(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may mount a primary challenge against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, her fellow New York Democrat, after she rebuked him for voting for a Republican-backed stopgap spending bill.
“I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal,” Ocasio-Cortez said while addressing reporters at the DNC’s annual policy retreat in Virginia, according to the liberal CNN outlet.
Her comments came after Schumer, along with nine other Democratic senators, voted to advance legislation that would fund President Donald Trump’s government through Sept. 30.
Had Democrats not supported the temporary funding bill, they could have been easily blamed for a government shutdown as Republicans in both chambers of Congress had already endorsed the measure.
Ocasio-Cortez had a different plan. The self-described socialist Democrat wanted Schumer to reject the bill, claiming, “We have time to correct course on this decision.”
“Senate Democrats can vote no,” she added. “We can correct course, and that is the most important thing in front of us right now.”
New "left" just dropped
It now includes virtually every House
Democrat who won a Trump district https://t.co/H2yNfwDId4— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 14, 2025
Some Democrats became so angry with Schumer that they encouraged Ocasio-Cortez to primary him in the 2026 midterm elections. Schumer was first elected in 1993, and he won his last reelection in 2022.
Ocasio-Cortez was first elected in 2018 after defeating former Rep. Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary. Crowley was long seen as a potential Democratic speaker of the House.
“Multiple Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus and others directly encouraged Ocasio-Cortez to run on Thursday night after Schumer’s announcement, this member said,” CNN reported, citing an anonymous source.
At a Friday retreat, even centrist Democrats were “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate,” CNN noted.
Ocasio-Cortez has ignored questions about a potential Senate run, but on Friday she declared, “There are members of Congress who have won Trump-held districts in some of the most difficult territory in the United States who walked the plank and took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people, in order to defend Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare.”
She added, “Just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk, I think is a huge slap in the face. And I think there is a wide sense of betrayal if things proceed as currently planned.”
Republicans’ partisan spending bill turns the federal government into a slush fund for Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
It’s unthinkable that any Senate Democrat would hand them a blank check by voting for cloture. pic.twitter.com/bAfJabwfkN
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) March 14, 2025
