Today, Explained - Born to run
Episode Date: June 28, 2018Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is set to become the youngest woman to ever serve in Congress this November. The 28-year-old Democratic Socialist defeated ten-term Representative Joe Crowley in a massive ups...et for the Democratic Party. Vox’s Kay Steiger explains whether socialism is the future of the left. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Kay Steiger, you run election coverage here at Vox.
There were primaries in five states this week, but everyone's talking about one state and one race. What happened Tuesday night in New York?
Representative Joe Crowley, who is a top Democrat in the House, he's the number four Democrat in leadership, he lost to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We begin with a stunning upset that has rocked the midterm elections. Democratic Congressman
Joe Crowley was defeated last night right here in New York City by 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Remember her name. She is a first-time candidate and it was a shocking win because she had run this
super grassroots campaign.
And he basically wasn't expecting a strong challenger at all.
He's been in office for 10 terms.
He first came into Congress in 1999.
This is actually the first competitive primary he's ever run.
This is a seismic upset, obviously the upset of the season. He was sort of appointed by his old boss in 1999 to his seat.
So he has sort of been in Congress a really long time, but never really had to run a real race.
What's the district like that they were competing in?
So this is a district in New York City, which spans parts of the Bronx and parts of Queens,
which if you've ever been to parts of the Bronx and Queens, you know that it's a place where there are a lot of people of color.
Joe Crowley is an Irish American, nothing against Irish Americans, but a lot of people sort of said he's not a great demographic fit for this district.
So I think it's about 70 percent people of color who live in that district.
So how important was it that she was a super young Latina?
I think that was super important to a lot of people.
One thing we've seen happening in elections across the country is, you know, we've seen
a ton of women standing up and saying, you know what, I want the government to look more
like me.
And she's just one of those people who has sort of stood up and said, I want the government
to represent me.
And I think it should include people like me.
Who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
Yeah, so she's a Bronx native. Her mom is Puerto Rican, and she's 28 when I'm assuming she's elected in November, will be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.
Incredible.
She's also a sort of a card-carrying Democratic socialist.
She's a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
She ran on things like Medicare for All.
She ran on things like abolishing ICE.
She ran on things like a federal jobs guarantee and housing as a human right.
So she's definitely a very progressive person.
And she's just a very dynamic speaker.
She's great to listen to. You have given this country hope. You have given this country proof that when you knock on
your neighbor's door, when you come to them with love, when you let them know that no matter your
stance, you are there for them, that we can make change. And she had sort of this viral campaign
video when she was first introducing herself to her district.
What was the video like?
The video is kind of amazing to watch.
It was created by some of her DSA colleagues in Detroit by a company called The Means of Production.
Nice.
But she sort of introduces herself.
And the case she makes for herself in the video is that this wasn't in
the plan. Women like me aren't supposed to run for office. I wasn't born to a wealthy or powerful
family. But I am running for office and here's my case. And I really want you to think about me as
a serious candidate, even if I don't have the money. She actually says in the video, this race is about people versus money. We've got people, they've got money.
How much did these two candidates' platforms differ?
Yeah, so I would say that Ocasio-Cortez and Joe Crowley probably won't have that different
voting records in Congress.
But what's different about them is sort of their attitudes about what they want from the Democratic Party and how they want to run.
The Democratic Party has sort of for a long time made this sort of deal with the devil in terms of big money in politics.
They recognize that Republicans have a ton of money on their side and they have to
raise money from either Silicon Valley or Wall Street or whatever it might be to compete on a
level playing field. But I think that in 2016, Bernie Sanders sort of shook up that model and
he said, you know what? We don't have to make that deal with corporations and Wall Street. We can raise
money through small dollar donors and we can run campaigns that way and make them truly grassroots.
Ocasio-Cortez's average donation was $18. Wow. But she beat him without having his money,
right? He had like establishment money. She had grassroots funding. He had about $3 million that he had fundraised. Somebody who worked closely with her campaign
told me recently that she wound up raising about $600,000. But I think ultimately that's
just a huge differential.
And did the two candidates meet like head to head at all? Was there a debate or anything like that?
Interestingly, they did hold primary debates,
but Joe Crowley did not show up. He sent a surrogate. This is something that the New York Times really smashed him on. They sent an editorial saying, don't take voters for granted,
Joe Crowley. And having that editorial sort of reminded people how much he took the district
for granted. Yeah, I didn't realize you were allowed to send surrogates to debates for you.
Me neither.
How much did this current political moment we're in with family separations
play into her campaign?
Ocasio-Cortez is someone who feels really strongly about immigration.
Instead of sort of running a campaign over the weekend,
she took time to go down to Texas to protest family separation.
And I think for her, it's a really important part of what's happening. I think she recognizes that the district she hopes to represent is one that has a lot of foreign porn people.
It has a lot of people
who came to America because they really believe in America. What was her reaction to winning?
I think she both believed in the grassroots campaign, but, you know, a 10-term incumbent,
that's a pretty big surprise, I think, even for her. So there's a video of her just in shock.
How are you feeling? Can you put it into words?
Nope.
Holding her hands over her mouth like she can't believe that this really happened.
When you said that you were going to take on Joe Crowley, I mean, people looked at you like you were crazy.
They did. They did. And maybe I was a little bit.
Is this a bit of an embarrassment for the Democratic Party?
Because they were clearly behind Crowley, right?
