US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t running in New York’s suburbs — but she’s become a campaign issue there in one of the Empire State’s most hotly contested congressional swing districts.
The House Republican Leadership PAC is running millions of dollars in TV ads linking Democrat Mondaire Jones to liberal firebrand Ocasio-Cortez to aid first-term GOP Rep. Mike Lawler in the tight race for the lower Hudson Valley’s 17th District.
The 17th District — covering Rockland, Putnam and parts of northern Westchester and Dutchess counties — has a sizable Jewish population, whose voters could account for 20% to 25% of the vote. Most of them are staunch backers of Israel, while Ocasio-Cortez has been a persistent critic.
Lawler and the GOP camp are claiming that Jones and Ocasio-Cortez are too far left for the district.
“He is the pride of New York right now, Mondaire Jones,” Ocasio-Cortez is seen saying in a video clip used in a series of 30-second ads, which are bankrolled by the Congressional Leadership Fund PAC.
The narrator chimes in, “AOC is proud of Mondaire because they share the same radical agenda.”
The clip then shows an interview of Jones saying, “we need to end mass incarceration … and defund the police.”
“Jones wanted to defund the police — just like AOC,” the narrator says. “He’ll do anything to make AOC proud.”
The CLF said it has reserved $8 million in spending on the race to aid Lawler, with AOC playing heavily in the ad rotation.
By comparison, Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan considers Ocasio-Cortez a campaign asset. She has stumped for Ryan in the swing 18th District, where he faces off against Republican Alison Esposito, retired NYPD deputy inspector and commanding officer.
On the other side, the Democratic Congressional Campaign is seeking to tie Lawler to former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
One 30-second ad shows a clip of Trump calling Lawler “spectacular” and then blasts his votes against abortion rights.
“Maybe Trump thinks Mike Lawler is spectacular because he voted to restrict abortion … at least 10 times,” the narrator says. “Really spectacular.”
The Jones campaign rapped Lawler on health care, claiming in an ad that he opposed lowering prescription drugs for seniors and objected to prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating against New Yorkers with pre-existing conditions like cancer and asthma.
Lawler disputed the ads.