Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described Tuesday as a “tough night” for 2020 Democratic contender Bernie Sanders and for the progressive movement after primary rival Joe Biden further solidified his lead in the race for the nomination.
Speaking to her followers in an Instagram Live video later that night, the freshman New York congresswoman said, “Let’s talk about it. Someone says tell us it’ll be OK. There’s no sugarcoating it, tonight’s a tough night.”
“Tonight’s a tough night for the movement, overall,” she added. “You know, obviously tonight’s a tough night electorally.”
Biden swept the field with a string of commanding primary wins, which gave him a considerable lead over Sanders.
Biden’s 16-point victory over Sanders in Michigan — a state where Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 — was the biggest prize of the night.
Ocasio-Cortez went on to assess what the string of primary losses to the former VP meant for the Vermont senator and the progressive movement as a whole.
“If you are looking a little bit deeper beyond the polls, in terms of what this means for the movement at large, I think there’s a lot of information that we have here, that we can kind of glean from,” said the progressive darling, who had been campaigning for Sanders and distanced herself from Biden’s politics.
“One thing that’s important in these results — and this is something that I’ve been sensing a lot in my time here — is the generational divide in these results,” she said.
The Democratic socialist went on to congratulate the former VP for his streak of wins while assessing the generational divides in the party as a whole.
“Older voters, which we know are much more reliable voters, which turn out, have decisively gone to former Vice President Biden. And I say that, you know — first of all, if you win a race, you win a race, and I congratulate Vice President Biden on the states that he won this evening.
“What is surprising is how stark [the divide] actually is. We’re not talking about a generational bump or a little bit of an edge. It is decisively different,” AOC continued.