Yeah, I mean, definitely Crowley was part of the Democratic establishment. But to his credit,
he, I think, sees this as the way of the future. He actually, in his sort of concession speech,
dedicated a song playing guitar to Ocasio-Cortez, and he played Born to Run.
I say it with a band.
My buddy's here, too, so...
Saying that she is the person
who is born to run for the Democratic Party.
This is for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Wow. What's he going to do now? I don't know what he's going to do now, but I assume he's obviously well-connected.
I assume he'll keep working for the Democratic Party in some other capacity.
As the leader of their Springsteen tribute band, maybe.
Perhaps.
Does the Democratic Party have to become the Democratic Socialist Party
to win in the midterms this year?
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When was the last time we saw this kind of upset in either party?
Probably the closest analogy is in 2014 when Eric Cantor, who was then the majority leader, so he was really close to Speaker John Boehner at the time, lost his primary to an unknown candidate called David Brat. The loss is one of the most stunning primary election upsets in congressional history and delivered a major jolt to the Republican Party.
Cantor was widely considered the top candidate to take over for
House Speaker John Boehner when he stepped down. David Bratt said, Eric Cantor is just a creature
of Washington. He's a lobbyist. He spends all his time with the establishment and we don't want him
anymore. And Eric Cantor lost his primary. Was this like a Tea Party thing? This was a Tea Party
thing. And I think what's so interesting about what's happening here is this does in some ways remind me of the Tea Party.
The Tea Party ran many campaigns and seating many Republicans on the premise of repealing Obamacare.
You have a candidate who was sort of the heir apparent to the leadership in the Democratic Party.
And he got knocked out by a grassroots campaign.
Is this Ocasio-Cortez style upset happening elsewhere?
Or will we see it happening elsewhere?
This is definitely the highest profile situation of an upset, I would say,
of this type of grassroots campaign versus establishment candidate.
But it's not the only one that's happened this year.
There's a Democratic nominee in Nebraska of all places, Kara Eastman, and she ran on Medicare for
All. There's also another candidate named Katie Porter in Orange County, and she's running on
Medicare for All as well. And I think she has a pretty good shot in November as well. So we're
starting to see candidates running on Medicare for. So we're starting to see candidates running on Medicare
for all. We're starting to see candidates win on things like Medicare for all. And I think that's
something that is signaling a pretty big change in the Democratic Party. So what does the party
believe in? Ocasio-Cortez ran on abolishing ICE, on Medicare for all, on a federal jobs guarantee.
Do those ideas have room in the Democratic Party
platform? I will say that the Democratic Party has started embracing these ideas a lot more since
2016. For a long time, the Democratic Party was almost afraid to go too far to the left. You could
see it in how they constructed Obamacare. They really worked with insurance companies to make sure that they would
be on board with the bill. A lot of Democratic voters in the base recognize that the Republican
Party will paint them as socialists anyway. Obama's socialist policies are bankrupting
America. We must stop him now. I'm Rick Perry. I approve this message. This is a common refrain
with Obama. He's just a socialist. So they say, if we believe in this stuff, if we truly believe
in higher education for all, in economic mobility for all, let's just run on this stuff. Let's just
make sure that we are presenting the best version of liberal ideas out there rather than these
half measures. Every single one of the 2020 rumored candidates have embraced Medicare for all.
Today, we say the function of a rational health care system is to provide quality care to all
in a cost effective way.
Which means Medicare for all.
Quality, affordable health care.
Everyone, everyone gets a right to basic health care.
Is socialism not a bad word in American politics anymore?
Is this what this means or is it too early to say yet?
It is maybe a little too early to say, but I will say the Democratic Socialists of America,
which is an organization that has been around for decades in America, has seen an increase
in membership in the last few years. But this is also a half Bronx, half Queens district in New
York City, right? Exactly. Might there actually be some sort of resonance in this movement outside
of the most liberal states? I think the people in these
heavily Democratic districts should represent the most progressive parts of the party. I think there
is a sense that Democrats do need to think about, is this the kind of campaign they need to run
everywhere? Do they want to be sort of a, quote, big tent party and embrace people who are both
more conservative and more progressive? That is something we're still seeing play out throughout the country in 2018.
What's the flip side of this, like on the Republican side? Is it falling in line with
President Trump's policies in anticipation of the midterms?
Yeah, I have definitely seen the biggest trend on the Republican side is Republicans most likely to lose their primaries
or have to go into runoff elections are Republicans who have been openly critical of Donald Trump.
I think we saw that last week with Mark Sanford, who is a super conservative Republican,
but he had a habit of saying things about Trump when he didn't like him and he lost his primary.
So it sounds like the country's going
toward more extremes on the left and the right. What does that mean when the two sides come
together in a general election? Who's going to win? I think the general election is always a
little bit about base versus base. Who can you get most energized to turn out for you,
particularly in a non-presidential year.
The voters that show up tend to favor Republicans. They tend to be older. They tend to be whiter.
They tend to be people who just vote for the sake of civic responsibility. But we have seen so much
energy on the left. There's already been a lot of primary elections where Democratic turnout is spiking. But I do think it does turn
out to base versus base. Who is most energized to turn out? And with President Trump so unpopular,
it could just be the Republicans aren't that excited to turn out to vote. K. Steiger is the Washington editor at Vox.
I'm Sean Ramos-Firm.
This is Today Explained.
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