General Discussion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_New_York%27s_14th_congressional_district_election

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Backed by the organization Brand New Congress, Ocasio-Cortez challenged Crowley in the June primary alleging that Crowley was not progressive enough for the district. Ocasio-Cortez began her campaign in April 2017 while waiting tables and tending bar at Flats Fix, a taqueria in New York City's Union Square. "For 80 percent of this campaign, I operated out of a paper grocery bag hidden behind that bar," she told Bon Appétit.

Ocasio-Cortez was the first person since 2004 to challenge Crowley in a primary. She faced a financial disadvantage, saying: "You can't really beat big money with more money. You have to beat them with a totally different game." Ocasio-Cortez's campaign undertook grassroots mobilization and did not take donations from corporations. It was reported that the designs of the campaign posters were inspired by "revolutionary posters and visuals from the past." During the campaign, Ocasio-Cortez resided in Parkchester, Bronx, with web developer and boyfriend, Riley Roberts.

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The Most Powerful Democrat In Queens Must Finally Compete

https://www.villagevoice.com/the-most-powerful-democrat-in-queens-must-finally-compete/

June 19, 2017

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Before Crowley can get on with his ladder climbing, he needs to do something somewhat unfamiliar: run a campaign. For the first time since at least 2004, he will be forced to compete in a primary in the overwhelmingly Democratic district spanning northern Queens and a chunk of the eastern Bronx. Since Republican victories are all but impossible, the primary is where the action is — and where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 27-year-old former organizer for the Bernie Sanders campaign, hopes to pull off her historic upset.

“What Joe Crowley represents is the floodgate between Wall Street and the United States government. He’s the clearing house, he takes millions and millions of dollars in funding from them,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Voice. “We see how he’s come to power locally — it’s totally undemocratic, machine-run, dynastic. He’s trying to spread this same model on the federal level.” Ocasio-Cortez, attacking Crowley from the left, is just one of about a dozen candidates running on the slate of Brand New Congress, a political action committee founded by former Sanders staffers to elect more progressive members of Congress. She is the only member of Brand New Congress running from New York.

A resident of the Bronx neighborhood of Parkchester, Ocasio-Cortez organized Sanders’s campaign in the South Bronx — Hillary Clinton, heavily favored in New York City, won the Bronx handily — and started thinking seriously about running for Congress after Donald Trump’s election. She learned quickly that people usually didn’t even contemplate running against Crowley, let alone start an actual campaign. “A lot of progressive groups are coming out of the woodwork. They’ve been trying to find a challenger to Crowley for years,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s literally political suicide for anyone with a semblance of a political career.”

While the Sanders wing of the party has derided much of the Democratic establishment as too beholden to the status quo, it’s hard to find a congressman more representative of that establishment than Crowley. The Blackstone Group is his second most prolific donor. Bank of America, Verizon, and Tishman Speyer, the powerful New York real estate developer, round out the top twenty. He was an unflinching Hillary Clinton ally. Like many in his party, he supported the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. (His campaign argues that his donor list aligns with that of many other liberal Democrats, including Pelosi.)

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