Ocasio-Cortez gets new Republican challenger: report

A third Republican challenger has joined the race to replace Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in her heavily blue district next year.

Businesswoman Scherie Murray, 38, told Fox News on Wednesday that she would mount a bid for the GOP nomination in the hopes of facing the first-term congresswoman in 2020.

{mosads}“There is a crisis in Queens, and it’s called AOC,” Murray told Fox News in a phone interview, referring to Ocasio-Cortez. “And instead of focusing on us, she’s focusing on being famous. Mainly rolling back progress and authoring the job-killing Green New Deal and killing the Amazon New York deal.”

In a campaign launch video posted to YouTube, Murray does not mention President Trump and instead focuses her message on Ocasio-Cortez, knocking the congresswoman over such issues as the planned move of Amazon’s second headquarters to New York City, which ended after complaints from Ocasio-Cortez and others.

Murray, who is black, told Fox News that she is a Trump supporter and does not believe he is racist following tweets he aimed at Ocasio-Cortez and others telling them to “go back” where they came from. Trump’s tweets were heavily criticized by members of both parties.

“Is that how I would have worded it? No. Do I think the president is a racist? No,” Murray said of Trump’s tweets. “But I want to get back to the core of why we’re even talking about this – there is a crisis at our border.”

“I think we are missing the point of why we’re elected to public office: to legislate on policy, to deliver results to those kitchen table issues that are affecting everyday Americans,” she added.

If she wins the nomination next year, Murray faces an uphill battle in the general election in New York’s 14th District, which is rated strongly Democratic on the Cook Partisan Voting Index.

Ocasio-Cortez has made headlines since her stunning primary defeat of former Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) last year, clashing publicly with Trump and GOP members of Congress while espousing a progressive message that has sparked criticism from within her own party as well.