State Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs ripped into Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wednesday over disappointing results in key New York battleground congressional and legislative races last week.
Jacobs, who also serves as the Nassau County Democratic leader, said he’s had it with AOC and other left-wingers lecturing Democrats who have to fight to compete and win races in purple districts in Long Island and upstate.
“AOC has no standing on how to run a general election in the suburbs and upstate. AOC is in a district that’s 6-1 Democrat and she couldn’t find a Republican in her district with binoculars,” Jacobs told The Post.
“I invite AOC to come to Long Island and stand for election in one of our districts. You’ll see different results,” Jacobs said.
Ocasio-Cortez, who represents portions of The Bronx and Queens in the 14th congressional district, won re-election to a second term over Republican challenger John Cummings last week.
Jacobs said Democrats wouldn’t have secured control of the state Senate in 2018 without winning battleground suburban and upstate districts. Progressive laws such as controversial bail reform would not have occurred without them, he said.
The Democratic in-fighting comes as the party surprisingly lost House seats even though former Vice President Joe Biden defeated President Trump in the race for the White House at the top of the ticket.
In New York, Republicans were leading Democratic incumbents and others running in vacant seats in the machine count for congressional races on Long Island and Staten Island and about a half dozen state senate races. But about 1.5 million absentee ballots are still being counted that could tilt the outcome.
Republicans up and down the ballot ran a law-and-order campaign in New York that attacked Democrats for approving a law that eliminate cash bail for many criminal defendants, backing the “defunding” of the police and advancing socialism. Democrats running the purple districts oppose defending police and socialism but their lefty counterparts including AOC support the latter two positions.
Jacobs, like South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, said the ‘defund the police’ slogan pushed by progressives hurt Democrats in swing districts.
Ocasio-Cortez also stood her ground on Twitter, saying what is morally right at any given time is not always popular.
‘The idea that politicians can control activist messaging doesn’t make sense. They don’t work for us,” she said on twitter Wednesday.
“Our job is to listen and develop our message, own it, win & lead. Civil rights movement didn’t poll well at the time either. MLK was disliked. Does that mean he wasn’t effective.”
“Activists don’t focus group. BLM is not the DNC. It’s a pols’ job to own their message.”
Last week she also criticized some losing Democratic incumbents for failing to invest money into social media.
“The whole `progressivism is bad’ argument just doesn’t have any compelling evidence that I’ve seen. When it comes to `Defund’ & `Socialism’ attacks, people need to realize these are racial resentment attacks. You’re not gonna make that go away. You can make it less effective,” she wrote.
This is an excerpt from the New York Post. For the full version, click here.
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