April Lynn McClain Delaney (; born May 28, 1964) is an American lawyer and politician who is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing Maryland's 6th congressional district since 2025. She previously served as the deputy administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration from 2022 to 2023.

A member of the Democratic Party, in 2024 McClain Delaney won the U.S. House of Representatives election in after prevailing in a crowded primary and defeating Republican former state delegate Neil Parrott in the general election. She is the wife of former Congressman John Delaney, who represented the 6th district from 2013 to 2019.

Early life and education April McClain was born in Buhl, Idaho, on May 28, 1964, to father Thomas McClain, a potato farmer, and mother Laurel McClain. She graduated from Buhl High School in 1982. After accompanying her father on a business trip to Chicago and visiting Northwestern University, she would later attend the school on a scholarship, graduating in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science degree in communications. She is a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and the Northwestern Alumni Association and has returned to the university for volunteer work. She later earned a Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1989. She and her husband, whom she met at the university, founded the Delaney Post-Graduate Residency Program to help graduate students enter private practice.

Legal career McClain Delaney practiced as a media lawyer for much of her career. In 2006, she founded the Washington, D.C. division of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit advocacy group focusing on the effects of online and televised media on children, serving as the division director. She was appointed by president Joe Biden in January 2022 to the Department of Commerce, serving as the deputy administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration until her resignation in September 2023.

While John was a member of Congress, McClain Delaney served as the chair of the Congressional Club's First Lady Luncheon and was a co-chairwoman for the National Prayer Breakfast. She also played an unusually active role in her husband's 2020 presidential campaign, during which she criticized the role of social media in the Democratic primaries, saying that the platforms' focus on the divisive political climate limited Delaney's centrist message.

U.S. House of Representatives Elections 2024

In September 2023, MoCo360 reported that McClain Delaney would be resigning from the NTIA to run for Congress in , succeeding incumbent David Trone, who retired from his seat to run for the U.S. Senate. She officially announced her candidacy on October 25, 2023. The 6th district was represented by her husband from 2013 to 2019, until he chose to retire to focus on his 2020 presidential campaign. McClain Delaney joined a primary field that would ultimately consist of 16 candidates, including other elected and appointed officials. She received support from former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during her primary campaign, as well as the United Auto Workers labor union and The Washington Post.

McClain Delaney significantly led her primary opponents in fundraising, accumulating over $2 million in campaign funds, with more than $1 million being self-funded from McClain Delaney's personal wealth. Opposing primary candidate Joe Vogel, who was described by Maryland Matters as a frontrunner in the race alongside McClain Delaney, criticized her use of private loans to fund the campaign, accusing her of "buy[ing] her way to victory." McClain Delaney's campaign responded by accusing Vogel of being funded by "dark money" and running an "old, tired, negative campaign."

McClain Delaney prevailed in the May 14 primary election, earning 40.4 percent of the vote; Vogel followed in second with 26.3 percent. Her opponent for the November 5 general election was Republican Neil Parrott, a former state delegate who was making his third run for the seat. The election for the 6th district was expected to be the most competitive in the state. In the general election, McClain Delaney highlighted her experience in the U.S. Department of Commerce and criticized Parrott's stances on abortion, antisemitism, and LGBTQ issues. She also continued to self-fund her campaign in the general election, loaning her campaign an additional $1.998 million and outspending Parrott 5-to-1. On November 8, 2024, CNN declared McClain Delaney the winner of the 6th district election, narrowly defeating Parrott. She and Sarah Elfreth are the first women to represent Maryland in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2016, when Donna Edwards retired to unsuccessfully run for the U.S. Senate.

2026

On October 30, 2025, McClain Delaney announced that she would run for re-election to a second term. During the Democratic primary, she self-funded her campaign $11 million and faced a primary challenge from her predecessor, David Trone, whom she criticized for repeatedly voting to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during his tenure in Congress. In April 2026, McClain-Delaney issued a cease-and-desist order against Trone's campaign for using the terms "re-elect" in his campaign literature, combined with his use of the title "Congressman", which she said was an attempt to deceive voters into believing that he was still incumbent. McClain Delaney defeated Trone in the Democratic primary election on June 23, 2026, and will face perennial candidate Robin Ficker in the general election.

