John Delaney

John Kevin Delaney (born April 16, 1963) is an American politician, businessman, and former attorney who was the United States representative for Maryland's 6th congressional district from 2013 to 2019.

Scholarships from his father's labor union (IBEW Local 164) as well as the American Legion, VFW, and the Lions Club helped Delaney attend college; he earned a B.A. degree from Columbia University in 1985, and a J.D. degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1988.

Delaney co-founded two companies that were publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1993, Delaney co-founded Health Care Financial Partners (HCFP), to make loans available to smaller-sized health care service providers said to be ignored by larger banks.

HCFP went public in 1996, and its stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1998.

Health Care Financial Partners was acquired by Heller Financial in 1999.

In 2000, Delaney co-founded CapitalSource, a commercial lender headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland; the company provided capital to roughly 5,000 small and mid-size businesses before his departure.

He won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2004.

In 2005, CapitalSource was named one of Washingtonian magazine's best places to work for its company culture and employee benefits.

While John McCain carried the 6th with 57 percent of the vote in 2008, Barack Obama would have carried the new 6th with 56 percent.

The Montgomery County share of the district has three times as many people as the rest of the district combined.

The shifts were quite controversial, as Republicans accused Democrats of shifting district boundaries in their favor, and former Governor Martin O'Malley later admitted the redrawn districts would favor Democrats.

"That was my hope," O'Malley told attorneys in a deposition.

"It was also my intent to create ... a district where the people would be more likely to elect a Democrat than a Republican."

During the primary, Delaney was endorsed by former President Bill Clinton, U.S. Congresswoman Donna Edwards, Comptroller Peter Franchot, The Washington Post, and the Gazette.

In 2010, while Delaney was CEO, CapitalSource was awarded a Bank Enterprise Award from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund by the U.S. Treasury Department for its investment in low-income and economically distressed communities.

After redistricting following the 2010 census, Delaney decided to run for the newly redrawn 6th district against 10-term Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett.

The district had long been a Republican stronghold, but it had been significantly reconfigured.

The Maryland General Assembly shifted much of heavily Republican Carroll County and the more rural sections of Frederick County into the heavily Democratic 8th district.

It also shifted Republican-tilting sections of Harford and Baltimore counties, as well as another section of Carroll, into the already heavily Republican 1st district.

Taking their place was a heavily Democratic spur of western Montgomery County previously in the 8th District.

The redrawn district's share of Montgomery County ended just two blocks from Delaney's home in Potomac.

The redrawn district, the state's second-largest, included nearly the entire western portion of the state, but the bulk of its vote came from the outer suburbs of Washington, D.C.

On paper, this dramatically altered the district's demographics, turning it from a heavily Republican district into a Democratic-leaning district.

CapitalSource continued to be publicly traded on the NYSE after Delaney's election, making him the only former CEO of a publicly traded company to serve in the 113th United States Congress.

On April 3, 2012, Delaney won the five-candidate Democratic primary field with 54% of the vote.

The next closest opponent, State Senator Robert J. Garagiola, received 29% of the vote, 25 points behind Delaney.

In the November 6, 2012 general election, Delaney defeated Bartlett by 59%–38%, a 21-point margin.

In 2014, the lender merged with PacWest Bancorp.

On July 28, 2017, Delaney became the first Democrat to announce his run for president in 2020.

Delaney did not run for re-election to Congress in 2018, choosing to focus on his presidential campaign.

In November 2018, fellow Democrat David Trone was elected to succeed Delaney in Congress, and subsequently endorsed him for President in 2020.

He was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.

Delaney suspended his campaign on January 31, 2020, citing low poll numbers and wanting to avoid pulling support from other candidates.

He later endorsed Joe Biden for president.

Delaney grew up in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, the son of Elaine (Rowe), and Jack Delaney, an electrician.

He is the nephew of former Aetna CEO John Rowe.

He is of three quarters Irish and one quarter English descent.

Delaney spent part of his youth working at his father's construction sites.

Delaney graduated from Bergen Catholic High School.