• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • News
  • Business
  • Lifestyle
Bernie Sanders, Stuck in Trump’s Trial, Leans on Star Power of ‘AOC’

Bernie Sanders, Stuck in Trump’s Trial, Leans on Star Power of ‘AOC’

January 26, 2020
Illinois Dems Lay Budget Woes At Trump’s Feet After Taxing Their Citizens Into Ground

Illinois Dems Lay Budget Woes At Trump’s Feet After Taxing Their Citizens Into Ground

June 2, 2025
Dem Senator Really Doesn’t Like Showing Up To Work On Mondays

Dem Senator Really Doesn’t Like Showing Up To Work On Mondays

June 2, 2025
Scott Jennings Shuts Down Podcast Host’s Claim That Political Violence Comes From ‘Both Sides’

Scott Jennings Shuts Down Podcast Host’s Claim That Political Violence Comes From ‘Both Sides’

June 2, 2025
Maxine Waters Punished For Accepting Illegal Donations

Maxine Waters Punished For Accepting Illegal Donations

June 2, 2025
John Fetterman Lays Into His Party For ‘Unacceptable’ Handling Of Border Crisis

John Fetterman Lays Into His Party For ‘Unacceptable’ Handling Of Border Crisis

June 2, 2025
Trump Admin Walks Back Biden Rule ‘Smothering’ Alaskan Oil

Trump Admin Walks Back Biden Rule ‘Smothering’ Alaskan Oil

June 2, 2025
Supreme Court Declines To Consider Blue State AR-15 Ban For Now

Supreme Court Declines To Consider Blue State AR-15 Ban For Now

June 2, 2025
Pope Leo Reinstates Bonus To Vatican Workers That Francis Nixed

Pope Leo Reinstates Bonus To Vatican Workers That Francis Nixed

June 2, 2025
TIMOTHY LEE: Copyright Will Strengthen, Not Weaken AI

TIMOTHY LEE: Copyright Will Strengthen, Not Weaken AI

June 2, 2025
Video Shows Humanoid Robot Going Rogue in Chinese Factory 

Video Shows Humanoid Robot Going Rogue in Chinese Factory 

June 2, 2025
Jasmine Crockett Reveals Whether She Plans To Run For President

Jasmine Crockett Reveals Whether She Plans To Run For President

June 2, 2025
NAACP Accuses Musk Of Endangering Black Communities With Supercomputer Fumes

NAACP Accuses Musk Of Endangering Black Communities With Supercomputer Fumes

June 2, 2025
  • Donald Trump
  • State of the Union
  • Elon Musk
  • Tariffs
  • Congress
  • Faith
  • Immigration
Monday, June 2, 2025
  • Login
IJR
  • Politics
  • US News
  • Commentary
  • World News
  • Faith
  • Latest Polls
No Result
View All Result
IJR
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Bernie Sanders, Stuck in Trump’s Trial, Leans on Star Power of ‘AOC’

by Reuters
January 26, 2020 at 7:20 am
in News
240 12
17
Bernie Sanders, Stuck in Trump’s Trial, Leans on Star Power of ‘AOC’

REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

491
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders drew large, passionate crowds in Iowa this weekend, even when he was not there.

The U.S. Senator from Vermont has been rising in opinion polls just as Iowans prepare to pick their choice of Democratic presidential nominee on Feb. 3, but has been stuck in Washington, where he is serving as a juror in Republican President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

In lieu of the candidate himself, Sanders supporter Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a first term U.S. congresswoman from New York, has proven almost as much of a draw, filling rallies and town halls and galvanizing members of what she called a “mass movement” led by Sanders to push progressive politics.

“It doesn’t rely on any one person to carry this whole movement on their back. We all shoulder a little,” she told a group of volunteers going out to canvass for Sanders in Cedar Rapids on Saturday morning.

The strong turnout for Sanders even in his absence underscores the strength of his young and diverse base of supporters, who have rallied behind his unapologetic liberalism. But it also shows as much enthusiasm for 30-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, who became a star of U.S. left-wing politics after being elected to the House of Representatives in 2018.

Interviews with a dozen prospective caucus-goers over two days showed her backing had lent Sanders a degree of youth appeal and bolstered his progressive credentials, especially on Ocasio-Cortez’s signature issue of tackling climate change.

Sanders, proposing tax hikes for the wealthy and corporations to fund measures such as universal government-run healthcare and tuition-free college, is rising just as the first voting nears, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll this week, polling at 20% and just behind Joe Biden, the front-runner and former vice president.

