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In his previous career as an investigative reporter, Matthew Foldi spent his professional days exposing government waste and corruption. Now, he’s running for Congress in Maryland to expose such problems from the inside.
Foldi, 25, is running as a Republican in Maryland’s redrawn 6th Congressional District, which covers most of the western part of the state. It’s currently represented by Democratic Rep. David Trone, who has held the position since 2019. The district has been in Democratic hands since 2013 but is now favorable to Republicans by one point. There are several other Republican candidates, including 2020 Republican nominee Neil Parrott, but Foldi is confident that the primary on July 19 is his for the winning.
Trone, a co-founder and co-owner of the Total Wine alcohol retailer chain, with 210 stores, has deep pockets to spend on reelection if need be. But in what’s shaping up as a Republican year, that may not be enough. For his part, Foldi has earned a fleet of high-profile endorsements, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (NY), Republican Study Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Banks (IN), and 11 other GOP House members.
“I’ve gotten a tremendous amount of mentorship from current House Republicans who have made this a much easier process and said they want me to be their colleague,” Foldi told the Washington Examiner.
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The “kid,” as one local Maryland outlet called him, isn’t a stranger to politics, nor even to winning elections. In 2016, he successfully ran for Republican committeeman in Chicago’s 5th Ward when he was 19 and studying at the University of Chicago. He then worked as an investigative journalist with the Washington Free Beacon, where his beat could be summed up as “government hypocrisy.” Foldi’s reporting on Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s holdings in green energy company Proterra resulted in her selling off millions of dollars of stock — and scored him a hit on Tucker Carlson’s hit Fox News show last July.
This type of reporting eventually led him to do a story on Democratic lawmakers’ offices that remained shuttered over two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, including Trone’s.
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“I was walking around the Capitol, realizing that Democrats are literally not working,” Foldi said. “That made me realize how out of touch and not concerned the entire Democratic Party is with the problems that their policies are directly causing, whether it’s on energy prices, whether it’s on inflation, whether it’s on the rest of the economy.”
It’s these two topics — lazy Democrats and kitchen-table issues — that undergird Foldi’s appeal to voters, but it’s the first that he’s laser-focused on changing. With every topic, from inflation to foreign policy to political philosophy, he pivots back to Trone’s locked district offices with the zeal of Cato calling for the destruction of Carthage.
“I went to David Trone’s closed and locked constituent offices all across the 6th District of Maryland, and I saw the mail piling up in Hagerstown,” he said. “I saw the tattered sign in his Gaithersburg office because it’s yellowing because no one has even been there. The security guard told me no one’s been here in two years. I went to the Frederick office and saw that it’s in a Hispanic market, and these other businesses actually work seven days a week, whereas his office mail is overflowing.”
Trone’s office has denied that his district offices are closed and not providing constituent services, calling Foldi’s claims “misinformation” and saying that the offices are open on different days than when he visited and held press events. Trone’s campaign did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently added Trone to its list of “Frontliners,” or Democrats who are most endangered this campaign cycle. But Trone does have one huge advantage, and that’s his massive wealth. He self-funded $13 million on an unsuccessful 2016 House bid, and according to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings on March 31, he had over $2 million in cash on hand — a huge number for a House race.
Foldi says his fundraising efforts are going well, though how their numbers compare won’t be available until the end of July. In an expensive media market around Washington, D.C., the race might come down to who can buy the most airtime.
But Foldi’s campaign, which he’s billing “the most fun campaign in America,” is making up for any lack of cash with tireless on-the-ground efforts. He and his supporters are spamming the district with yard signs, showing up to local events, and putting hours into old-fashioned door-knocking.
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Foldi, if elected, would be among the youngest House members ever, which he said would provide a fresh perspective for investigating President Joe Biden’s administration.
“The experience I have already, versus Trone’s experience of failures, matters more than him being 66 and me being 25,” Foldi said.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
In a roundup of issues, Foldi says he is anti-abortion. But even after the Supreme Court’s June 24 ending of the national right to abortion and sending the issue to the state, voters are more focused on economic issues, such as spiking gas prices and high inflation, Foldi said.
