A liberal social media account has targeted Republican congressional candidate Michael Alfonso over a years-old Venmo payment description that read “The strippers,” prompting widespread mockery of the attack as humorless and desperate.
Alfonso, the Republican nominee in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District and son-in-law of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, faced the claim Monday when the account FactPost posted a screenshot of old Venmo activity. The post highlighted notes including “The strippers” and “High supplies.”
Alfonso responded Tuesday, noting the payment was $5 and “obviously a joke.” His wife, Evita Duffy-Alfonso, echoed the point, calling the amount and context clear evidence it was not literal. “You can write literally anything in a Venmo note,” Alfonso said. “This is called a joke—something the humorless left is incapable of comprehending.”
We’ve all done this. Venmo’s design practically invites it. The app lets users attach public or friends-visible descriptions, emojis, likes, and comments to money transfers, turning routine reimbursements into a social feed. It gets boring to write “Fantasy Football Dues” or the season after season on the memo line. Simple emojis can easily be replaced with something more provocative and eye-catching. Splitting a dinner, paying someone back for concert tickets, or settling a group tab almost always comes with some dumb joke in the memo line. “Hookers and blow,” “body disposal,” “crack” — it’s the digital equivalent of writing something ridiculous in the memo field of a check. My friends routinely write absurd descriptions on Venmo and PayPal transactions. Scroll through your Venmo feed, and you’ll find countless examples of the same. It’s dumb, and it’s harmless unless you’re a joyless progressive grasping desperately at straws to try and embarrass a GOP candidate.
Alfonso, 26, who won the Republican primary last week and advances to the November general election. The Venmo posts in question appear to be 8 years old, suggesting he was about 18 or 19 when the payments were made.
Critics of the smear argue it exemplifies a pattern of digging for trivial personal details when policy attacks fall short. Venmo’s decision to layer social-media features onto a payment app creates a permanent, searchable record of private jokes that political opponents can later weaponize. Alfonso’s campaign has rightly dismissed this as a non-issue.
