Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led a Twitter bootcamp for House Democrats

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Ted Lieu and Debbie Dingell

(Image credit: Rep. Ted Lieu on Twitter.)

published 17 January 2019

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) may be a freshman congresswoman, but she has a thing or two to teach her fellow Democrats.

The newly elected representative is a bona fide Twitter star, topping every news organization and politician — other than President Trump — in interactions in the past month. And in a Thursday social media bootcamp, she taught some other representatives how to get a slice of her 2.45 million followers.

The Thursday session was "jam packed" with Democrats hoping to glean some of Ocasio-Cortez's wisdom, ABC News reports. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), whose husband, former Rep. John Dingell, has a solid 252,000 Twitter followers to her 37,000, said she was counting on her husband and "AOC" to improve her game. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) experimented with a gif and asked "#WheresMitch" after the lesson, and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Hawaii) learned how to snap a selfie.

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Engaging younger voters is a perennial struggle for politicians on both sides of the aisle. But Ocasio-Cortez, along with some other young candidates, mastered the game in the run-up to the 2018 midterms. In Thursday's session, Ocasio-Cortez was sure to tell her colleagues that "social media is not just for young people," ABC News says. Then again, "don't try to be someone you're not," Ocasio-Cortez very rightly said. Get more Twitter tips from Ocasio-Cortez at ABC News.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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