Stock trading has become the defining fight in Florida's open 7th Congressional District race, with Democrat Bale Dalton pledging to ban the practice outright and place his own holdings in a blind trust, while Republican Ryan Elijah insists he checked a box on a state disclosure form without ever intending to buy or sell a share. The two candidates, vying for a seat covering Seminole County and parts of Volusia County, have spent recent weeks trading jabs over who can be trusted with the issue — even as an ethics complaint and a new attack ad have raised the stakes.
At the center of the dispute is Florida's SAVE Act, which requires federal candidates to state in writing whether they traded or intend to trade stocks while serving in office, according to the Executive Office of the Governor of Florida. Dalton checked “no” on that question, while Elijah checked “I do,” as reported by Yahoo News. Elijah has said he made that selection for transparency because he was unsure how his retirement accounts would be managed, telling the outlet, “I checked 'yes' as I wasn't sure how my retirement account would be managed,” while maintaining he does not intend to trade stocks.
Dalton, in turn, has argued that voters should weigh Elijah's response on the disclosure form more heavily, according to the Miami Herald. Dalton, a combat veteran who serves in the Navy Reserve, has said he served in uniform for more than 24 years and risked his life protecting the country, per the same report. He has also said he plans to place his holdings in a blind trust with no visibility into the investments if elected.
An Ethics Complaint Over Unitemized Retirement Accounts
Elijah's own disclosures became a flashpoint after an Oviedo woman filed an ethics complaint against him in September, according to news reports cited by the Herald. The complaint, filed by Sarah Austin, alleged Elijah failed to report details on up to $5.1 million in personal assets, as documented by Florida Politics. On June 14, Elijah had reported a Fidelity 401(k) worth between $1 million and $5 million and a Charles Schwab retirement account worth between $50,000 and $100,000 without identifying the underlying assets, the outlet found, noting, “But he didn't disclose where any of that value was derived.”
Elijah's campaign acknowledged the accounts were not itemized and said it would amend the filing, telling Florida Politics, “We're amending the filing.” He later filed an amended disclosure identifying the Fidelity 401(k) as a Vanguard Target Retirement 2040 Fund, or VFORX, valued between $500,000 and $1 million, according to the Herald. That six-page disclosure, dated September 16, also listed individual holdings worth $15,000 or less in Boeing, NVIDIA, Palantir, Tesla, UnitedHealth and Elevance Health, per Florida Politics. Elijah has said he would know how he would proceed with his portfolio by January and has said he will not buy or sell stocks while in office.
Dueling Claims Over Chinese Company Holdings
Elijah has alleged that Dalton holds stocks linked to the Chinese Communist Party, pointing to Dalton's 24-page financial disclosure listing more than 200 companies, according to the Herald. That disclosure reportedly shows Dalton held between $1,001 and $15,000 each in Bank of China and China Construction Bank, along with shares in China Yuchai International, PICC Property & Casualty, Sinopharm Group ADR and Lenovo Group, all disclosed within his Roth IRA, per the same report.
Elijah turned that claim into a campaign advertisement called “Bad Bet,” which highlighted financial disclosure reports filed with the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to Florida Voice News. Dalton had not issued a formal public response to the commercial as of that outlet's report. Dalton, for his part, has pointed out that Elijah's own amended VFORX fund is a fund of funds with a small percentage of Chinese companies, including Tencent and Alibaba, per the Herald.
Dalton's Anticorruption Plan and the Broader Push in Washington
Dalton has proposed legislation he calls the End Extensive Elected Personnel Enrichment Lunacy Plan, or EXPEL, which would curb congressional stock trading and prohibit federal employees and elected officials from betting in prediction markets, according to Roll Call. The plan would also require independent audits of members' financial disclosures, overhaul the congressional ethics process, strip some ethics offenders of their pensions, and prohibit taxpayer-funded hush money payments as well as former members becoming federal lobbyists, Roll Call reports. Elijah has said he would support a plan to limit congressional stock trading and listed banning insider stock trading in Congress among eight priorities in an October 12 campaign post, per the Herald.
The debate lands amid renewed — and repeatedly stalled — federal efforts to restrict the practice. The Senate blocked the Stop Insider Trading Act by a 53-47 vote in September, seven votes short of the 60 needed to open debate, according to The Guardian. The House had passed that bill in July, but the Senate later blocked it, the New York Times reported. Current federal law does not categorically prohibit members of the House or Senate from owning or trading stocks, according to a House committee report filed with Congress.gov.
Why Voters Keep Hearing About This
Public appetite for reform appears strong. An in-depth University of Maryland School of Public Policy survey found that 86% of respondents favored prohibiting members of Congress from trading individual-company stocks, including 87% of Republicans and 88% of Democrats, according to the university's findings. A separate Economist/YouGov poll in May found 71% of 1,520 U.S. citizens supported banning stock trading by lawmakers, per Yahoo News.
The numbers behind those trades have drawn scrutiny nationally. Common Cause found that members of Congress made more than 13,000 stock trades worth more than $635 million in 2025, while Forbes separately reported members, their spouses and dependents executed 13,300 trades totaling $635.6 million that year — figures that differ slightly depending on the source. Insider trading by members of Congress currently carries only a $200 penalty, which the Campaign Legal Center has described as hardly impactful, according to the Herald.
Not every Florida candidate has taken Dalton's position. Republicans Randy Fine and Scott Franklin and Democrats Lois Frankel and LaShonda J. Holloway also checked that they intended to trade stocks if elected or reelected, Yahoo News reported. Former Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer, a Republican challenging Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz, has released his own ad promising to ban all stock trading by members of Congress, according to Roll Call.
Not Everyone Agrees a Full Ban Is the Answer
Not every legal expert views an outright ban as the clear fix. Peter Molk, a professor of law at the University of Florida, has described a tailored legislative approach that would allow some congressional stock trades under specified conditions, while cautioning that such rules require substantial oversight and may still miss cases, according to the Herald. He also noted an outright ban carries its own tradeoff: it might result in fewer people willing to serve in Congress at all.
Both candidates have said congressional stock trading raises concerns about trust, even as they clash over the details. The race has also become a financial mismatch of its own — through July, Dalton had raised about $1.4 million for the campaign, compared with about $356,000 raised by Elijah, according to Florida Politics. Elijah has said his net worth had decreased during the campaign and that he invested a lot of his own savings into the run, per the Herald, calling Florida's 7th District contest a highly competitive race between himself and Dalton.