In Iowa, whose first-in-the-nation caucuses have an outsized role in picking presidential nominees, Sanders is leading some polls or in a statistical tie with Biden and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

His rise has come since Ocasio-Cortez, wildly popular among progressives and known for her bare-all social media presence, formally endorsed him in October just after a heart attack threatened to cut short his second run for president.

“It gave him a needed boost at an important time, but also I think it signaled for a lot of young progressive people that this is the campaign that we should throw down for,” said Sayles Kasten, Iowa State director for the Sunrise Movement, a youth group organizing on climate change that endorsed Sanders this month.

Grant Woodard, an Iowa lawyer and former Democratic political operative in the state, said Ocasio-Cortez and filmmaker Michael Moore, who campaigned alongside her this week, were “cat nip” to Sanders’ base, but were not likely to expand his appeal to moderate Democrats.

Sanders, an avowed Democratic Socialist, remains a “polarizing figure in the party,” he said.

“I guess we’ll see as this plays out how much of a thirst for Democratic Socialism there in the national Democratic Party. I don’t know if it’s that great,” said Woodard.

STAR POWER

All the Democrats running for president are sending out high-profile allies, Hollywood stars and family members to campaign on their behalf or alongside them, but few attract the level of excitement seen for Ocasio-Cortez, better known by her initials AOC.

On Friday night, Sanders’ voice boomed in briefly at a college hall in Iowa City when he called in from Washington by phone after the day’s impeachment trial proceedings, but it was Ocasio-Cortez who got a rock-star welcome from the crowd of more than 800.

“She’s actually talking about issues that other politicians don’t bring up regularly, like student debt and medical care,” Max Oelmann, 19, a freshman studying social work. “I think she’s good at cutting through the bullshit, which is what a lot of people like about her.”

Ocasio-Cortez, who volunteered as an organizer for Sanders’ 2016 campaign, is the author of the Green New Deal congressional bill that Sanders incorporated into his electoral platform and which envisions massive investment in clean energy.

Her endorsement – along with the support of other high-profile progressive lawmakers Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib – came at the pivotal moment of Sanders’ campaign in early October, when the 78-year-old was hospitalized and had two stents inserted in an artery.

Sanders, a Brooklyn native, vowed to stay in the race and drew nearly 26,000 people to a comeback rally alongside Ocasio-Cortez in the New York City borough of Queens, the largest crowd for any Democrat in the 2020 campaign.

‘IF SHE ENDORSES, I’M OBVIOUSLY GOING TO LIKE HIM’

During her latest swing through Iowa this weekend, Ocasio-Cortez, whose family hails from Puerto Rico, visited mainly colleges and towns with Latino populations, as Sanders’ campaign hopes to turnout both students and Hispanics – groups that tend to support his progressive platform but are historically less likely to turn out to caucus.

Sanders joined her in Iowa for more rallies after the Senate broke on Saturday.

Alli Marshall, 19, a junior at the University of Iowa who attended Friday’s rally, said she discovered Ocasio-Cortez through videos showing the congresswoman grilling witnesses in hearings. In one video that went viral on social media in October, she upbraided Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg for failing to stop political misinformation on his platform.

“I was all like, wow! She’s awesome. She was just nailing them,” said Marshall, adding the congresswoman’s endorsement had helped her decide to caucus for Sanders and volunteer for his campaign.

“Honestly, if she was a candidate, I would vote for her, but she’s not. So if she endorses (Sanders), I’m obviously going to like him.”

(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Alistair Bell)

Tags: 2020 Presidential ElectionAlexandria Ocasio-CortezBernie SandersImpeachment
Share196Tweet123
Reuters

Reuters

Reuters is an international news organization.

Advertisements

Top Stories June 10th
Top Stories June 7th
Top Stories June 6th
Top Stories June 3rd
Top Stories May 30th
Top Stories May 29th
Top Stories May 24th
Top Stories May 23rd
Top Stories May 21st
Top Stories May 17th

Join Over 6M Subscribers

We’re organizing an online community to elevate trusted voices on all sides so that you can be fully informed.





IJR

    Copyright © 2024 IJR

Trusted Voices On All Sides

  • About Us
  • GDPR Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Editorial Standards & Corrections Policy
  • Subscribe to IJR

Follow Us

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Politics
  • US News
  • Commentary
  • World News
  • Faith
  • Latest Polls

    Copyright © 2024 IJR

Top Stories June 10th Top Stories June 7th Top Stories June 6th Top Stories June 3rd Top Stories May 30th Top Stories May 29th Top Stories May 24th Top Stories May 23rd Top Stories May 21st Top Stories May 17th