Rep. Joe Crowley, one of the top Democrats in the House of Representatives, lost his New York primary in a shocking upset on Tuesday night to community organizer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Crowley, having fundraised nearly $3 million for the race in New York’s 14th District, fell easily to a first-time candidate with a viral introduction video, a Democratic Socialists of America membership card, and a proudly leftist agenda. She ran on Medicare-for-all, a federal jobs guarantee, and getting tough on Wall Street. The race was called just before 10 pm for Ocasio-Cortez.
For those who closely watch elections, this is the biggest primary upset since David Brat defeated then-majority leader Eric Cantor in 2014. Brat ran on a campaign of depicting Cantor as a creature of Washington rather than a true representative of the district.
Likewise, Crowley, who has been in Congress since 1999, is the No. 4 Democrat in the House and was widely viewed as an eventual successor to minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Though he was a stalwart progressive on nearly every issue, he also had close ties to Wall Street. This made him a formidable fundraiser, something Ocasio-Cortez turned against Crowley in the primary. She eventually fundraised about $600,000 through small-dollar donors.
The district, which spans parts of the Bronx and Queens, is heavily Democratic, so Ocasio-Cortez is all but guaranteed to be a new member of Congress in November.
Who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
At 28, Ocasio-Cortez couldn’t be a bigger contrast from 56-year-old Crowley. She was born in the Bronx to working-class parents. Her mother is Puerto Rican. Her father is from the South Bronx. She’s a former staffer for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.
She’s certainly portrayed herself as a woman of the people, playing up her working-class roots in a viral introduction video, which shows Ocasio-Cortez riding the subway and doing community organizing work. It was created by Means of Production, a media production company run by DSA activists Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes.
It's time for a New York that works for all of us.
On June 26th, we can make it happen - but only if we have the #CourageToChange.
It's time to get to work. Please retweet this video and sign up to knock doors + more at https://t.co/kacKFI9RtI to bring our movement to Congress. pic.twitter.com/aqKMjovEjZ — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) May 30, 2018
What was most exciting for progressives is the degree to which Ocasio-Cortez ran to Crowley’s left. As a member of the DSA, her website is a laundry list of every blue-sky progressive policy: Medicare-for-all, housing and jobs guarantees, gun control, ending private prisons, abolishing ICE, and investment in post-hurricane Puerto Rico.
She had some help from a major Crowley misstep — he sent a surrogate to a primary debate, which led to a scathing editorial from the New York Times. “This is the second primary debate in which Mr. Crowley was a no-show. A spokeswoman for Mr. Crowley said he had scheduling conflicts that wouldn’t allow him to attend the two debates, inevitably leaving voters to wonder — what are we, chopped liver?” the editorial read.
What does this mean for the Democratic Party?
Ocasio-Cortez’s victory is a story of the complacent establishment taking voters for granted. It’s the story of how the Democratic Party is getting pulled to the left. It’s also about how it’s not just progressive policies that are reshaping the party, but also people of color.
Ocasio-Cortez ran decidedly to the left of Crowley, but she also shook up how Democrats go about getting elected. Until now, Democrats have seen big money in politics as simply a deal with the devil that had to be made. Democrats are so often outspent by Republican mega-donors that they viewed courting big-dollar donors and corporations as part of creating a level playing field.
But if one of Democrats’ top fundraisers and likely successor to Nancy Pelosi can be toppled, perhaps Democrats need to rethink that deal.
Activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated powerful House Democrat Joe Crowley in a stunning primary election upset Tuesday, a result that could shake the foundations of the established party.
The 28-year-old's decisive victory over the fourth-ranking House Democrat in New York's 14th District holds potentially huge implications for the future of the party. Crowley, who has served in Congress for nearly two decades, had possible ambitions to challenge Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for House speaker if Democrats were to take a House majority in November's midterm elections.
“We beat a machine with a movement, and that is what we have done today,” Ocasio-Cortez told supporters Tuesday night. “Working-class Americans want a clear champion and there is nothing radical about moral clarity in 2018.”
In another race seen as defining the Democratic Party's path in 2018, primary voters emphatically backed a young woman who cast herself as a progressive on economic and social issues. Ocasio-Cortez, a community organizer and education advocate, is endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and ran to Crowley's left. With some votes still to be counted, Ocasio-Cortez led Crowley by about 15 percentage points.
She ran without corporate donors. Crowley's campaign spent spent about 16 times more than his challenger's did. The incumbent had about 10 times more money on hand than Ocasio-Cortez did as of early June.
Ocasio-Cortez promoted proposals such as Medicare for all, a jobs guarantee and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ocasio-Cortez argued that Crowley — a 56-year-old white man — could not properly connect with the diverse district.
She has earned support from the wing of the political left embodied by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont. In a tweeted statement, the senator congratulated Ocasio-Cortez on an "extraordinary upset victory."
"She took on the entire local Democratic establishment in her district and won a very strong victory. She demonstrated once again what progressive grassroots politics can do," he said.
The 14th District sits mostly in Queens and part of the Bronx, where Ocasio-Cortez was born. Crowley heads the Queens County Democratic Party. He had not faced a primary challenger in 14 years.
"I want to congratulate Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on her victory tonight. I look forward to supporting her and all Democrats this November," Crowley said in a statement Tuesday night. "The Trump administration is a threat to everything we stand for her in Queens and the Bronx, and if we don't win back the House this November, we will lose the nation we love."
Ocasio-Cortez is expected to win the blue district easily in November. She will face Republican Anthony Pappas, who ran unopposed Tuesday.
