Democrats feud over stock trading as they sharpen anti-corruption case against Trump

A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange displays the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)2026-05-25T12:03:23Z 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. Read More Some are tracking congressional stock tradingTrump 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 Agosto 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, all of whom are Democrats.“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 primariesA 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

A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange displays the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)2026-05-25T12:03:23Z 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’…

A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange displays the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)2026-05-25T12:03:23Z 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…