The upset of a top House Democrat in a New York primary election Tuesday night shows the Democratic Party is tilting even further to the Left, which should make 2018 a better midterm election year than many pollsters believe, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said Wednesday.
“All these geniuses and prognosticators who got 2016 wrong are going to get 2018 wrong because they don’t see the growing leftward pull of the Democratic Party,” Conway said on Fox News.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., lost his primary race in an upset to 28-year-old socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The newcomer has talked about abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and providing healthcare for all, a signal that the energy among Democratic voters lies on the far left.
But Conway said Ocasio-Cortez’s ideas are “to the stark left of America,” and said Democrats should be challenged to explain where they stand on these issues.
“I think every Democratic candidate out there could be asked now … do you agree or disagree with the new face of the Democratic Party, that we should we abolish Immigration Customs and Enforcement altogether?” she said.
“This is also somebody who, like many Democrats today, is for abortion on demand, who calls herself a proud socialist,” Conway added.
Conway noted that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a self-described socialist, won 13 million votes in the 2016 primary that was supposed to be an easy win for Hillary Clinton. She said the New York race shows other candidates like Sanders are starting to win.
But she also said Crowley ran a bad race, and never tried to connect with the people for their votes.
“People should recognize that Joe Crowley, the No. 4 leading Democrat in the House who lost last night to a socialist, he doesn’t do what Donald Trump did to win the presidency: take the case directly to the people,” she said.
“The way you connect with voters now is to go actually to the voters,” she added. “This is a man who skipped debates, who outraised his opponent 10 to 1, but just didn’t show up, had lost touch.”
