By Norman Solomon / The Hill
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) finally endorsed progressive Abdul El-Sayed last week in Michigan’s fiercely contested Democratic primary for an open U.S. Senate seat. The move was long overdue. In contrast, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) had endorsed El-Sayed more than a year ago and have been campaigning for him in the state.
This year, Ocasio-Cortez has gained serious media attention as a possible 2028 presidential candidate. But she could face erosion of the grassroots support she needs for a national campaign. By refusing to endorse progressives as they take on incumbent Democrats in competitive primaries, she has implicitly spurned those now trying to follow in her footsteps to Congress.
The 29-year-old activist Melat Kiros just defeated a 15-term House Democrat in a Denver district last week, after receiving Sanders’s endorsement. It was the fourth time in eight days that a democratic socialist had won a Democratic primary for Congress in a deep-blue district.
In New York City, three socialists won primary races, including two against incumbents. Mayor Zohran Mamdani had endorsed all three. Two of them, Brad Lander and Claire Valdez, had also received endorsements from Sanders.
Ocasio-Cortez, however, had not endorsed any of these winners.
The contrast with the Sanders approach is stark. Vermont’s senior senator has made a large number of endorsements to help promising progressive candidates get across the finish line, including when they are challenging Democratic members of Congress. Ocasio-Cortez is much more cautious, and ironically averse to endorsing upstart Democrats who are running in primaries against incumbents, especially her fellow House incumbents.
The galling reality is that the Ocasio-Cortez of 2026 would probably not have endorsed the Ocasio-Cortez of 2018.
Eight years ago, Ocasio-Cortez was the longshot hopeful who defeated the powerful 10-term Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), a fixture in New York politics since Ronald Reagan’s second term as president. But as Axios noted in mid-June, she “has avoided backing left-wing insurgents trying to unseat Democratic House incumbents, even though she got her start in politics by ousting a sitting member of her party.”