There aren’t a whole lot of Republicans in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Queens and Bronx district, but the few there are all seem to want to run against the firebrand progressive congresswoman.
Seven Republicans have already filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for the seat next year, and at least one more is publicly considering a run.
Any Republican nominee will face distinctly long odds to unseat one of the highest profile members of Congress in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, but that has not stopped would-be challengers from lining up for the chance to take her on. And whoever ends up running in November is likely to get plenty of air time. Ocasio-Cortez has become as much a a target of conservative media as she has a symbol of the newly energized left.
“She’s fired everyone up,” said Rey Solano, one of the slew of conservative challengers in the14th Congressional district. “She’s really annoyed a lot of people.”
Most of the Republicans are running for office for the first time, and they’re honing similar attacks on Ocasio-Cortez: She’s a socialist; she opposed the since-scuttled plans to build an Amazon headquarters in Queens; she supports the Green New Deal that Republicans warn will bankrupt the Treasury.
“The standard-bearer of socialism in America is in CD 14,” said Ruth Papazian, a medical writer from the Bronx who is looking for the Republican nod. “If you’re going to stop the spread of socialism, and especially the encroachment of socialism throughout the outer boroughs, you have to stop [Ocasio-Cortez].”
Papazian is the only Republican to have reported contributions from donors to the FEC through the end of June, with about $10,600 raised. Ocasio-Cortez, by contrast, has raised more than $1.9 million in the first half of the year.
While acknowledging the uphill battle, a number of the challengers are banking on the eventual Republican nominee getting an infusion of help from national Republicans looking to give the polarizing politician a run for her money. The sheer spectacle of the race is likely to draw no shortage of free media as well.
“By simply running against her, whether or not you have a real shot, it’s going to get you attention,” said Jeanne Zaino, a political science professor at Iona College. “All these people see it as a way to make a name for themselves on the Republican side.”
Papazian expects the Republican party to devote significant resources to the race, despite it being seemingly unwinnable.
“I doubt the state and national GOP is going to sit idly by and allow AOC to be re-elected. I think this is going to be a marquee race,” he said.
Scherie Murray, a Jamaican immigrant and mother of three, jumped into the Republican primary last month. Her campaign commissioned a poll that found 62 percent of voters would support a generic Democrat and 28 percent would back a Republican.
But when asked if they would vote to re-elect Ocasio-Cortez or vote for someone else, 37 percent picked the incumbent and 48 percent favored someone else. Without any candidates named, respondents also said they would prefer a candidate who backed the Amazon deal.
“Twenty-five thousand jobs were ousted,” Murray said. “We should be encouraging businesses to come into the state, versus pushing them out.”
Republican hopefuls are also painting the congresswoman as more interested in her growing national fame than her district’s block-by-block needs.
“She’s done a great job making a national profile for herself,” said John Cummings, a high school government teacher from the Bronx. “But we haven’t seen a lot of her around the district.”
Still, Cummings, a former NYPD officer, says Ocasio-Cortez’s upset win last year against longtime congressman and Queens Democratic boss Joe Crowley was one of his inspirations to run.
His students always asked him about running for office, he said.
“My answer was always, ‘I think it’s impossible to come from basically nowhere and take on someone like Joe Crowley,’” Cummings said. “It was softly pointed out to me my excuse was now, quote unquote, a lame one.”
A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez did not respond to requests for comment.
Registered Democrats in the district, which covers parts of western Queens and the eastern Bronx, outnumber Republicans by a margin of more than six to one.
“It would be a very uphill battle for somebody to make headway there in that district — very, very tough,” Iona’s Zaino said.
Ocasio-Cortez, who does not currently have a Democratic primary challenger, has proved such an attractive target that some Republicans who don’t live in the district have gotten into the race. The law requires members of Congress to live in the state they represent, but not necessarily the same district.
Murray lives outside the district in Laurelton, Queens. Solano, who owns a medical supply company and formerly ran a Bronx Republican club, is further afield in Somers in Westchester County. “We already started looking at houses in Queens and the Bronx,” he said.
Rich Valdes, a conservative talk radio producer, says he’s considering getting into the race despite currently living in Bergen County, New Jersey.
He formed an exploratory committee months ago when there as “an absence of Republican candidates” in the race and, now that the field is full, may consider backing one of the other contenders.
“I have no interest in running against anybody but her,” he said of Ocasio-Cortez. “It’s been one disaster after another.”
The would-be Republican candidates run the gamut from self-described centrists to devoted Donald Trump supporters.
Miguel Hernandez, a building superintendent with his own construction company on the side, says he was a Democrat until a few years ago when he switched parties over his opposition to abortion later in pregnancy.
He has chipped in more than $5,500 for his own fledgling campaign, and says his experience dealing with broken boilers and leaky pipes has prepared him well for politics.
“I’m very in-demand. I’m always out there at 1 o’clock in the morning, 2 o’clock in the morning fixing their problems, and I’m always the go-to guy,” Hernandez said.
Antoine Tucker, a Bronx entrepreneur, embraces far-right theories like the existence of a “deep state.” He speaks openly about the years he spent in prison for selling drugs, pushing a plan to wipe non-violent ex-offenders’ records clean if they stay out of trouble.
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a puppet,” he said. “I am the only person that can beat her. You’ll see, because I’m going to beat her.”
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine
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