“No Amount of Money Can Buy a Movement”: AOC Beats Wall Street-Backed Primary Opponent

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez handily defeated CNBC contributor and Wall Street-backed challenger Michelle Caruso-Cabrera in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th Congressional District on Tuesday, a victory that the progressive congresswoman celebrated as evidence that “money couldn’t buy a movement.”

“Wall Street CEOs, from Goldman Sachs to Blackstone, poured in millions to defeat our grassroots campaign tonight,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted after the Associated Press declared her the winner Tuesday night.

“Thank you NY-14, and every person who pitched in for tonight’s victory,” the congresswoman said. “Here’s to speaking truth to power.”

Wall Street CEOs, from Goldman Sachs to Blackstone, poured in millions to defeat our grassroots campaign tonight.

But their money couldn’t buy a movement.

Thank you #NY14, and every person who pitched in for tonight’s victory.

Here’s to speaking truth to power. pic.twitter.com/g9aRV3Cu1B

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 24, 2020

The race was not close, despite Caruso-Cabrera’s aggressive corporate fundraising efforts and backing from finance industry titans like Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman — a donor to President Donald Trump — and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon.

With a 100% of precincts reporting, Ocasio-Cortez defeated Caruso-Cabrera 72.6% to 19.4%. Absentee ballots in New York have yet to be counted.

Ocasio-Cortez, whose landslide defeat of former Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018 stunned the Democratic establishment, stressed that she took the 2020 primary race seriously from the beginning in order to prove that her upset victory was no “fluke.”

“Our win was treated as an aberration, or because my opponent ‘didn’t try,'” the New York congresswoman tweeted. “So from the start, tonight’s race was important to me. Tonight we are proving that the people’s movement in NY isn’t an accident. It’s a mandate.”