Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will not run for a seat in the US Senate next year, according to her office, clearing the way for incumbent New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, to run for re-election unopposed by the progressive congresswoman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe is not planning to run for Senate in 2024. She is not planning to primary Gillibrand,\u201d Lauren Hitt, Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s spokesperson, told Politico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gillibrand, who launched her re-election campaign in January for a third Senate term, was widely believed to be facing a number of potential challengers in the state primary, including Ocasio-Cortez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The announcement follows indications from other New York progressives, including Mondaire Jones and representatives Jamaal Bowman and Ritchie Torres, that they are not considering a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New York Democrats were hit hard in the midterm elections last year and the loss of four seats to Republican candidates is widely blamed for the party losing control of Congress. Avoiding an acrimonious challenge from the progressive wing of the party, and concentrating on recovering the 2022 losses, is considered to be Democrats\u2019 political priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s divisive. And unless you think you can win, it\u2019s divisive unnecessarily,\u201d Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York Democratic party, told Politico. \u201cIt\u2019s using up resources we need to preserve for more coordinated work and the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Camille Rivera, a New York-based progressive strategist, said that an intra-Democrat contest \u201ccould be pretty bruising and give a Republican a leg up\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Signs of a deal between Ocasio-Cortez and Gillibrand came after rumors of a Senate seat challenge began to circulate last year. Gillibrand has faced criticism for her part in forcing former senator Al Franken\u2019s resignation, accepting donations from indicted crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried and ties to Wall Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s staff\u2019s choice of language \u2013 \u201cnot planning to run\u201d is not the same as \u201cnot running\u201d. Bronx representative Jamaal Bowman told the outlet he heard AOC\u2019s name \u201cweeks ago or months ago maybe\u201d as a primary contender but hadn\u2019t heard it since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s indication comes as high-profile progressives have said they\u2019ll support Joe Biden\u2019s re-election bid, despite misgivings about parts of his agenda. Ocasio-Cortez has said she \u201cunequivocally\u201d supports the party\u2019s nominees.Since Biden\u2019s re-election soft launch on Tuesday, the sitting president has received endorsements from congressional progressive caucus leader Pramila Jayapal, representative Ro Khanna, and squad members Ilhan Omar, Greg Casar and Delia Ramirez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The endorsements come despite disquiet about Biden\u2019s recent push to the middle on crime, energy policy and immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that people are looking at the incredible accomplishments, particularly the investments in climate change and equity, racial justice, and seeing that this is night and day from what anyone else has been able to do,\u201d Jayapal told the Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senator Elizabeth Warren has said she\u2019s \u201cdelighted\u201d about Biden\u2019s decision. \u201cI\u2019m in all the way,\u201d she told the outlet.
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who ran for the Democrat nomination against Biden in 2020, told CNN\u2019s State of the Union Sunday: \u201cIf you believe in democracy, you want to see more people vote, not fewer people vote, I think the choice is pretty clear, and that choice is Biden.\u201d
But Sanders leaned on Biden to be stronger on working-class issues, and urged the president and the party \u201cto make it clear that we believe in a government that represents all, not just the few; take on the greed of the insurance companies, the drug companies, Wall Street, all the big money interests; and start delivering for working-class people.\u201d
\u201cYou do that, I think Biden is going to win in a landslide,\u201d Sanders added<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will not run for a seat in the US Senate next year, according to her office, clearing the way for incumbent New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, to run for re-election unopposed by the progressive congresswoman. \u201cShe is not planning to run for Senate in 2024. She is not planning to primary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[12487,9970,3115,5178,10387,3862,6693,9217,8918,11606,5799,913,2825,6576,11273,911,5494,8031,9972,2264,3496,6094,2471,5139,10419,3642,5721,5612,990,3805,5646,6944,8508,8501,6082,11325,7231,6348,10331,10829,3954,10415,594],"class_list":["post-32420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-agenda","tag-alexandria-ocasio-cortez","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-biden","tag-campaign","tag-climate-change","tag-congress","tag-congresswoman","tag-crypto","tag-democracy","tag-democrat","tag-democratic","tag-democratic-party","tag-democrats","tag-drug","tag-election","tag-energy","tag-equity","tag-gillibrand","tag-government","tag-ilhan-omar","tag-immigration","tag-joe-biden","tag-jones","tag-justice","tag-landslide","tag-losses","tag-money","tag-new-york","tag-president","tag-priority","tag-republican","tag-sam-bankman-fried","tag-senate","tag-senator","tag-street","tag-union","tag-us","tag-vermont","tag-wall-street","tag-will","tag-work","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}