Challenging fellow New York Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries would open an audacious new front in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s efforts to steer the direction of the Democratic Party. | Charles Krupa/AP Photo Elections Ocasio-Cortez weighs a new primary target: Hakeem Jeffries Jeffries, the newly elected No. 5 Democrat in the House, has drawn criticism from the left since the party's leadership elections.

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is eyeing a new member of House Democratic leadership as a 2020 primary target: Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Ocasio-Cortez, who ousted House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley earlier this year in a shocking primary victory, put colleagues on notice for future primaries just days after the November election, telling a livestream audience that she and an allied group, Justice Democrats, would keep working together to boost anti-incumbent challengers — though she didn’t name names. But a person who has discussed the project with Ocasio-Cortez and her team said the congresswoman-elect has recruited an African-American woman to challenge Jeffries, who was just elected to replace Crowley as caucus chairman — the No. 5 House Democratic leadership position.


The person who spoke with Ocasio-Cortez and her team, who asked for anonymity to discuss a private conversation, called Jeffries the “highest priority” primary target of Ocasio-Cortez.

A second person with direct knowledge of Justice Democrats’ primary plans said the group is “looking” at Jeffries’ seat. Since Justice Democrats put out a call for potential targets, the group's supporters have singled out Jeffries as a member they would be “excited” to oppose. “We’re not going to shy away from New York,” the second person said.

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Challenging Jeffries would open an audacious new front in Ocasio-Cortez’s efforts to steer the direction of the Democratic Party, pitting her and allies against a rising-star African-American Democrat seen by some as a potential future speaker of the House. It would also set off another intra-party New York City brawl — Jeffries’ Brooklyn district is just a few miles south of Ocasio-Cortez’s Bronx-and-Queens seat — that would peak just as Democrats hope to rally around a presidential nominee in mid-2020.

Jeffries has sparked the ire of Justice Democrats for several reasons. The group feels Jeffries takes too much money from corporate interests, a key litmus test, and is overly friendly with banking and pro-charter school interests. But Ocasio-Cortez is also unhappy that a campaign donation to her from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was allegedly used in a whisper campaign against Lee before her narrow loss to Jeffries in the recent race for Democratic caucus chair — a charge those allegedly involved have called a complete falsehood.

“It’s personal for Ocasio,” said the person who spoke with Ocasio-Cortez and her staff. "And she’s going to go all out to take him out.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director denied that she had already recruited an anti-Jeffries candidate.

“We’re not looking at recruiting people to run campaigns, we’re looking at building a congressional staff," said Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent.

But when asked whether the congresswoman-elect is looking at Jeffries' seat, Trent said Ocasio-Cortez and her allies were "disappointed" with Jeffries after the caucus chair race.

“We’re disappointed in the way that the leadership elections went down, specifically that leadership election," said Trent. "We would have liked to have seen that be a more fair fight with less pressure."

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted late Tuesday that anonymous sources were spreading "claims containing false information" about her.

Jeffries had a brief response to a potential challenge: "It’s a free country and democracy is a beautiful thing.”

Jeffries — who, like Lee, is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has A-ratings from a range of liberal organizations such as the ACLU and NAACP — also shrugged off questions about his ideological credentials.

"Spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way,” Jeffries said, quoting a lyric by famed East Coast rapper Notorious B.I.G., or Biggie Smalls, whom Jeffries saluted on the House floor last year.

Jeffries, a former state legislator who was first elected to Congress in 2012 after running an aggressive primary campaign against former Rep. Ed Towns, forcing him into retirement, represents a majority-black Brooklyn district that’s 23 percent white and 18 percent Latino. Voters there went against Ocasio-Cortez’s preferred candidates for governor and attorney general in 2018 primaries — Cynthia Nixon and Zephyr Teachout — instead backing Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General-elect Letitia James.

Jeffries has climbed the ranks of Congress while working across the aisle, and he is on the cusp of seeing the First Step Act, which he co-sponsored, become law. It would be the fourth bill he's shepherded through the House to be signed into law. The sweeping criminal justice reform measure is expected to pass the Senate this week after years of haggling in both chambers. It reforms prison sentencing, reducing the “three strikes” penalty for drug offenses and giving judges latitude to make exceptions to mandatory minimum guidelines.

Jeffries’ allies said he will be well-prepared to defend his seat — the former corporate lawyer for CBS and Viacom has more than $1 million on hand after the 2018 cycle, according to OpenSecrets.

"There is no one who knows their district better than Hakeem Jeffries," said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.). "Hakeem is and will continue to work the district, and he will continue to win by large margins, so, ultimately, whoever primaries him will be wasting their time and their money."

Ocasio-Cortez and Justice Democrats are trying to organize better and earlier in primary target districts over the next two years, hoping to replicate the playbook Ocasio-Cortez used to beat Crowley. But Crowley’s district is different than the one Jeffries represents in a few ways. Ocasio-Cortez defeated Crowley during a low-turnout primary by securing a majority of young voters in fast-changing neighborhoods.

After her June primary win, Ocasio-Cortez put her new political muscle behind anti-incumbent candidates in several states, but while Rep.-elect Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) succeeded in Boston, challengers in Florida and Missouri were crushed by Reps. Stephanie Murphy and Lacy Clay.

New York City, where two other Democratic primary challengers held incumbents under 60 percent of the vote as Ocasio-Cortez won in 2018, could be particularly ripe ground for Ocasio-Cortez’s activism in 2020.

But Justice Democrats-backed primary challenges could sprout elsewhere around the country, too. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, a Blue Dog Democrat who in the past has won endorsements from the conservative Club for Growth and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is also on Justice Democrats’ early target list, according to the person with knowledge of the group’s plans.

Justice Democrats said that in 2020 it hopes to challenge more Democrats who, like Crowley, it considers too closely aligned with special interests and it says don’t demographically reflect districts that are minority-white.

“We’re going to double down on primary challenges and look at some of these white, male corporate Democrats similar to Joe Crowley," said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats. "Many of these places are majority or plurality people-of-color districts that don’t demographically or policy-wise reflect the diverse working class communities they often serve.”

Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), a leader of the moderate New Democrat Coalition, which has been a target of criticism for progressives, voiced frustrations with Ocasio-Cortez’s push to primary Democrats.

"This majority was made by New Dems and Blue Dogs,” Peters said, referring to a second Democratic caucus considered more centrist than the New Democrats. "It was not made by turning seats from blue to blue. It was made by those people who turned seats from red to blue. If we want to keep the majority, those are the people we should be listening to."

"We should not be listening to people who don’t represent that mainstream voter who’s given Democrats the majority," Peters added.