The vulnerable New Mexico congressman spent $1,300 at one steakhouse alone
Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D., N.M.) recently denounced “fancy dinners,” saying he instead prefers catching fish in D.C.’s Anacostia River. That claim seems to be at odds with the thousands of dollars he’s spent at swanky restaurants across the country since taking office.
Campaign finance records show Vasquez, one of the most vulnerable House Democrats, has spent over $7,000 since 2023 at restaurants, including some hundreds or even thousands of miles from his district in D.C., New York City, Santa Monica, Calif., and Jackson, Wyo.
But Vasquez racked up his highest tabs while home in New Mexico, shelling out nearly $2,000 over just a few days in January. He spent $1,300 at Rio Chama Prime, a Santa Fe steakhouse offering Colorado elk loin for $61 and a $63 ribeye. Two days earlier, he visited the more modest M’tucci’s Bar Roma, but still managed to spend $555.
In June 2024, Vasquez spent nearly $300 at the Duck and the Peach on Capitol Hill. The restaurant, which the Washington Post described as an “all-day restaurant with a California-lilt,” boasts beluga caviar, a $98 duck entree, and a $140 porterhouse steak. The congressman dropped more than $400 this spring at another California-inspired restaurant in D.C., Sonoma, which offers a $130 meat and cheese board.
Vasquez, who in April said focusing on local concerns is “at the core of what Democrats need to get back to doing,” also spent over $200 in May 2024 at Shirube, a Santa Monica sushi spot that’s just a short walk from the beach—and nearly 800 miles from his district. The Japanese restaurant sports sake bottles for as much as $300.
In Jackson, Vasquez shelled out nearly $500 at two restaurants while visiting the swanky billionaire enclave, some 1,100 miles from his district, in August 2024. He beat that distance in June with a $220 visit to La Pecora Bianca, an upscale Italian restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, roughly 2,100 miles away.
The vulnerable congressman’s expensive dinners fly in the face of the everyman image he is eager to display. While holding a freshly caught catfish in a July video, Vasquez said, “A lot of people like to eat fancy dinners, expensive dinners. I like to come out here and fish on the Anacostia River or the Potomac and catch some nice, little blue catfish.” (The D.C. Department of Energy and Environment recommends a maximum of three servings per month of blue catfish from D.C.-area waters because of chemical contaminants.)
Vasquez’s meal spending could cost him on the campaign trail as he aims to win over his largely working-class district. He’s already facing an uphill battle as 1 of the 13 House Democrats defending a district that President Donald Trump won last year. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in March added him to its Frontline program, which provides additional funding to vulnerable Democrats.
Both parties see his district as important for securing the House in the 2026 midterm elections.
Vasquez faced several scandals during his 2024 campaign. In March that year, police in El Paso, Texas, executed an arrest warrant against Vasquez, the Washington Free Beacon reported. He had failed to appear in court in 2002 after he was charged with driving without a license, driving without insurance, and disregarding an “official traffic control device.”
As a New Mexico State University student in 2004, Vasquez phoned an employee at a call center he’d been fired from and called a black coworker a “n—er,” according to a police report the Free Beacon uncovered. A police report the following year showed Vasquez tried flushing marijuana down the toilet after law enforcement caught him rolling a blunt.
Two years later, Vasquez got into an argument with his then-girlfriend that prompted cops to visit his home “in reference to a possible domestic,” according to another police report.
Vasquez did not respond to a request for comment.
Read the full article here
