A 25-year-old Democratic candidate for the Anne Arundel County Council used more than $5,400 from his campaign war chest on fast food, grocery runs, and entertainment, including tickets to a monster truck show, the Daily Mail reported, citing an annual campaign finance report first reviewed by The Baltimore Banner.
Geonta Simmons, who is running for the District 1 seat being vacated by Councilmember Vice Chair Pete Smith, racked up $5,426.56 in questionable expenditures between March 2025 and January 2026. Roughly 30 percent of his campaign funds went to takeout. Nearly 14 percent covered grocery hauls. The rest included entertainment spending that Simmons now says he has partially reimbursed.
The revelations land barely a month before the Democratic primary election, set for June 23, 2026, and they paint a portrait of a first-time candidate who treated donor money like a personal debit card.
The finance report shows Simmons spent at least $1,612 at McDonald's, Dairy Queen, Taco Bell, Outback Steakhouse, and Chipotle. One line item logged $102.74 at a Sam's Club on August 21, 2025. Five days later, on August 26, another $206.95 went to a Giant grocery store. Campaign funds also covered bills at Walmart.
Simmons told The Baltimore Banner he repaid a $44.25 tab at a Waffle House in North Carolina and $88.64 for tickets to a monster truck show. But it remains unclear exactly how much money he gave back in total. The reimbursements, he said, should appear on a pre-primary finance report candidates must submit by May 19.
In other words, voters may not see the full picture until weeks before they cast ballots.
Simmons did not deny the spending. Instead, he leaned on inexperience. He told The Baltimore Banner:
"I take full responsibility. As a first-time candidate, we're all going to make some mistakes."
He described some of the charges as "made in error" and said others came from not understanding what a "campaign-related expenditure could be." He floated the possibility that card confusion played a role:
"My credit card looks exactly like my campaign card. And I didn't notice until I was doing the finance reports, and we were like, 'Oh my God, did someone, like, hack into our account?'"
That explanation raises more questions than it answers. If the candidate himself could not tell his personal card from his campaign card, and his first instinct was to wonder whether the account had been hacked, what does that say about the financial controls around donor money?
Simmons also said the spending should not "raise any suspicion" and that most costs were for campaign-related tasks. He said he spoke directly with the State Board of Elections about the issue. The Daily Mail contacted both Simmons and the Board for comment.
Under Maryland campaign finance law, candidates may spend campaign funds at restaurants, but only if the expense relates to a legitimate political purpose. The law also requires that the campaign treasurer, not the candidate, authorize related purchases.
Simmons' campaign website lists Destiny Haynes as treasurer. Her LinkedIn profile shows she has held the role since February 2025 and attended Anne Arundel Community College. Whether Haynes authorized each of the dozens of fast food and grocery transactions is not addressed in the available reporting.
That gap matters. If the candidate was swiping a campaign card at Taco Bell and Dairy Queen without treasurer approval, the spending may not just be embarrassing, it may violate the authorization requirements Maryland imposes on campaign accounts. Simmons is one of four candidates in the District 1 race, and the others now have a ready-made line of attack.
The pattern here is not unique to Anne Arundel County. Rep. Eric Swalwell's campaign filings revealed thousands spent on alcohol delivery, Las Vegas trips, and Uber Eats, drawing similar scrutiny over where donor dollars actually went.
Simmons grew up in Brooklyn Park and is just 25. His youth and first-time status may earn him a measure of sympathy from some voters. But the defense, "we're all going to make some mistakes", rings hollow when the mistakes total more than five thousand dollars and span nearly a year.
Donors gave money to elect a county councilmember, not to fund drive-through dinners and monster truck entertainment. The fact that Simmons apparently did not notice the problem until he reviewed his own finance reports suggests either poor oversight or indifference to the rules.
Financial carelessness among Democratic candidates and officeholders has become a recurring theme. Rep. Ilhan Omar's husband shut down a California winery amid a congressional probe into family finances, and questions about candidate money management seem to surface with striking regularity on the left side of the aisle.
Simmons' situation is smaller in scale but no less instructive. If a candidate cannot manage a campaign fund responsibly before taking office, why should taxpayers trust him with public money after?
The broader Democratic Party has its own credibility problems when it comes to financial transparency. Financial disclosures from New York's Zohran Mamdani raised eyebrows about the gap between progressive rhetoric and personal financial reality.
Several questions remain unanswered. The State Board of Elections has not publicly commented on whether Simmons' spending triggered any review or enforcement action. It is unclear which specific expenditures Simmons considers legitimately campaign-related and which he admits were personal. The total amount he claims to have reimbursed remains unknown.
Voters heading to the June 23 primary will have to decide whether Simmons' explanation, card confusion, inexperience, partial reimbursement, is good enough. The pre-primary finance report due May 19 may fill in some blanks. Or it may raise new ones.
Meanwhile, the broader question of accountability within the Democratic Party continues to simmer. Kamala Harris has pushed the DNC to release its 2024 campaign autopsy, a sign that even party leaders recognize something is broken in how Democrats handle money and messaging.
And then there is the matter of consistency. Democrats who spent years demanding Americans pay more in taxes have recently discovered the political appeal of tax cuts. It is harder to lecture voters about fiscal responsibility when your own candidates cannot keep a campaign card out of the McDonald's drive-through.
Geonta Simmons wants to represent the residents of Anne Arundel County's District 1. His campaign finance report suggests he had trouble representing their donations faithfully. Monster truck tickets and Waffle House tabs in another state are not campaign expenses by any common-sense definition, and blaming a look-alike credit card does not change the ledger.
If you can't be trusted with five thousand dollars from your neighbors, you have no business asking for a seat at the table where real budgets get written.
