Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (best known as “AOC“) represents New York’s 14th congressional district in the House of Representatives, the lower legislative body in the U.S. Congress. She is a Democrat and identifies herself as a “Democratic Socialist.”
In her most recent congressional election on November 3, 2020, AOC won with 71.6% of the vote against John Cummings, the Republican candidate, who got 27.4% of the vote. AOC received a total of 152,661 votes to 58,440 for Cummings.
Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, who AOC defeated in the primary, received 0.5% of the vote running on the Serve America Movement party line. Write-in candidates received 0.1% of the vote in the race.
AOC has run for office in two general elections and two Democratic primaries has won every one of those races, most with overwhelming margins.
2018: First Election
AOC first ran for Congress in 2018. She challenged Rep. Joseph Crowley, who held the seat for 20 years. In the Democratic primary on November 6, 2018, AOC defeated Crowley by a margin of 56.7% to 43.3%. AOC got 16,898 votes while Crowley received 12,880 votes in his favor. The results were widely seen as an upset and the race is what catapulted AOC on to the national stage.
In the 2018 general election, AOC faced Anthony Pappas, the Republican candidate, while Crowley appeared on the ballot on the Working Families Party and Women’s Equality Party lines. AOC easily won that race with 78.2% of the vote to 13.6% for Pappas and 6.6% for Crowley. There were 110,318 votes cast for AOC in the 2018 general election.
2020: Second Election
AOC’s popularity led to many challengers in the 2020 Democratic primary. Of these, the most popular candidate was former CNBC reporter Michelle Caruso-Cabrera. AOC won by a large margin in the final vote. She received 74.6% of the vote to 18.2% for Caruso-Cabrera. 46,582 votes went to AOC in the primary election. Candidates also running unsuccessfully in the primary were Badrun Khan (5% of the vote) and Sam Sloan (2.2%) of the vote.
In the 2020 general election, against Republican John Cummings, AOC won 71.6% of the vote with 152,661 votes in her favor.
2022: Third Election
AOC will again be the incumbent in the 2022 election. The date for that general election will be November 8, 2022. If she chooses to run again for the seat, based on her electoral track record and the heavily Democratic registration in her district, AOC will be favored to win again.
Why Does AOC Keep Winning Her Seat?
AOC repeatedly wins her congressional seat, because it is a heavily Democratic seat. It is located in parts of the Bronx and Queens in New York City. 49.8% of the voters there are Hispanic, while 18.41% are white, 16.24% Asian, 11.39% Black, 0.45% Native American, and 3.71% other.
In 2020 the Cook Political Report, which rates the partisanship of congressional districts, rated NY-14 as +29 Democratic in their Partisan Voter Index. Cook rated the seat as “solid Democrat” before the 2020 election.
The district has been represented by a Democrat since 1993 and has voted for the Democratic candidate for president in every presidential election between 2000 and 2020. In the most recent presidential election in 2020, the NY-14 district voted for President Joe Biden over Donald Trump by a margin of 72% to 27%.
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