Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took their socialist message to Kansas

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and new progressive darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took their democratic socialist show on the road Friday with a campaign stop in Wichita, Kansas.

They appeared together at a rally for Democrat James Thompson, who is challenging GOP incumbent Rep. Ron Estes for his House seat. "People told me Kansas was a Republican state," Sanders told an enthusiastic crowd. "It sure doesn't look that way."

Some attendees were not previously familiar with Ocasio-Cortez, who burst onto the national scene this summer with an upset primary win against the No. 4 House Democrat, Rep. Joe Crowley (N.Y.), in her Bronx district. In Kansas, she touted the broad appeal of her platform. "What you have shown me, and what we will show in the Bronx, is that working people in Kansas share the same values — the same values — as working people anywhere else," she said.

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Whether Ocasio-Cortez's optimism is justified remains to be seen. Kansas voted for President Trump by a 20-point margin and has not elected a Democrat to Congress in a decade.