David John Trone (born September 21, 1955) is an American politician and businessman who served as the U.S. representative for Maryland's 6th congressional district from 2019 to 2025. The district includes most of the western third of the state, but the bulk of its population is in the outer northern suburbs of Washington, D.C. Trone founded and co-owns Total Wine & More with his brother, Robert L. Trone, and served as the company's president until December 2016.
In 2016, Trone spent more than $13 million of his own money on his unsuccessful Democratic primary campaign to succeed Chris Van Hollen in Maryland's 8th congressional district, setting a record for the most expensive self-funded House campaign. In 2018, Trone was the Democratic nominee for the 6th district and won the general election to succeed John Delaney. Trone made mental health issues and fighting addiction a top priority during his tenure in Congress, where he co-chaired the Bipartisan Addiction and Mental Health Task Force.
Trone announced his candidacy for the United States Senate in the 2024 election to succeed Ben Cardin. Trone spent over $60 million of his own money to support his campaign. On May 14, 2024, he was defeated in the Democratic primary by Prince George's County executive Angela Alsobrooks. In 2026, Trone again ran for Congress in Maryland's 6th congressional district, but was defeated in the Democratic primary by his successor, April McClain Delaney.
Early life and education
Trone was born in Maryland and raised on a farm in East Berlin, Pennsylvania, where his father Thomas ran a chicken and hog operation. Thomas also owned a soda and beer store. When Trone's parents separated, his father kept the farm and his mother took over the store. Thomas and his farm went into bankruptcy, but Trone kept working at his mother's store.
Trone graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Furman University in 1977, and earned a Master of Business Administration in 1985 from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Career Total Wine & More
Having seen the potential of the beer sales at his mother's store, Trone began his career by founding the beer-only retailer Beer World in Pennsylvania in 1984, during his second semester of graduate school. Months before graduating from Wharton, in 1985, Trone expanded into the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Over time, he opened additional stores, called Beer and Pop Warehouse and, later, Beer World, which were owned by friends and family members because Pennsylvania state law prohibited individuals from owning more than one beer retail outlet.
Trone, with his brother Robert's help, opened two stores in Delaware in 1991, adding wine and spirits to the company's offerings. Using knowledge acquired at Wharton, the brothers chose to replicate the family store's model across Pennsylvania. The beverage company had slim margins, but was immediately profitable and allowed the brothers to focus on operations. They familiarized themselves with regulators and industry leaders, and began changing laws that restrict wholesalers from offering retailers discounts in exchange for large volume purchases, among others, in their attempt to promote beverage consumption.
The business has since expanded into what is known today as Total Wine & More, the largest privately owned beer, wine, and spirits retailer in the U.S. In December 2016, Trone gave up his title of president to chief executive Kevin Peters. He has continued to make money from Total Wine & More while in Congress, reporting more than $110 million in personal income during his tenure.
Lobbying efforts Under Trone's tenure, Total Wine lobbied against state laws that prevented the company from selling below cost, including in Connecticut and Massachusetts, where the company temporarily had its license suspended for refusing to comply with such laws. According to lobbying records analyzed by The Baltimore Sun, Trone spent over $1.4 million lobbying state governments to overturn or weaken what the company said were "anti-consumer laws passed after Prohibition". The company saw success with these efforts in various states, including Minnesota, Texas, and the Carolinas. Trone also gave more than $240,000 in campaign contributions to various politicians, most of which went toward Republican candidates including Texas governor Greg Abbott and lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, and North Carolina governor Pat McCrory.
During the 2016 legislative session in Maryland, Trone supported an unsuccessful bill that would have allowed Total Wine & More to double the number of stores it has in the state. During the 2024 legislative session, Trone and his brother supported a bill that would allow Total Wine & More to increase the number of stores it has in the state from two to eight.
Total Wine & More brought these efforts before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019, who ruled for Total Wine & More in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Assn. v. Thomas, overturning the state's residency requirement for obtaining a license to operate a liquor store and thereby allowing the company to expand into Tennessee. In July 2023, The American Prospect reported that Total Wine & More sought to impede on a Federal Trade Commission investigation into alleged violations of the Robinson–Patman Act, which prohibits anti-competitive price discrimination, in alcohol markets.
During the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, Retail Services and Systems, a company through which Trone formerly made campaign contributions, made $85,500 in campaign contributions toward Republican candidates. A Trone campaign spokesperson told Time that Trone had not been personally involved in contributions made by Retail Services and Systems since stepping down as Total Wine's CEO in 2015, and pointed toward his combined $8.5 million in donations to the Democratic Party and pro-choice Democratic candidates. Trone later told Jewish Insider that the contributions were necessary to "protect [the company] from attack".
