Fresh off a shocking defeat at the hands of a progressive challenger, Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) took to the stage at his election night watch party with his guitar to play with the band.
Crowley dedicated his rendition of Bruce Springstein’s “Born to Run” to his Democratic primary opponent, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who knocked the House’s No. 4 Democrat out on Tuesday night.
Crowley’s loss made him the third incumbent member of Congress to lose his election, the first Democrat and the highest-profile lawmaker. The longtime Democratic lawmaker had been seen as a possible replacement for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and is a mainstay of the Queens political machine.
Yet Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive activist and democratic socialist, bested Crowley by framing him as out of touch with the majority-minority district and too moderate for the constituency. She cruised through the primary on Tuesday and looks poised to win easily after all the votes are counted.