Newly released financial disclosure records for 2025 show that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spent thousands in campaign funds on luxury hotels in New York City, just a short distance from the Democrat congresswoman’s own district.
Ocasio-Cortez’s district is located entirely within New York City, encompassing parts of The Bronx and Queens.
Yet, financial records show she blew thousands in campaign cash on lavish hotel stays in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
AOC also continued directing campaign funds toward upscale travel and dining in Puerto Rico and other high-end locations throughout 2025, according to newly released year-end campaign finance reports.
During 2025 alone, she spent $53,000 on luxury hotels despite prior backlash over similar spending and her public criticism of gentrification in San Juan.
Final fourth-quarter disclosures ahead of the November midterms show Ocasio-Cortez spent nearly $4,000 more at Hotel Palacio Provincial in San Juan, adding to thousands already spent there in the previous quarter.
Third-quarter spending also included tens of thousands of dollars on high-end meals and a “venue rental” at the same San Juan arena where the congresswoman was seen dancing in a suite during an August Bad Bunny concert, bringing total Puerto Rico expenditures to nearly $50,000 in a single reporting period.
Fourth-quarter records reflect a similar pattern, with thousands more directed toward four- and five-star hotel stays and upscale dining.
In total, Ocasio-Cortez spent roughly $53,500 on luxury or boutique hotels in 2025 alone.
Campaign disbursements also covered meals at restaurants where individual dining experiences can exceed $100 per person, including a New York City sushi restaurant offering a $150 fourteen-course tasting menu, a seafood restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip, and a San Juan establishment where cocktails cost more than $20.
“What better way to ‘fight the oligarchy’ than to use campaign funds on luxury hotels,” Republican strategist Mark Bednar said.
“If AOC has plans to follow through on presidential ambitions, she will need to explain to voters how her campaign spending squares with her campaign rhetoric.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not respond to requests for comment about the spending.
Political communications strategist Daniel Turner, founder of the energy nonprofit Power The Future and a native of Queens, argued many of the luxury expenditures occurred far from the congresswoman’s own district.
“The difference between me and AOC is that I am actually from Queens,” Turner said ina statement.
“AOC, who pretends that she is from Queens, and pretends that she is one of us, is acting the way all New Yorkers do toward Queens.
“When she needs a luxury event, she goes to Brooklyn, or she goes to Manhattan.
“When she wants to do something fancy, she leaves altogether, and she goes to resorts in Puerto Rico.
“She can’t spend that sort of money in her own district, because her own district is poor, like the parts of Queens where I grew up, and she’s fine with that.”
Turner continued with broader criticism of conditions in the district and the congresswoman’s priorities, saying she is “fine with the enormous amounts of prostitution… she’s fine with underage Latina girls who are selling themselves in her district, and she’s going to go to Puerto Rico and talk about gentrification.”
Hotels listed in Ocasio-Cortez’s 2025 spending include The Langham Huntington in Pasadena, Vdara Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas, Lansdowne Resort & Spa in Virginia, Hyatt Grand Central near her district in Queens, Westdrift Manhattan Beach, the Asher Adams Hotel in Salt Lake City, The Leo Kent Hotel in Tucson, Arlo Williamsburg in Brooklyn, Bottleworks Hotel in Indianapolis, and Hotel El Convento in San Juan.
Many stays cost several thousand dollars each, all billed to her campaign.
Ironically, several hotel visits coincided with stops on Ocasio-Cortez’s 2025 “Fight Oligarchy” tour alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Dining expenses included venues such as CATCH in Las Vegas, where a sushi and seafood selection can total $225, and Sushi Ouiji, which serves a $150 tasting menu using fish flown in from Japan.
Puerto Rico spending alone included $10,743.13 in December for “catering” and “meals,” including at Verde Mesa, where espresso martinis cost $24.
Between late June and September, her campaign paid nearly $50,000 for luxury hotels, meals, and a $23,000 arena “venue rental” tied to the Bad Bunny concert appearance, around the same time she posted a video criticizing “the gentrification happening in Puerto Rico.”
Turner argued constituents would prefer to see campaign resources spent locally.
“The people of her district would be thrilled if she spent just a percentage of that amount of money in her own area, but she doesn’t want to represent that part of Queens,” he said.
“She doesn’t really even want to represent New York City.
“She thinks of herself as the congresswoman of more glamorous locations and more worldly causes.”
“This is the problem with carpetbaggers,” he added.
“She can’t look at parts of Roosevelt Avenue and parts of Jackson Heights and say, ‘That used to be this.’
“She can’t look to churches there and say, ‘I remember when my grandmother dot, dot, dot.’
“She doesn’t look at that neighborhood with the memory that those of us who were born and raised there, and know what it once used to be like, do,” Turner lamented.
“For AOC, her district is a stepping stone, but for the people who live there, it’s either a neighborhood that has been destroyed, or it’s full of illegals who are just trying to bilk the system.”
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