According to Axios, Democrats on Capitol Hill have been nervously sending a new insider poll around for perusal. It has some damaging news for the party. The survey shows that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become the face of the party for swing voters. That might not be such a bad thing, if it weren’t for the fact that these same voters don’t like her…or socialism.
“If all voters hear about is AOC, it could put the majority at risk,” a top Democrat told Axios. “She’s getting all the news and defining everyone else’s races.”
The poll was reportedly taken in May; since then, Ocasio-Cortez has only grown more “popular” in terms of her media appearances. In the last couple of weeks alone, she has engaged in a high-profile feud with Nancy Pelosi – a feud that has split Democrats in Congress as well as those running the media. President Trump did himself no favors with his tweeting this week, which drew attention off this destructive feud and back onto his supposed “racism.” Even so, it didn’t change the fact that AOC is still very much the “face of the party.”
“The poll — taken in May, before Speaker Pelosi’s latest run-in with AOC and the three other liberal House freshmen known as ‘The Squad’ — included 1,003 likely general-election voters who are white and have two years or less of college education,” reports Axios. “These are the white, non-college voters who embraced Donald Trump in 2016 but are needed by Democrats in swing House districts.”
The poll found that 74% of the voters surveyed knew who Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was, but only 22% of them had a favorable view of her. The numbers weren’t any better for fellow Squad member Ilhan Omar: Of the 53% of voters who recognized her, an abysmal 9% had a favorable view of her. As for the concept of socialism, it was only viewed favorably by 18% of the surveyed voters.
“Socialism is toxic to these voters,” the unnamed Democrat told Axios.
Looking at these numbers in the broader context, there may have been more method than madness to Trump’s tweeting this weekend. It would seem the height of bad strategy to run in and knock the table over when Democrats are eating each other for dinner, but look what he’s done. All of a sudden, Pelosi and the Squad (as well as every single 2020 Democrat) are on the same page again. There’s no division. And if AOC and her brand of politics is as unpopular with swing voters as this poll suggests, embracing the freshmen congresswomen could be the worst thing the Democratic Party can do.
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