Luxury travel, shopping, six-figure income: Battleground Dems ripped for 'phony' working-class narrative

Several battleground Democrats running in competitive House races have leaned on working-class, blue-collar biographies to connect with voters’ economic anxieties, but financial records and other materials reviewed by Fox News Digital complicate the images they have presented on the campaign trail.

In New Jersey, for example, Democratic Party candidate Rebecca Bennett has pitched herself as a parent with firsthand understanding of the "rising costs and economic uncertainty" facing American families, but financial records show she collected a combined salary of nearly $250,000 in 2024 and holds an extensive investment portfolio with assets potentially worth nearly $1.8 million and no reportable liabilities.

In New Mexico, Rep.

Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., has said he "never had the luxury of financial wealth," argued voters are drawn to candidates who do not "come from wealth," and described his mother as working long hours in Mexico’s "maquiladora industry" to make ends meet.

But records reviewed by Fox News Digital show his mother held corporate finance roles at GE, including as a finance manager and comptroller in Mexico and later as a senior finance analyst in Indiana, while social media screenshots shared with Fox News Digital show repeated European travel, luxury shopping and other upscale family photos.

DEM IN KEY SWING RACE MISSED NEARLY HALF HER STATE HOUSE VOTES WHILE TAKING TAXPAYER SALARY: 'NO SHOW' Meanwhile, in Washington State , Rep.

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., has built part of her blue-collar image around her time working in an auto shop and her Reed College history, saying she worked three jobs and paid for the private liberal arts school "by the credit hour" after her parents stopped paying tuition.

But financial disclosures reviewed by Fox News Digital did not list reportable student-loan debt, while critics familiar with her time at Reed College have questioned whether jobs Gluesenkamp Perez cited, including as a nanny, campus barista and at an "iPhone case factory," could have plausibly covered the school’s cost.

"Voters can see through the phony double-talk easier than politicians ever realize.

It’s far better to be who you are and offer a compelling vision to make voters’ lives better than contort your own biography and background into something it’s not," Republican strategist Colin Reed told Fox News Digital.

"Under normal circumstances, financial success and upward mobility would be attributes to lean into as selling points on the campaign trail.