Some of President Trump’s top donors are giving money to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Democratic challenger.
Financier Nelson Patz, broadcaster Stanley Hubbard, and “cowboy venture capitalist” Darren Blanton all donated the maximum $5,600 to Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, according to Federal Elections Commission documents reviewed by the New York Post.
Recommended Stories
The three donors have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars combined to Trump’s campaign, and Patz hosted a fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this year to raise $10 million for Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.
Caruso-Cabrera is running as a pro-business Democrat in New York’s 14th Congressional District, where Ocasio-Cortex was elected in 2018. Caruso-Cabrera previously worked as a CNBC anchor and a business reporter before initiating her campaign.
“I am the daughter and granddaughter of working class Italian and Cuban immigrants,” she said in a statement when she announced her campaign earlier this year. “I am so lucky to have had such a wonderful career and I want everybody to have the opportunity that I’ve had. That’s why I’m running.”
Ocasio-Cortez and Caruso-Cabrera have traded jabs while on the campaign trail in recent days.
“You stayed away in your apartment. AOC, you’re always MIA,” Caruso-Cabrera said amid the coronavirus pandemic in May. She also said Ocasio-Cortez created “huge division within” the House Democratic caucus.
The freshman Democrat shot back, “While it’s disappointing to see Ms. Caruso-Cabrera fixated on personal attacks — and for some strange reason, obsessed with the six days in March that I wasn’t feeling well, and had to stay in my apartment. I do think it’s quite funny that she goes on and on about the fact that … I spend time doing my job in Washington and coming home to the Bronx when she lived in a $15,000-a-month Trump Tower apartment until six months ago.”
“This woman probably couldn’t even find Sunnyside [Queens] on a map until she decided to challenge me for the sake of challenging me,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “She doesn’t care about the Bronx, she doesn’t care about Queens. She cares about running for running.”
Caruso-Cabrera announced in April her campaign raised $1 million since January. Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign reported raising $2.7 million over January, February, and March.
The primary election will be held on June 23, with early voting beginning Saturday.
