Progressive freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Wednesday that she’s concerned that going into the Democratic convention without a clear presidential nominee will spur division in the party.
“I think a brokered convention obviously is more difficult for whoever the eventual nominee is. It’s important for us to have a decided nominee before the convention itself,” the New York congresswoman said. “The more tangled the process seems, the less transparent the process seems, the more divisive the situation is.”
Her comments came after Vice President Joseph R. Biden surged ahead in the Democratic primary in the Super Tuesday races, essentially narrowing down the election to him and Sen. Bernard Sanders.
“Instead of it being kind of this nebulous argument between the progressive wing and the more conservative wing of the party, I think now what we are talking about is actually a Bernie Sanders candidacy and a Joe Biden candidacy,” the New York congresswoman said.
After securing a much-needed victory in South Carolina last week and the endorsements of several former competitors, Mr. Biden went on to win 10 states. He also outpaced Mr. Sanders in the delegate count, with 566 total delegates to the Vermont senator’s 501.
However, Mr. Sanders, with four Super Tuesday states under his belt, also won the biggest prize of the night — California.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remained mum on whether superdelegates should be committed to the front-runner if that candidate only has a plurality of votes.
“That’s not even the issue,” said Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat. “The person who will be nominated will be the person who has a majority plus one. That may happen before they even get to the convention but we’ll see. The people will speak.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, part of Mr. Sanders’ team, said that it was hard to get boots on the ground everywhere they wanted to, given that Super Tuesday is a “national blitz.”
“In those early states, there was that advantage of a lot of lead time and investment,” she said. “Now, I think we revisit those models of organizing investment.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.