During the 2022 general elections in Massachusetts and Colorado, the Trone brothers spent almost $3 million on media against Massachusetts Question 3, which would lower the number of alcohol beverage licenses retailers could have in the state, and an additional $2 million financing a campaign to support Colorado Proposition 124, which would have allowed Total Wine & More to open an unlimited number of Colorado stores by 2037. Both ballot initiatives were defeated by voters.
Legal disputes Beginning in 1989 and over the next three years, Pennsylvania authorities arrested Trone three times following complaints from an association of smaller, individually owned stores. One arrest was for negotiating volume discounts on behalf of multiple stores and illegally advertising beer prices, and one was for circumventing state transportation regulations. The charges were dismissed.
In 1992, a grand jury in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, indicted Trone, his wife, June, and his brother for owning multiple stores through Trone's consulting company, among other charges, all of which were later dropped and expunged. In 1994, a state judge dismissed 19 of the 23 counts based on "prosecutorial overreaching", and the remaining counts were withdrawn after Trone paid a $40,000 fee to cover investigation costs.
During these legal proceedings, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) broke the law by providing records of his consulting firm to government officials, prompting Trone to sue the agency in federal court. He won and was awarded $400,000. The lawyer who had represented Trone also served as a national board member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which began a long-term relationship between Trone and the ACLU. The Trones' difficulties in Pennsylvania prompted them to leave the state; Total Wine & More grew from the remaining two stores in Delaware and an additional retail outlet in New Jersey, which Trone had opened in the early 1990s.
Philanthropy In addition to political contributions, Trone and his wife have supported a number of philanthropic efforts. They have been major contributors to the ACLU since 1994. Their $15 million donation in 2015 supported the ACLU's efforts to promote criminal justice reform and improve employment opportunities for former prisoners, and established the Trone Center for Justice and Equality at the ACLU's national headquarters. In 2016, the couple pledged $5 million to establish the Trone Family Public Policy Initiative Fund at their alma mater, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
In mid-2017, the Trones donated $2.5 million to Bethesda, Maryland's Suburban Hospital to support mental and behavioral health services and make improvements to the Old Georgetown Road campus. Their donation was inspired by their nephew's death from an opioid overdose in late 2016. The David and June Trone Family Foundation contributed $100,000 to the Catholic Legal Immigration Network in 2017 to support locals affected by Trump's travel ban, which the couple called "outrageously egregious". The Trones also donated to the ACLU's Montgomery County affiliate, the Latino immigrant organization CASA, and Interfaith Works.
Trone's contributions to Furman University include a $5 million grant for a student center and to create men's and women's lacrosse teams, and the lead $500,000 gift for the Riley Foundation's endowment to support disadvantaged South Carolina students. The Trone Student Center was dedicated in 2013 and named for Trone and his wife, in honor of their $3.5 million contribution.
In 2021, Trone and his wife donated $5 million to American University to help support research on addiction and behavioral health. They also donated $10 million in 2022 to his alma mater, Furman University, targeting mental health. Officials at Furman University said $8.5 million of the donation would be dedicated to renovating Furman's counseling center, creating the Trone Family Fund for Student Mental Health and Well-Being, and expanding the school's mental health services. Trone also donated $1.5 million to create the Hillel Endowment Fund to support Furman's Hillel, the Jewish Student Association. In 2024, Trone said that his $10 million donation to Furman's mental health facilities was made to support his transgender niece, who was transitioning while attending the university.
U.S. House of Representatives Elections
2016
Trone has been active in Democratic politics and hosted fundraisers for the party. In 2014, he hosted a fundraiser for gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown that former president Bill Clinton attended, and in November 2015, he held a fundraiser at his home for the Democratic National Committee, which President Obama attended. Trone also contributed to Republican politicians; according to OpenSecrets, he donated more than $150,000 to Republicans in multiple U.S. states between 2000 and 2015. The Washington Post reported that Trone contributed more than $90,000 to Democratic state officials during the same period, and said the donations made to Republicans were to support "legislation or regulatory changes favorable to his company". Trone said the donations "represented the cost of doing business, especially in states with Republican-controlled state houses and governor's mansions".
In January 2016, Trone entered the Democratic primary campaign to succeed Chris Van Hollen in Maryland's 8th congressional district; this was the real contest in the heavily Democratic district. He ran on reducing unemployment and gun violence, criminal justice reform, environmental protection, and education and foreign policy. Trone pledged to support early education, work with the National Institutes of Health to reduce health care costs, improve infrastructure, and forgive more student loans for government employees.