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.
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.
