherry-picking lines out of the post.
“You took one line out of 20, and you should be ashamed of that type of journalism… You’re shilling for Larry Hogan, so keep shilling for Larry Hogan,” Trone railed against the reporter, accusing him of advocating for former Republican Maryland Gov. Hogan, who is the GOP nominee for Senate.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Trone for comment.
Brandon Gillespie is an associate editor at Fox News. Follow him on X at @BGillespieAL.
