Democratic New York Rep. Ritchie Torres said during a Thursday podcast that those in his party who believe they should move further to the left are drawing the wrong conclusion from their November 2024 election defeat.
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s victory, Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez embarked on a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour in February, speaking to large crowds about how to combat “the Oligarchs and corporate interests who have so much power” in the U.S. However, Torres argued on “Politic War Room” that Democrats lost in 2024 due to catering to the “far left” and won’t find success by doubling down on a failing strategy.
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“I felt the main reasons we lost were inflation and immigration … when it comes to inflation, we as Democrats were victims of circumstance. Where we do, I think, bear more responsibility is on immigration,” Torres said. “Since 2022, there was an overwhelming flow of migration at the border, whose impact was felt in cities like New York, where the shelter system, the social safety net and our finances were completely overwhelmed.”
“There was a poll in December of 2023 showing that 85% of New Yorkers, in a blue city, were concerned about the impact of the migrant crisis on New York City,” he continued. “And the Biden administration waited two and a half years before taking action against the migrant crisis, and by then, it was too late. The damage was done. Republicans had successfully weaponized the issue against us.”
Former President Joe Biden finally unveiled an immigration executive order in June 2024 after months of insisting there was no action he could take to alleviate the border crisis. The executive action paused new asylum requests once the number of migrants entering the U.S. reached a daily average of 2,500 over the span of a week.
Torres asserted the executive order received broad support among the American public and helped mitigate the crisis, but that Biden waited too long based on his courting of the far left.
“Why did he wait so long before acting? And the answer is simple: He was pandering to the far left, like the far left has outsized power over the messaging and policymaking of the Democratic Party,” Torres said. “And that has made us less viable in general elections.”
“And so I find it odd now there’s an argument in order to, you know, reverse the results of the 2024 election, we have to embrace the far left,” he added. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Democratic strategist James Carville, who hosts “Politics War Room,” also argued March 7 that the Democratic Party lost on immigration in the 2024 election because Biden heeded advice from the “idiotic far left.”
During the Biden administration, migrant encounters surpassed 2.4 million and 2.1 million in fiscal years 2023 and 2024, with a record of over 300,000 migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in December 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.
When asked to identify the Democratic figurehead they think “best reflects the core values” of the party, 10% of Democrats selected Ocasio-Cortez, while 8% chose Sanders, according to a CNN/SSRS poll published March 16.
Former Democrat megadonor John Morgan asserted on March 20 that the left-wing politicians’ anti-oligarchy tour will backfire, saying they both motivate Trump’s supporters.
“See, AOC and Bernie [galvanize] MAGA because MAGA hates them and the thing MAGA loves the most other than what they love, they love watching them twisting and turning,” Morgan said.
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