Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced Friday that she was endorsing seven progressive female candidates in their congressional races (six in the House and one for Senate). Two of those women will be challenging incumbent Democrats–just like the race AOC won against 20-year Democratic incumbent Joe Crowley in New York in 2018.
Those sorts of races don’t often get backing from the Democratic Party, which is focused on flipping Republican seats. Ocasio-Cortez’s new PAC, Courage to Change, is capitalizing on her political celebrity (and the fundraising ability that comes from being so high-profile) to build a progressive campaign arm for Democrats who want to push the party left.
Today @CouragetoChange is announcing its first endorsements of newcomers to Congress:
SENATE
Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez (TX)HOUSE
Teresa Fernandez (NM)
Kara Eastman (NE)
Georgette Gomez (CA)
Marie Newman (IL)
Jessica Cisneros (TX)
Samelys Lopez (NY)https://t.co/sbSKTipijm— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 21, 2020
The women running against Democrats are Illinois’ Marie Newman and Texas’ Jessica Cisneros. Newman is challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski, who is anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQIA rights. Cisneros is up against Rep. Henry Cuellar, who is also anti-abortion and has an A rating from the NRA. With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?
According to the New York Times, AOC “has carefully selected the races in which she is intervening with an eye for districts where her seal of approval would help the primary challenger prevail.”
“Anyone can show up one day and say, ‘I support all these policies; that makes me a progressive,’” she told the paper. “But one of the things that is really important to us is winning.”
And winning in politics, unfortunately, takes money. That’s never been more clear than in the current presidential race, where Michael Bloomberg is using his billions of dollars to buy his way into the top tier of candidates. According to a Courage for Change fundraising pitch, “When community leaders, activists, and working-class candidates try to run for office, organizations like the D.C.C.C. [the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] discourage them. These potential progressive leaders are asked: ‘Can you raise $300,000 from your friends and family? If not, don’t bother trying.’”
Ocasio-Cortez tells the Times, “It’s important for us to create mechanisms of support because so much of what is happening in Washington is driven by fear of loss. We can really create an ecosystem that makes people more comfortable into making the leap to make politically courageous choices.”
AOC says the two goals of the organization are “to reward political courage in Congress and also to help elect a progressive majority in the House of Representatives” and both of those sound like things that would make our political landscape a hell of a lot better.
(via New York Times)
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