Democrats feud over stock trading as they sharpen anti-corruption case
against Trump
[May 26, 2026]
By MATT BROWN
DALLAS (AP) — After three terms in the U.S. House and two unsuccessful
campaigns for the U.S. Senate, Colin Allred said he’s heard plenty about
voters’ suspicions that politicians are just trying to make a buck in
Washington.
“'What about the stock trading in Congress? What about people getting
rich in Congress?’” Allred said they ask him regularly. “And I have to
say to them, you’re absolutely right about that, too. We need to be
better.”
He's challenging Rep. Julie Johnson in the Democratic runoff for a
Dallas-area House seat on Tuesday, and he's one of several candidates
trying to harness populist anger over congressional stock trading.
Allred has denounced Johnson for trades involving companies like
Palantir, a data analytics firm with ties to President Donald Trump's
administration.
Johnson said her trades were handled by a financial manager, and she
accused Allred of being “only out for himself.” She pointed to financial
disclosures that showed Allred's wealth nearly doubling during his own
time in Congress, although Allred said his assets were in a blind trust
and the money came from his wife's income as a partner at a law firm.
“To be clear, the sum total I made on that trade was only $90,” Johnson
said of her Palantir stock. “My opponent is trying to make it seem like
it was hundreds or thousands.”
The bitter campaign is emblematic of broader debates within the
Democratic Party over the role of money in politics. Long a refrain of
strident progressives and good-government reformers, accusations that
political rivals are self-dealing or bought by special interests have
become a mainstay of Democratic primaries. The heightened criticism of
lawmakers’ personal wealth comes as the party looks to sharpen its
anti-corruption message against Trump and to develop a platform for
overhauling Washington if Democrats take power in the midterms.
Some are tracking congressional stock trading
Trump campaigned on a promise to “drain the swamp,” capitalizing on
Americans' disdain for the Washington establishment. Now that his family
is profiting while he's back in the White House, Democrats are eager to
regain the upper hand on an issue that could prove potent with voters.
“The difficulty is that right now, no party has the mantle on
anti-corruption,” said Daniel Lobo-Lewis, a political consultant in
Washington. “Many voters outside of the beltway see both parties as
corrupt, because they see all politicians as bought by the donors or by
their own self-interest.”
Lobo-Lewis and Nico Agosta founded the Political Integrity Project last
year to track stock trading and corporate donations involving members of
Congress.
The organization asks candidates to sign an “integrity pledge” to
refrain from trading stocks or accepting corporate donations while in
Congress and vow not to work as a lobbyist after they leave office. So
far, about 90 challengers and seven sitting lawmakers have taken the
pledge.
“If we want to, in any way, start rebuilding trust in our political
institutions, it starts with no-brainer changes like this that have an
approval rating above and beyond any other issue you could imagine,”
Lobo-Lewis said.
Congress has yet to enact a stock trading ban for its members, though
insider trading is already illegal for members just like it is for
anyone else. There are multiple proposals on Capitol Hill, but none have
gained traction.
A bipartisan bill to ban congressional stock trading stalled this year
despite receiving Trump’s blessing during his State of the Union. And
Democrats remain divided over the number of alleged loopholes in their
competing proposals.
Anti-corruption messages spread in Democratic primaries
A crowded race in a Democratic-leaning Utah congressional seat has
featured attacks over candidates’ personal wealth. State Sen. Nate
Blouin criticized his main rival, former Rep. Ben McAdams, for having
equity in a Utah data center firm, and excoriated others in the race for
past investments and jobs.
McAdams said the equity of several thousand dollars was payment for a
past contract completed by his government consulting firm while he was a
private citizen. His campaign defended the data center project by saying
it would use no water and run on clean energy.
A spokesperson for McAdams also claimed Blouin “is currently hiding his
corporate donations” by removing them from campaign disclosure reports,
which McAdams' campaign claims “is not only deceitful, it breaks
campaign finance law.”