Crowley's loss raises new questions about who could challenge Pelosi for leadership following November's midterms. He is the only one of the top four House Democrats younger than 77-years-old.
In a statement, Pelosi congratulated Ocasio-Cortez on her victory. The California Democrat said Crowley brought "principled, unifying and forward-looking leadership to the historic challenges of the Trump administration."
President Donald Trump, for his part, cheered Crowley's loss. In a tweet Tuesday night, he called Crowley a "Big Trump Hater" and suggested the representative would have done better if he had supported the president more often.
"Perhaps he should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!" Trump wrote.
Of course, nothing at all indicates Crowley lost the primary in a deep blue district because he criticized Trump. Ocasio-Cortez's proposals to abolish ICE and ensure Medicare for all certainly do not align with the president, who has cracked down on illegal border crossings and railed against too much federal government involvement in health care.
The president also claimed that "the Democrats are in Turmoil!"
America’s Democratic party is reeling from the shock of a 28-year-old newcomer ousting one of its stalwarts in the party’s New York primary on Tuesday.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America, from the South Bronx, who volunteered for Bernie Sanders, used a grassroots campaign to beat Joe Crowley, a 10-term representative who many had expected to lead the Democrats in congress.
The result is a sign of the growing strength and appetite on the left to insert itself into federal politics and reject a Democratic establishment that has been criticised for its cosy relationship with major industries and reluctance to embrace leftwing policies on issues like healthcare and banking reform.
Mr Crowley is the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, and was widely believed to have had ambitions to become speaker of the house if Democrats were to regain control of congress in November.
But his opponent appeared to tap into leftwing winds that have now blown those ambitions away. The Tuesday results have even been compared to the ouster of former Republican representative Eric Cantor, who was a top member of Congress with major leadership aspirations when he was defeated in his formerly safe primary in 2014 by a far-right candidate as a part of the Tea Party wave.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign managed to rally high levels of grassroots support, an echo of the type of support that went to a presidential candidate she once organised for: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who ran a progressive Democratic primary campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Ocasio-Cortez told AP: “The community is ready for a movement of economic and social justice. That is what we tried to deliver.”
Born and raised in the South Bronx, she had no doubts about her ability to connect with voters.
“I live in this community,” she said. “I organised in this community. I felt the absence of the incumbent. I knew he didn’t have a strong presence”.
Donald Trump, on social media at least, seemed equally excited about Mr Crowley’s defeat.
“Perhaps he should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!” Mr Trump tweeted, oddly taking credit for a victory by a candidate well to the left of Mr Crowley. He added: “The Democrats are in Turmoil!”
Ms Ocasio-Cortez campaign raised more small-dollar donations than any politician serving from New York City, both in terms of the total amount, and as a percentage of her overall fundraising haul.
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AFP/US Geological Survey 42/50 18 May 2018 Santa Fe High School student Dakota Shrader is comforted by her mother Susan Davidson following a shooting at the school in Texas. Shrader said her friend was shot in the incident. Multiple people have been killed. Stuart Villanueva/The Galveston County Daily News via AP 43/50 17 May 2018 French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel meeting during the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Sofia, Bulgaria. Reuters 44/50 16 May 2018 People hold flags with the state coat of arms of Russia as they drive along a bridge, which was constructed to connect the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula across the Kerch Strait. Reuters 45/50 15 May 2018 Palestinians run away from tear gas shot at them by Israeli forces during a protest in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank AFP/Getty 46/50 14 May 2018 A Palestinian demonstrator runs during a protest against the US embassy move to Jerusalem and ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Nakba at the Israel-Gaza border. REUTERS 47/50 13 May 2018 A bullet hole on the window of a cafe in Paris, the day after a knifeman killed one man and wounded four other people before being shot dead by police AFP/Getty 48/50 12 May 2018 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel looks on after receiving the 'Lamp of Peace, the "Nobel" Catholic award for "her work of conciliation for the peaceful cohabitation of peoples" at The Basilica Superiore of St Francis of Assisi in Italy. AFP/Getty 49/50 11 May 2018 Police forensics investigate the death of seven people in a suspected murder-suicide in Australia. Four children are among seven people that were found dead at a rural property in Osmington, near Margaret River. Detectives are investigating the incident, which was said to be treated as a murder-suicide, media reported. Two firearms were found at the scene, Western Australia Police said. EPA 50/50 10 May 2018 Missiles rise into the sky as Israeli missiles hit air defense position and other military bases, in Damascus, Syria. The Israeli military on Thursday said it attacked "dozens" of Iranian targets in neighboring Syria in response to an Iranian rocket barrage on Israeli positions in the Golan Heights, in the most serious military confrontation between the two bitter enemies to date. Reuters
Ms Ocasio-Cortez is running to represent a diverse district covering parts of Queens and the Bronx, on a platform that includes Medicare for all and abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Before winning the primary, the campaign had already claimed credit for pushing Mr Crowley to the left on issues, and made him the only member of Democratic Congressional leadership to endorse universal healthcare.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez will now head into the general election in a district – New York’s 14th – where Mr Crowley won re-election in 2016 over his Republican challenger with 82.9 per cent of the vote.
On Monday former Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon, who faces her own fight against New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, endorsed Mr Ocasio-Cortez.
“She represents the future of the Democratic Party,” Ms Nixon said. “Alexandria and I are joining together to take on the old boys’ club, rejecting corporate money and run people-powered campaigns that envision a progressive New York that serves the many, not just the few who can afford to buy influence.”
Additional reporting by AP
