AOC is getting major pushback from swing-state Democrats in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections.
Their message? Please, just stay away.
Axios unleashed the nasty news and blasted it into the ether on Sunday night.
Democrats in some of this year's most critical congressional battlegrounds are sending a clear message to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: We don't want you to campaign for us.
Why it matters: If they continue, the snubs could hurt AOC's standing as a potential contender in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary, when many voters will prioritize electability.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is currently testing the waters for a potential Senate bid, so this is not a great sign that she has enough mainstream appeal for the “big leagues.”
Axios reports that Democrats in some of the most important battleground races this fall are shunning Ocasio-Cortez, with party officials saying some candidates have explicitly asked her team to stay away. One senior Democrat strategist working in a key swing district was especially blunt.
"The polling is atrocious for her," the strategist told Axios. "She's a lightning rod."
Here is the background Axios gave on the recent developments:
• Ocasio-Cortez and her allies argue that her unapologetic advocacy for big progressive policies like Medicare for All would make candidates like her more electable than moderate liberals, but many Democrats in tight races this fall have disagreed.
• She was welcomed by many Democrats in competitive primary races, but some of those candidates have distanced themselves as they've moved to the center to take on Republicans in the Nov. 3 election.
The timing couldn't be much worse for AOC because she's currently trying to prove that the AOC brand can travel.
She's barnstorming through upstate New York, meeting local officials and building a voter-turnout operation as she weighs whether to run for Senate or president in 2028. Her stops in Buffalo and Ithaca have effectively doubled as a test of her appeal outside her Queens-and-Bronx political base.
"I want to be very forthright about our intentions here, which is to transform the state of New York," AOC told activists in Buffalo.
There's just one small complication with that transformation project: Democrats who have to face competitive general-election electorates apparently aren't nearly as excited about attaching themselves to AOC as Democrat primary voters are.
Montana Democrat Sam Forstag provides a perfect example. Forstag happily rallied with AOC in May on his way to winning the Democratic House primary. Now he's running in conservative Montana in November, and Axios asked whether he'd like AOC to come campaign for him again.
"I don't intend to be having a lot of folks from out of state campaigning with me over these next 40 days," Forstag replied.
And he doesn't intend to advertise her support much, either. Forstag has scrubbed Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement from his campaign website. Ouch, how Stalinist of him.
Democrats when they’re trying to win a Democrat primary? AOC, come on down.
When they’re trying to convince Montana swing voters that they’re not some socialist from Brooklyn wearing a cowboy hat? Sorry, AOC, we're all booked up.
The same disappearing act is playing out in Michigan. Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed brought AOC in to campaign with him during the final weeks of his primary. He and his allies spent nearly $1 million on television advertising featuring her, according to AdImpact data reported by Axios.
Then El-Sayed won. Since then, Axios reports that he has spent almost nothing on television ads featuring Ocasio-Cortez. She also hasn't campaigned with him while Republican Mike Rogers attacks him as too far left for Michigan, although El-Sayed's campaign insists she'd be welcome back.
See the pattern?
Democrats know exactly what Republicans know: AOC is one of the most recognizable faces of the party's socialist wing. She is the Democrat Party’s pitch for “cosmetic socialism.” Put her onstage and voters don't need a 30-page opposition-research packet to understand what they are getting: Wild-eyed, unrealistic, but “fun” socialism.
The fun wears off, however, when the Democrats force you to pay for it.
If you want to understand why America is in an affordability crisis, this is it: The U.S. government is forcing you to pay for socialist nonsense, and all of the endless trillions of dollars in corrupt spending that comes along with it.
Reckless government spending is why taxpayers are having a hard time paying for gas and groceries and mortgages and the rest of it, more than any other reason.
But America's mind-boggling $40 trillion in national debt is child's play compared to the hundred-trillion-dollar-plus pricetag that socialists have in store for Americans who are foolish enough to vote them into power.
So, AOC has been frantically trying to pivot to the middle with her 'Woke 1 was crazy' nonsense. Axios notes that her rhetoric increasingly echoes Barack Obama's 2008 "hope and change" pitch. Gag me with a spoon.
The New York congresswoman is trying to prove she can travel beyond the radical base at the same time candidates in competitive districts are telling her to keep away.
Swing-state Democrats are behaving as though their association with the country's most famous “democratic socialist” is something to conceal since their primaries are over.
It raises a great question: Since radical Democrats all vote the same way at the end of the day, why should they even pretend they aren't socialists as well?
The Americans need to stop falling for this act. Until proven otherwise, there is no such thing as a “moderate Democrat.”
Democrats might as well be campaigning with Chairman Mao. They aren't fooling anyone.
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.
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