Super Bowl tickets worth $37,500. Flights to Puerto Rico, Nantucket, St. Barths and Miami for his wife, children and an au pair. More than $20,000 at Ritz-Carlton hotels. More than $26,000 in child care.
These purchases are just a sampling of expenditures that Senator Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat and potential presidential candidate in 2028, has billed to his campaign accounts since 2019 — money from political supporters raised with the understanding that it would be used to help him or like-minded allies win elections.
Many of Mr. Gallego’s expenditures are common in Congress, an institution where members regularly court wealthy donors at lavish events. Spending on child care is not only allowed, but also increasingly frequent, reflecting a growing cohort of younger lawmakers who must balance the demands of family with political activities.
After news reports highlighted some of Mr. Gallego’s spending in recent weeks, he defended the travel as legal and appropriate costs for fund-raising trips. But the Justice Department is now investigating the senator for suspected campaign finance violations, according to a person familiar with the probe who requested anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. It was not clear if it was Mr. Gallego’s travel that triggered the investigation, which was first reported by Axios on Monday.
In a separate inquiry,the Senate Ethics Committee on Monday cleared Mr. Gallego of campaign finance violations. A Gallego spokesman slammed the Justice Department investigation as politically motivated, pointing to President Trump’s deployment of the Justice Department to target perceived enemies.
“I will at times bring my wife and children with me to these retreats and fund-raisers,” Mr. Gallego wrote recently on social media in response to news reports of his spending. “Are these at nice venues? Yes, it’s where the donors are, and it’s part of campaigning.”
Aside from questions of legality, the expenditures shed light on the limits of campaign-finance laws intended to curtail unethical behavior by federal candidates. Good-government advocates said that some of Mr. Gallego’s expenditures cross an ethical line. Using campaign funds for personal use can send a message to the public that elected leaders are enriching themselves from public office rather than working for constituents, they said.
Such behavior also could be perceived as breaking a pact with donors who believe their money is going to political activity. Mr. Gallego’s spending habits could prompt scrutiny from donors as he weighs whether to mount a 2028 presidential bid.
“Unless the kids are also making a pitch and working the room,” said Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in election law and government ethics, “it really is blurring the line between a campaign activity and a personal vacation.”
‘Where the donors are’
Some expenditures, including a portion of Mr. Gallego’s child care charges and his trips to the Caribbean and Miami, were first reported by Politico and The Daily Beast. Other details, including trips to Nantucket and Puerto Rico, have not been previously reported.
A review of expenditure filings and travel records obtained by The New York Times, as well as interviews with several people familiar with Mr. Gallego’s spending, found that the senator repeatedly brought his family with him to vacation destinations and billed tens of thousands of dollars in flights to his campaign accounts just in 2025. Several of these outings coincided with personal events or celebrations, such as his wife’s birthday in Miami.
Mixing personal travel with fund-raising duties is common among lawmakers, Federal Election Commission records show. The question that is hard to answer, government ethics experts say, is whether members are tacking on donor meetings to family trips simply to use campaign funds to pay for them.
Records viewed by The Times show that just last year, Mr. Gallego’s political operation paid for his wife, Sydney, and one or more of the couple’s children to fly at least 18 times, often between Washington and his hometown, Phoenix, but also to Miami, Puerto Rico and Nantucket. The au pair for the family’s children, who are all under 10 years old, joined them on 11 of those flights.
Mr. Gallego paid to fly his wife, children and au pair to Disney properties twice in 2025, for fund-raisers hosted by fellow members of Congress. His campaign spent nearly $1,400 at Walt Disney World in Orlando last April, and $1,000 at the Grand California Hotel at Disneyland in August, per F.E.C. records.
Additionally, over the 2025-26 New Year’s holiday, Mr. Gallego’s campaign spent more than $5,000 to fly him, his wife and three children to San Juan, P.R. He dined with four prospective donors there, his campaign said. One of them, Anthony Maceira, gave $5,000 to Mr. Gallego’s victory fund on Dec. 30, 2025, but the others did not contribute during or after the trip, per F.E.C. records.
The F.E.C. allows lawmakers to use campaign funds to take family along on campaign or official events, but explicitly distinguishes those expenses from “family travel to vacation locales, or other examples of personal uses of campaign funds.”
One of Mr. Gallego’s most extravagant fund-raising expenses came alongside the disgraced former Representative Eric Swalwell of California, an erstwhile friend of Mr. Gallego who resigned in April amid accusations that he had sexually assaulted a former staffer. Mr. Swalwell has denied the allegations.
