Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., passed her first big test with a primary victory over former CNBC star Michelle Caruso-Cabrera.
But AOC isn’t sitting pretty just yet.
Her next opponent — a Republican — in the upcoming November election is her worst nightmare.
John Cummings spent eight years as a police officer in New York City before an injury forced him out of the job. Now, he works as a high school civics teacher.
And you can bet on one thing: A former cop like Cummings, who served in the line of duty, is going to ceaselessly hammer Ocasio-Cortez on her calls to defund police. In spite of New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio’s $1B police funding cut — a move critics say gutted the New York Police Department — Ocasio-Cortez was still left unsatisfied by the move.
While many police departments are in need of reform, it’s no secret that the “defund the police” movement is unpopular among Americans.
It’s such a losing message that polls show Americans oppose it by a 2-to-1 margin.
But, of course, Ocasio-Cortez remains hopelessly extreme and out of touch.
Meanwhile, the crime rate in the Bronx in particular is through the roof. It’s higher than the crime rates in 83% of other American cities.
So you can be certain that Ocasio-Cortez’s positions on dramatic reductions in community policing are making her district voters nervous.
Internal polling for Cummings’ campaign found that nearly 40% of district voters thought Ocasio-Cortez was an “out of touch radical.”
Cummings, a Bronx resident, has reportedly raised $3.5 million from more than 70,000 donors in all 50 states.
“AOC’s victory is far from certain and her negatives within the district are much higher than expected,” an internal memo from Cummings’ campaign, obtained by the New York Post, said.
“A well-funded candidate with an NYPD/education background and deep ties to the district can beat AOC,” the memo continued.
Ocasio-Cortez may have no trouble making radical comments about defunding police to the far-left media, which fawns over her every word.
But as the election nears, she’s going to have to call for police officers to lose their jobs straight to the face of an ex-cop.
That’s a bad look. That’s a nightmare. And it’s an argument that Ocasio-Cortez is guaranteed to lose.
The Horn editorial team