Tenure McClain Delaney was sworn in on January 3, 2025. Before the 119th Congress, McClain Delaney unsuccessfully ran for freshman class president, losing to Arizona freshman U.S. Representative Yassamin Ansari, who was elected 23–10.

In July 2025, The Baltimore Sun described McClain Delaney as the wealthiest member of Maryland's congressional delegation, with her disclosure forms including three joint investments worth $5 million to $25 million and bank stock in Forbright, Inc., a holding company founded by her husband valued at $25 million to $50 million. She does not buy or sell stocks, instead assigning a third party discretion to make trades on her behalf. In June 2026, McClain Delaney told Bethesda Magazine that her personal net worth was close to $100 million, but added that she and her husband have additional non-liquid assets.

In December 2025, NBC News and The New York Times reported that McClain Delaney had voted against a bill to reopen the federal government and then touted the money the bill delivered to her district. After the federal government was reopened, primarily with Republican votes, after a 43-day shutdown, McClain Delaney was among Democrats who "claimed credit for some provisions in the bill." Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi coined the term "vote no and take the dough" when Republicans took credit for money brought to their districts under bills they opposed.

Committee assignments During the 119th Congress, McClain Delaney serves on the following committees: Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Research, and Biotechnology Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology

Caucus memberships Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues Congressional Equality Caucus Labor Caucus New Democrat Coalition

Political positions Shannon Bream of Fox News described McClain Delaney as a centrist Democrat. She voted with President Donald Trump's stated position 21.4% of the time in the 119th Congress through 2025, according to a VoteHub analysis.

Agriculture In November 2025, McClain Delaney introduced the American Farmers Act, which would redirect $20 billion that the Trump administration planned to use to stabilize the Argentine peso toward U.S. farmers.

Crime and policing McClain Delaney supports providing additional funding to "effective and accountable policing policies" and officer training, and encouraging community policing. She said she wished to "address some of the root causes of crime by tackling the mental health crisis, investing in prevention solutions, and keeping dangerous weapons off our streets and out of the wrong hands".

In July 2025, after President Donald Trump said that he wanted the new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters to be the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., overturning a 2023 General Services Administration decision selecting Greenbelt, Maryland, as the location for the FBI's new headquarters, McClain Delaney signed onto a letter saying that she and other Maryland lawmakers would "be fighting back against this proposal with every tool we have".

Education McClain Delaney supports the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, universal pre-kindergarten, free community college, and expanding skills training programs in schools. She also supports having the federal government work with state colleges to establish workforce development to bring down the cost of higher education, and working with students to fight against predatory student loans.

Environment McClain Delaney supports increasing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and climate science research, as well as providing tax incentives for investments in decarbonization technologies. She also supports efforts to transition the United States to a green economy and electric vehicles.

Fiscal issues

McClain Delaney supports deregulation for small businesses. She also supports cutting regulations for affordable housing construction, and using antitrust laws to foster competition between grocery companies. McClain Delaney has blamed both Democrats and Republicans for increases to the national debt of the United States and expressed support for deficit reduction through strategic budget cuts, waste elimination, and reforms to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

McClain Delaney opposed efforts by the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut federal spending and fire tens of thousands of federal workers, describing the actions taken by Trump and DOGE administrator Elon Musk as "lawless" and encouraging federal workers affected by layoffs to contact her office for resources. In August 2025, she wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins calling for an investigation into "DOGE's interference" at the Farm Service Agency, citing an NPR report that DOGE representatives accessed a sensitive agency-run database that controls government loans and payments to farmers and ranchers.

In October 2025, McClain Delaney opposed the 2025 United States federal government shutdown, expressing concerns about its impacts on federal workers and calling on Trump to end the shutdown. During the shutdown, she donated her congressional pay to local nonprofits affected by cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and supported a bill to double funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program. In November 2025, McClain Delaney said she would vote against the bipartisan Senate agreement to end the shutdown.

Foreign policy McClain Delaney supports strengthening NATO, promoting U.S. economic interests abroad, and leading on issues like climate change to counter foreign policy challenges from China, Russia, and the Middle East.

Iran