Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is worried that establishment Democrats will eliminate or gerrymander her district after the 2020 census for being a thorn in the side of leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
In an interview with the New Yorker’s David Remnick that was published on Tuesday, the freshman Democrat said she is not taking her seat for granted even though she is confident she will win a second term in her current district.
“I feel confident in our reelection, but we have a census and gerrymandering coming up,” she said. “And when you are critical of people in your own party, it’s entirely possible that in ’22 I could get a spaghetti noodle of a district.”
New York could lose a House seat after the 2020 census, and Ocasio-Cortez told the Intercept in February that she was worried that her district could look significantly different after 2020 if establishment Democrats decide to stick it to her.
Ocasio-Cortez expressed her concerns to Remnick just days before a frustrated Pelosi dismissed her and her freshman “squad” and “their public whatever and their Twitter world” in an interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times.
Ocasio-Cortez has criticized her party’s leadership for not sticking up for its values and being on the defensive. She has spent the past few days implying that Pelosi is stuck in 2008 and incapable of using today’s news cycles and media to move public sentiment and advance left-wing policies.