AOC plans to skip in-person debate with Democratic primary challengers

AOC is going AWOL for the city’s only in-person debate ahead of next week’s Democratic Party primary.

First-term Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens/Bronx) plans to skip out on a face-to-face showdown with three challengers Wednesday, her office told The Post.

Ironically, the Parkchester Times-sponsored debate is the same one the previous incumbent, three-term Rep. Joseph Crowley, shirked in 2018.

It was seen as a backhanded diss of his upstart opponent — and helped AOC unseat him in a shocking primary result one week later.

“Ocasio-Cortez is claiming her incumbency privilege,” Parkchester Times publisher Sheikh Musa Drammeh told The Post. “But if she does the same thing, history will repeat itself.”

The Democratic candidates in New York’s 14th congressional district met virtually for two online debates in the last month, “both of which are still available online for voters,” AOC spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said.

But the House of Representatives has no votes scheduled for Wednesday and a meeting of the House Committee on Financial Services, on which Ocasio-Cortez serves, will be held virtually.

In a June 5 debate, well-funded former journalist Michelle Caruso-Cabrera hammered the congresswoman as “a polarizing, divisive force” in the Democratic Party who voted against the coronavirus aid bill and drove a planned Amazon project out of Queens.

“I have been to all of the NYCHA projects within the district, and do you know what they tell me?” Caruso-Cabrera said. “AOC is MIA.”

“It’s taken her till now to face the realities of those suffering in the Bronx and Queens who want answers,” Caruso-Cabrera told The Post.

Local activist Badrun Khan and perpetual political candidate Sam Sloan are also scheduled to participate Wednesday.

The deep-blue 14th district has not elected a Republican since its lines were drawn in 1993 — so the winner of its June 23 Democratic primary will almost certainly become its next representative in Congress.

Early voting began Saturday, and a record 300,000 mail-in ballots — a number drastically swollen by coronavirus concerns — have gone out to city voters.

Source: Read Full Article