burn some of it down
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has quietly backed off endorsing Democratic primary challengers
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.
To be clear, Ocasio-Cortez hasn't backed away from backing progressives in general. She endorsed seven progressive women challenging Republican congressmembers and senators just last month, even bucking the Democratic party's preferred candidate to challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Read more at Politico.