In an interview, Blouin rejected the claim that he broke the law, and
said that he removed the donations because he returned the money to each
donor.
“It was actually quite uncomfortable to return some of those,” said
Blouin, because some of the firms included local firms and clean energy
companies. “But there is a perception that campaign contributions from
lobbyists and companies influence votes, and I think there is some truth
to that.”
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This combination of photos shows Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas, being
sworn in on Jan. 3, 2025, in Washington, left, and Rep. Colin
Allred, D-Texas, speaking on Nov. 5, 2024, in Dallas. (AP
Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Tony Gutierrez)
In a New York City congressional district that includes both Wall
Street and the Democratic Socialists of America’s headquarters, the
city’s former comptroller, Brad Lander, has accused Rep. Dan Goldman
of trying to buy another term by using his own wealth to match
campaign contributions. Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss family
fortune, says he entered all of his assets into a blind trust after
taking office in 2023.
A spokesperson for Goldman said Lander is “running a deceitful
campaign based on absurd lies that Dan is beholden to special
interests” and that Goldman has raised more campaign funds than
Lander “without taking a dime of corporate PAC money.” Goldman has
spent his own money on the race, the spokesperson said: “To ensure
that the NY-10 voters can be sure that he is beholden only to them
and his principles.”
Lander said Goldman's spending is “not illegal, but it is certainly
anti-democratic when a quarter-billionaire like Dan Goldman not only
dumps millions of his own inherited wealth into his elections but
also solicits money from the same forces who are rigging the economy
and worsening the affordability crisis.”
More candidates are fighting over stocks in California
Even representatives who support a ban on congressional stock
trading are feeling the heat.
Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman of California is facing multiple
primary challengers who have criticized the congressman for holding
stocks while serving in Congress. Sherman does not trade individual
stocks and supports a ban on stock trading.
“I only own three individual stocks, which I inherited from my
mother when she passed away, which were originally acquired by my
grandmother,” Sherman said. “I have never sold them because I made a
promise to my constituents that I would not buy and sell individual
stocks.”
One of Sherman's primary challengers is Jake Levine, a former
climate adviser to President Joe Biden, who signed the pledge from
the Political Integrity Project. But Sherman said Levine “refuses to
disclose key elements of his $18 million stock portfolio, and
actively bought and sold stocks while serving on the National
Security Council.”
Levine said in a statement shortly after midnight on Tuesday that
Sherman “knows he’s losing because voters are sick of politics as
usual and ready for a new generation of leadership.”
He added: “He’s chosen to close his campaign with desperate,
unfounded attacks against me rather than make a real argument of why
he deserves to be reelected. We look forward to the results next
week.”
In the race to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California
State Sen. Scott Wiener has critiqued his progressive opponent,
Saikat Chakrabarti, over his personal wealth. Chakrabarti is a
former software engineer who earned millions as an early employee at
the tech firm Stripe. He later served as the first chief of staff to
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Wiener said that Chakrabarti “has enormous investments” and “is
trying to buy this seat” while “spreading bogus conspiracy theories”
with his own wealth. He criticized Chakrabarti for not disclosing
the last decade of his stock trades.
“If you’re making a ban on stock trades a central part of your
campaign — as Saikat is doing, running around saying that everyone
under the sun is corrupt — how about you tell the voters about your
own stock trading history,” Wiener said.
Chakrabarti retorted that his wealth as a private citizen is not
relevant to his future time in office and that he would place all of
his assets into a blind trust should he be elected. He critiqued
Wiener for being supported by super PACs funded by the AI firm
Anthropic and other major corporations.
“This is all part of a larger problem, which is just the whole idea
of corruption in our politics,” Chakrabarti said. “If you’re in
Congress, you sit on committees that oversee a lot of these
industries, and it’s unethical to be using that insider information,
that knowledge to make stock trades. But that doesn’t apply to a
private citizen.”
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