The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez primary is heating up.

For the second time in five days, the star freshman congresswoman is appearing alongside Bernie Sanders at a high-profile event. Rep. Ro Khanna, co-chairman of Sanders' campaign, is talking with Ocasio-Cortez's staff about the primary. And Sanders' team told POLITICO that he and Ocasio-Cortez "have had phone calls.”


Ocasio-Cortez's work on Sanders' 2016 campaign — and the fact that several staffers from that bid went on to work for her and the pro-Ocasio-Cortez group Justice Democrats — suggest the Vermont senator has the inside track for her coveted endorsement. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren is making an aggressive pitch for Ocasio-Cortez's nod, too: She’s met with her privately and wrote a gushing essay about her for Time magazine. An aide to Warren said their teams have been in touch.

“She is excited about both of their campaigns and the ideas they are putting forward,” said Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez. He added that the congresswoman isn't planning to endorse soon.

Khanna put it similarly: “I know [Ocasio-Cortez] has very strong positive feelings toward Sen. Sanders. I know she also has positive feelings toward Sen. Warren.”

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Sanders and Warren aren't the only candidates wooing AOC. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro have also made overtures to the first-term phenom.


“I think it’s one of the most important endorsements in America right now,” said Rebecca Katz, a progressive consultant who advised Cynthia Nixon’s left-wing gubernatorial campaign in New York. “AOC has captured the imagination of so many young people, so many women and so many nonpoliticos who really see her as a ray of light.”

Plus, Katz said, Ocasio-Cortez has a constituency that she “can really sway."

Ocasio-Cortez has spoken positively only about Sanders and Warren when asked about the Democratic field in recent weeks. The competition between Warren and Sanders for her support represents a new front in the delicate cold war between the two for the Democratic Party’s left flank.

Landing Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement would be a coup for Warren; even getting her to hold off on formally backing Sanders might be considered a win. For Sanders, an endorsement from her would symbolize that he was consolidating his grip on the left wing of the party even with Warren, a fellow progressive populist, in the race.

Khanna said he was told that Ocasio-Cortez would decide sometime before New York’s primary next year, well after voting is underway. By then, it will likely be clear whether Sanders or Warren has a better shot at the nomination.


Like Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders and Warren have spent their political careers railing against Wall Street. They also both endorsed the "Green New Deal."

But there are differences in their ideologies that could influence Ocasio-Cortez. While Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist like Ocasio-Cortez, Warren has said she is a “capitalist to my bones.”

“I think if AOC makes an endorsement, she’ll be looking at the candidates' closest to her governing vision and central message: naming the culprits in our nation’s ruling class and fighting for a multiracial democracy where all of us are entitled to things like health care, education and a livable planet,” said Waleed Shahid, communications director for Justice Democrats, which recruited Ocasio-Cortez to run for Congress. “That means policies that match the scale of our crises like single-payer 'Medicare for All' and a Green New Deal.”

The issue of representation of women in government could also play a role in Ocasio-Cortez’s decision. When asked about the 2020 primary by The Intercept earlier this year, she spoke about “the power of identity” and said “it’s great that we have multiple female presidential candidates.”

In a CNN interview last week, Ocasio-Cortez said she was entertaining the idea of endorsing someone in the primary, but “it’s not going to be for a while."

"What I would like to see in a presidential candidate is one that has a coherent worldview and logic from which all these policy proposals are coming forward,” she said. “I think Sen. Sanders has that. I also think Sen. Warren has that.”

She made similar comments in a Yahoo podcast last month. “I’m very supportive of Bernie," she said. "I also think that what Elizabeth Warren has been bringing to the table is truly remarkable.”

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted recently that former Vice President Joe Biden's forthcoming climate policy, which was described in a news report as a "middle-ground" approach, is a "deal-breaker."


Ocasio-Cortez is appearing with Sanders Monday at a rally for the Green New Deal. Last Thursday, she and Sanders introduced a plan to take on predatory lenders. Sanders live-streamed a discussion of the proposal with Ocasio-Cortez on his social media accounts, attracting nearly 860,000 views on Twitter and Facebook.

During the 2018 midterm election cycle, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders rallied for progressives candidates together. In December, Ocasio-Cortez joined Sanders at a town hall event on climate change.

“AOC has much deeper ties to Sanders,” said Bhaskar Sunkara, a Sanders backer who founded the socialist magazine Jacobin and is a former vice chairman of Democratic Socialists of America. "She credits her going into politics to Sanders and the Sanders campaign."

Warren, meanwhile, met privately with Ocasio-Cortez in Washington in March. A Warren staffer said “it was a good conversation” and that their staffs have been in contact since then. Warren's team also sat down with Shahid.

And last month, Warren penned a flattering article about Ocasio-Cortez for Time’s list of 100 most influential people, saying the congresswoman “fought back against a rigged system and emerged as a fearless leader in a movement committed to demonstrating what an economy, a planet and a government that works for everyone should look like.” Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed Warren’s plan to break up big tech companies and has cosponsored several of the senator's bills.

Ocasio-Cortez "knows her support base likes both of them. She knows the only thing brighter than her spotlight is the 2020 presidential spotlight,” said Adam Green, co-founder of Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is supporting Warren. “So it would be shocking if she did anything other than work with both Warren and Bernie in the foreseeable future to shine the spotlight on issues they all care about — and force the rest of the Democratic Party to respond."

