What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory says about Democrats’ future

In hindsight, it makes perfect sense that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat Joe Crowley – a veteran, leading Democratic congressman twice her age – in the primary.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s youth, energy, family story, and left-wing populist message fit the working-class, Latino-majority New York district in a way that Congressman Crowley couldn’t counter. And so the No. 4 House Democrat, once seen as a possible future House speaker, joins the history books as a political giant felled by a grassroots insurgency.

“This campaign sent a national message to all the United States that you have to work for the community,” says Ramón Ramirez, founding president of the United Dominican Coalition, standing in Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign headquarters in Queens. “It’s simple. You have be close to the people. Crowley, he wasn’t very close to the people.”

For Democrats, Crowley’s defeat raises profound questions. Is the party heading for a “nasty, tea

‘Not all Democrats are the same’United in opposition‘What we’re doing isn’t working’