Perez: Ocasio-Cortez Is ‘The Future of Our Party’

Ocasio-Cortez recently shook up NY politics by defeating 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the party's congressional primary race.

"There are a lot of districts in this country that are like NY 14", Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press". However, at the ripe age of 5, Ocasio-Cortez's late father, Sergio Ocasio, an architect, moved her family an hour north to Yorktown Heights, a wealthy suburb of New York City in Westchester County.

At the end of the night, when it came time to split the $560 in tips she had gotten at the bar, Ocasio-Cortez gave the waitress only $50. She gained hundreds of social media followers, too, after an endorsement from Ocasio-Cortez was retweeted more than 10,000 times. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Justice Democrats would endorse universal Medicare, a $15 minimum wage and free tuition at public universities, all while turning down any corporate PAC money.

The right-wing host tried to discredit Ocasio-Cortez's message that has sparked enthusiasm among left-leaning voters. According to Corbin Trent, a Justice Democrats co-founder who spent seven weeks working full-time for Ocasio-Cortez, this was the dream all along - one breakthrough candidate who demonstrates that incumbents are beatable.

She said it was "exhausting just running in the Bronx and Queens" and she can't imagine how national candidates do it.

Ocasio-Cortez's response seemed to resonate with people on Twitter.

Ocasio-Cortez's brother's description differs from photos of the houses tweeted by Cardillo: "I owned & sold that home". "Your attempt to strip me of my family, my story, my home, and my identity is exemplary of how scared you are of the power of all four of those things", she tweeted. "I was born in a place where your Zip code determines your destiny".

A few days after Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., commented on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's upset victory, other established figures in the party voiced concerns that what worked locally may not translate as well nationally.

The 28-year-old Democratic Socialist was having none of it, however, and shot back at Cardillo, claiming that her mother "scrubbed toilets" so that she could live in a nice house.

  • Joey Payne