Mr. Gallego denied knowledge of misconduct by Mr. Swalwell, disavowed the former congressman and said he regretted their friendship. But their yearslong bond has prompted renewed scrutiny of the senator. The Senate Ethics Committee on Monday said it had also found no evidence to support accusations — filed by a Republican congresswoman whom the senator labeled a “far-right activist” — that Mr. Gallego had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct.
Mr. Swalwell and Mr. Gallego set up a joint committee ahead of the 2023 Super Bowl called the “Swallego Victory Fund,” raising about $55,000 the week of the game and charging about $35,000 in tickets to it. They shuttered the committee in January 2025.
Most recently, in March, Mr. Gallego and his wife flew to St. Barths, in the Caribbean. Mr. Gallego’s office said it was part of a political swing that included Puerto Rico and San Diego. In St. Barths, the Gallegos attended the birthday festivities of Carlos Zaffirini, a family friend, lobbyist and Gallego donor who also runs the consulting company where Sydney Gallego works.
Mr. Gallego’s political operation paid more than $2,000 for his and his wife’s travel, per records reviewed by The Times.
Mr. Zaffirini did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for Mr. Gallego said all the trips included fund-raising activities. They provided evidence for many of the events, but not all of them. In Puerto Rico, Mr. Gallego’s office said, the senator met with donors.
Any interaction with a donor during these trips would allow Mr. Gallego to expense them, experts said.
Mr. Gallego largely drew from his main campaign committee, which federal regulations allow to be used for travel, meals or child care as long as the expenses are tied to a candidate’s political activity. Such committees are not supposed to fund personal activities or costs that would be incurred regardless of political duties.
Mr. Gallego also billed some of his family’s flights and hotel rooms — including transportation to St. Barths in March — to his leadership PAC, a type of committee that many officeholders establish to help candidates raise money for each other.
Mr. Gallego’s leadership PAC is called Juntos, which means “together” in Spanish. These PACs are far less stringently regulated than campaign committees, with virtually no restrictions on personal use. Some critics characterize them as legal slush funds.
“The Federal Election Commission has made it extremely easy to spend donor money on personal expenses without facing any legal consequences,” said Erin Chlopak, a former F.E.C. lawyer and the senior director of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government ethics organization.
‘I’m not a millionaire.’
Mr. Gallego said the child care expenses reflect a tricky balancing act that many Americans can relate to: juggling the demands of parenting young children while managing a travel-heavy job.
“The only reason this looks unique is because a majority of members of Congress are millionaires who can afford to attend campaign fund-raisers without having to worry about the cost of child care,” he said in a statement. “I’m not a millionaire, and I have a blended family, so I don’t have that option.”
Mr. Gallego is one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, and has reported that his debts exceed his assets. As a senator, he is paid $174,000 per year.
Mr. Gallego’s office declined to make him available for an interview.
Numerous members of Congress have used campaign cash for child care costs since 2018, when the F.E.C. ruled that it was allowed.
Mr. Swalwell reported more than $430,000 in campaign child care expenses over six years, more than any other federal candidate, according to F.E.C. data. Mr. Gallego was the seventh-highest spender on child care in Congress since 2019, averaging roughly $3,500 per year.
Paying to bring his children on luxury travel might be legal, but it’s still ethically questionable, campaign-finance experts said.
“There’s always a difference between what is provably illegal and what is ethically uncomfortable,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning legal watchdog group.
Sydney Gallego’s use of a campaign car appeared to be more clearly improper, experts said.
In 2024, when Mr. Gallego was a House member running for the Senate, the campaign leased an S.U.V. that his wife drove at times for her personal use, according to three people with knowledge of the activity. That prompted the campaign to rent an additional car, two of the people said.
Both the lease and several other rental charges show up in F.E.C. records. Mr. Gallego’s office said the “vehicles were used for campaign purposes,” but did not respond to questions about whether his wife drove one for other uses.
Experts said such an expenditure typically would be a violation if the campaign was not paid back and the usage was not disclosed. The records do not detail Sydney Gallego’s use of the vehicle; nor do they document any reimbursement.
Mr. Gallego joins a long line of officeholders who have personally benefited from campaign expenditures.
His predecessor in Arizona, former Senator Kyrsten Sinema, racked up huge bills in cities where she scheduled marathon races to coincide with fund-raisers. Other members have schmoozed with donors at Disney World, in boxes at Taylor Swift concerts and at the World Series.
Ms. Chlopak said it was a problem when officeholders used political donations to “support a luxury lifestyle,” even when legal.
“It only further diminishes trust in government,” she said, “at a time when what we need is exactly the opposite of that.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
