Democratic Power Broker, Once a Possible House Leader, Loses New York Primary

Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York, once seen as a possible successor to Nancy Pelosi as Democratic leader of the House, suffered a shocking primary defeat Tuesday, the most significant loss for a Democratic incumbent in years and one that will reverberate across the party and the country.

Crowley was defeated by a 28-year-old political newcomer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former organizer for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, who had declared it was time for generational, racial and ideological change.

The last time Crowley, 56, even had a primary challenger, in 2004, Ocasio-Cortez was not old enough to vote.

Crowley, the No. 4 Democrat in the House, had drastically outspent his lesser-known rival to no avail, as Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign was lifted by an aggressive social media presence and fueled by attention from national progressives hoping to flex their muscle in a race against a potential future speaker.

Ocasio-Cortez had used Crowley’s role in the leadership, and the fact that he was the head of the local Democratic Party, against him in her insurgent bid to upend the existing political class. She will face Anthony Pappas, the Republican candidate, in the November general election.

Crowley is the first Democrat in the nation to lose a primary in 2018. His loss is most significant for a congressional incumbent since Eric Cantor, then the No. 2 Republican in the House, fell short in 2014 to a Tea Party activist, David Brat.

Like that contest, the Crowley defeat is expected to shake up Congress, where Crowley was seen as one of the top contenders to replace Pelosi, if she stepped aside following the midterms.

With 91 percent of precincts reporting, Ocasio-Cortez had an insurmountable lead over Crowley, 58 percent to 42 percent.

“It’s surreal,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a live television interview as the votes were being tallied showing her in the lead.

By then, the televisions were off at what was supposed to have been Crowley’s victory party.

Crowley appeared rattled when he address the crowd. “I know you’re all trying your best to make me cry, but it’s not gonna happen,” he told his supporters.

Ocasio-Cortez is a native of the Bronx and a Latina in a district — which covers parts of Queens and the Bronx — that is majority-minority, a fact she emphasized repeatedly on the trail against Crowley, who is white.

“Women like me aren’t supposed to run for office,” Ocasio-Cortez said at the start of a biographical video that went viral last month and was viewed more than half a million times.

She ran as a woman, as a young person, as a working-class champion, as an unabashed liberal and as a person of color. She piled up endorsements from national progressive groups in recent weeks and from Cynthia Nixon, who is running her own insurgent bid for governor against Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“What I see is that the Democratic Party takes working-class communities for granted, they take people of color for granted and they just assume that we’re going to turn out no matter how bland or half-stepping these proposals are,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a recent interview about why she was running.

A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Ocasio-Cortez gathered endorsements from liberal groups like MoveOn, Democracy for America, and People for Bernie.

In a surprise move, Ocasio-Cortez had left New York entirely in the final weekend before the election, traveling to Texas to protest the separation of children from their parents who crossed the border illegally.

That came on the heels of her call to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Crowley heated up his own rhetoric in response to her challenge, calling it a “fascist organization,” but stopped short of saying it should be dissolved.

Ten days before the primary, Crowley skipped a debate against Ocasio-Cortez and instead sent a surrogate, a Latina former city councilwoman. Ocasio-Cortez called it “a bizarre twist” on Twitter to be seated across from someone “with slight resemblance to me” instead of her opponent.

Ocasio-Cortez waged a sharp and sometimes personal campaign. She attacked Crowley for not living in the district and, specifically, for sending his children to school in Virginia. When tear gas was released on protesters in Puerto Rico, she tagged Crowley on Twitter and wrote, “You are responsible for this.”

Crowley’s loss stunned Democrats in Washington, where he had begun meeting with lawmakers in small groups in a quiet effort to prepare for a bid for the speakership.

The departure of the affable, guitar-strumming New Yorker leaves a gaping vacuum. He is the top-ranked Democrat in the House Democratic leadership under the age of 70. Rep. Steny Hoyer, a longtime rival of Pelosi, now is freed from having to worry about Crowley, his protégé-turned-rival.

But some House Democrats, speaking anonymously to discuss a delicate topic, said Tuesday night that given the party’s changing face, it would be difficult to dump Pelosi for an older, white male lawmaker.

The defeat of Crowley could therefore offer an opportunity for an even younger vanguard of House Democrats to assert themselves.

In a flurry of phone calls and text messages, Democratic lawmakers floated names such as Cheri Bustos of Illinois, Linda Sanchez of California, Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts as potential alternatives to Pelosi.

As for Ocasio-Cortez, she had complained in recent weeks about media coverage that didn’t include her name but only that of the better-known man she was running against.

“Headlines from the Political Patriarchy,” she wrote on Twitter of one recent story.

Now, she is likely to be in headlines for years to come.