A Democratic Socialist who won a New York Assembly seat now paying $142,000 a year asked the public to cover his rent and groceries, then scrubbed the fundraiser after a newspaper started asking questions.
Brian Romero, the Democratic nominee for New York's 34th Assembly District in Queens, set up a GoFundMe page titled "Help Brian Cover Rent After State Assembly Run" seeking $2,000 to help him pay rent and buy groceries during the months between his primary win and the start of his legislative term. The page collected $1,095 from 13 donors before Romero pulled it down on Friday, shortly after the New York Post began making inquiries about the campaign.
Romero called creating the fundraiser "a mistake." But the episode laid bare a gap between the populist economic rhetoric of the Democratic Socialist left and the personal financial choices of one of its rising candidates, a man who earned more than $106,000 last year and is about to collect a six-figure government salary funded by the taxpayers he was asking for help.
State payroll records show Romero earned $106,469 the previous year working as a senior adviser to state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez. He left that job, he said, after receiving ethics guidance once he became a candidate for the Assembly seat. He said he saved for months to cover the gap but exhausted those savings while looking for consulting work, and that he could not collect unemployment benefits.
On the now-deleted GoFundMe page, Romero wrote:
"As many of you know, I had to leave my full time job in the legislature when I got on the ballot for our Assembly race. I'm excited that we won and I saved for months to get by but I've now depleted my savings as I'm close to closing down some consulting gigs."
His Jackson Heights apartment costs about $2,600 a month. Once sworn in, Romero will earn $142,000 annually, plus a $203 daily per diem when the Legislature is in session. He faces no Republican challenger in November in the heavily Democratic district, meaning the seat, and the paycheck, is effectively guaranteed.
So a candidate who pulled in a salary well above the national median just last year, and who is months away from a $142,000 position with per diem payments on top, turned to strangers on the internet for $2,000.
Romero took the page down Friday after the Post reached out. He told the paper he removed it after consulting friends.
"I decided to take it down. It was kind of done pretty quickly in consultation with some friends."
He said he did not keep any of the money donors had contributed, though Fox News Digital reported he did not respond to its request for comment. The article does not specify whether the $1,095 already raised was refunded to donors or handled some other way.
Romero said friends stepped in to help him directly instead. He framed their offer as a natural part of political life:
"I have friends I just reached out to directly who said, 'We'll take care of it.' They're just dear friends who know me, they know politics. They know sometimes these long breaks are really tough."
That explanation raises its own questions. If friends were willing and able to help, why launch a public fundraiser at all? And who are these friends, donors, lobbyists, political allies? Romero did not say, and no outlet has reported the answer.
Jordan Libowitz, vice president for communications at Citizens for Ethics in Washington, told the Post he could not recall another instance of a lawmaker-elect publicly asking for financial assistance while awaiting office. Breitbart noted Libowitz's remark in its own coverage of the episode, underscoring how unusual the solicitation was even by the loose standards of modern political fundraising.
That assessment matters. Elected officials and candidates routinely raise money, for campaigns, for legal defense funds, for PACs. But a personal GoFundMe to cover rent and groceries from a candidate already guaranteed a $142,000 salary sits in different territory. It is not campaign finance. It is not a legal fund. It is a public plea for personal living expenses from someone about to draw a taxpayer-funded paycheck that puts him in the top quarter of American earners.
Romero handily won June's Democratic primary in the 34th District, a deep-blue seat where winning the primary is tantamount to winning the general election. He ran as a Democratic Socialist, a political identity built on the argument that working people cannot make ends meet under the current economic system and that government must redistribute wealth to close the gap.
Yet Romero, who earned over $106,000 in a government job, depleted his savings in a matter of months and could not bridge a short financial gap without asking strangers for cash. He lives in a $2,600-a-month apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the country. He described himself as unable to collect unemployment. He did not explain what consulting work he pursued or why it failed to materialize.
None of that is illegal. But it paints a portrait that cuts against the brand. Democratic Socialists position themselves as champions of the working class, people who understand what it means to struggle. Romero's situation looks less like working-class hardship and more like poor planning by a well-compensated political staffer who left a six-figure job without a financial cushion adequate to last a few months, and then expected the public to make up the difference.
Several questions remain unanswered. What specific ethics guidance forced Romero out of his job, and who issued it? Why was he ineligible for unemployment? Did the 13 donors who contributed $1,095 receive refunds? And what is the nature of the financial help his unnamed friends are now providing, gifts, loans, or something else?
Romero did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
A candidate who wants to redistribute other people's money ought to be able to manage his own. When he cannot, and when his first instinct is to ask strangers to cover the rent, voters deserve to wonder what he will do with a $142,000 salary and the power of a legislative office behind it.
