Designer Shoes, Tone-Deaf Politics: Susie Lee’s Food Bank Photo-Op Backfires

Congresswoman Susie Lee’s November 3rd photo-op at The Just One Project in Las Vegas was supposed to be a feel-good moment, a social post showing her “standing with Nevadans” during the shutdown. Instead, it detonated into one of the most spectacular self-owns Nevada politics has seen in years.

Lee arrived at the food bank not dressed like someone who understands the struggles of working families, but like someone headed to brunch at the Wynn: a $250 JW Bennett hat and $900 Alexander McQueen sneakers. That’s $1,150 worth of fashion to hand out donated groceries to families trying to stretch every dollar during a shutdown she helped prolong.

For someone who spends a lot of time talking about inequality, Susie Lee sure didn’t hesitate to stroll into a food bank dressed like a luxury influencer.

The internet noticed, fast.

Jordan Chamberlain of the Manhattan Institute summed up the absurdity bluntly on X: “Obnoxious and out-of-touch, but honestly, the most offensive thing might be how ugly the clothes are.”

GOP strategist Steve Guest piled on: “Nothing says, ‘I understand my constituents’ like Democrat Rep. Susie Lee showing up to a food bank in $900 shoes.”

And he’s not wrong. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of Washington elitism than a member of Congress wearing shoes worth a week’s paycheck for many Nevadans, while blaming Republicans for “leaving working families out to dry.”

But Lee’s designer-clad performance didn’t just strike a nerve because it looked ridiculous. It struck a nerve because it fits a pattern.

This is the same Susie Lee who voted against the No Tax on Tips Act and dismissed the extra take-home pay Nevada’s servers, bartenders, cooks, dealers, and hospitality workers would keep as nothing more than “crumbs.” The same Susie Lee who lectures about helping working families while voting against letting them keep more of the money they earn.

As the NRCC put it: “No wonder Susie Lee voted against No Tax on Tips and called it ‘crumbs’ for working families. When you live in luxury, it’s easy to vote like Nevadans don’t matter.”

Her own record backs it up. Lee has repeatedly positioned herself as a champion of Nevada’s working class while voting in ways that make their lives harder. She talks like a populist but votes like a coastal progressive with a platinum card.

Republican challenger Marty O’Donnell, the legendary Halo composer now running for Congress,  didn’t miss the chance to highlight the hypocrisy: “Susie Lee does nothing in Congress but get herself rich while voting against tax cuts for working families in Nevada. I’m sick of these out-of-touch politicians and that’s why I’m running to defeat her.”

O’Donnell has good reason to hammer the point. Southern Nevada is full of working families who live on tips, who stretch their paychecks, who’ve weathered shutdown after shutdown and who don’t take kindly to being called “crumbs” or mocked by politicians who show up to food banks in luxury gear.

Lee’s defenders tried to spin the story, but the damage was already done. The optics were brutal, and the message was clear: Susie Lee is not the person she pretends to be in her posts. She can hashtag her way through shutdowns and photo-ops, but she can’t hide the fact that her priorities and her lifestyle look nothing like the people she claims to represent.

Nevadans deserve someone who actually understands their struggles, not someone who treats them as props while stepping over them in $900 sneakers.

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