Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has quietly backed off endorsing Democratic primary challengers

(Image credit: Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

published 30 March 2020

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) beat the odds in 2018, winning a primary against a Democrat who'd been in office for decades. But since she's entered Congress, Ocasio-Cortez has largely declined to endorse progressives following her lead, Politico reports.

Ocasio-Cortez entered Congress last year ready to shake things up. She quickly joined up with the progressive group Justice Democrats and called on its supporters to run against incumbents, and reportedly set her primarying sights on House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) even before she took office.

But since starting to work with those longstanding Democrats, Ocasio-Cortez has publicly supported ousting just two of them in this year's elections. In terms of primary challengers, she only endorsed Marie Newman against Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Jessica Cisneros in her challenge of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas); both Lipinski and Cueller are among the most conservative House Democrats. Justice Democrats have meanwhile endorsed four other progressive challengers whom Ocasio-Cortez has so far declined to back, including one Ocasio-Cortez campaigned for in 2018. It all seems to put Ocasio-Cortez at odds with Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) philosophy of completely restructuring the Democratic party.

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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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