Democratic pollster Carly Cooperman, who is a partner at Schoen Consulting, on Wednesday said moderate Democrats stand the best chance of winning in the upcoming midterm elections.
“We see that moderate Democrats have been winning primaries overall, and I think that those are the ones who stand the best chance of winning,” Cooperman told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on “What America’s Thinking.”
Cooperman’s comments come after progressive House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shocked longtime Rep. Joseph Crowley (D) in a primary for New York’s 14th District.
Ocasio-Cortez’s win has fueled talk that Democrats need to run more progressive candidates in November.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) last month dismissed the speculation surrounding Ocasio-Cortez’s win, saying it should not be viewed as a part of a larger movement.
“The fact that in a very progressive district in New York it went more progressive than … well, Joe Crowley is a progressive, but she’s more left than Joe Crowley, is about that district. It is not to be viewed as something that stands for anything else,” Pelosi said.
Ocasio-Cortez pushed back on those remarks, saying the movement is happening from the bottom up.
“There are a lot of really exciting races with extremely similar dynamics as mine,” she said, citing Boston city council member Ayanna Pressley’s congressional bid.
“I do think that we do need to elect a generation of new people to Congress in both parties,” she said.
— Julia Manchester
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