Oops! Ocasio-Cortez Booted Out Of Progressive Ballot Spot After Failing To Get Just Fifteen Signatures

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) may have unintentionally handicapped her own re-election campaign after failing to get the necessary 15 signatures to place her name on the November ballot in New York under the “progressive union-backed Working Families Party (WFP)” per Fox News.

Ocasio-Cortez wanted her name placed on the ballot under the WFP apparently as a way of ensuring that she remains a choice for voters in November, even if she doesn’t make it through the Democratic primary for her Congressional district. She’s currently facing a tough primary challenge from Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, another Democrat with local ties to the Bronx, who has pledged to spend more time working with Ocasio-Cortez’s constituents and less time seeking national prominence.

“The Working Families Party is an independent political party that cross-endorses progressive candidates through New York’s fusion voting system — which allows endorsement across ballot lines — to press Democrats to the left and extract concessions without being dismissed by voters as a spoiler,” Fox News reported.

New York greatly scaled back the number of signatures candidates need to get on the state ballot in order to avoid candidates and their campaigns going door-to-door and potentially spreading the novel coronavirus. The state announced that just 14.5 signatures (functionally, 15 signatures) are necessary to earn a spot on a ballot line.

Ocasio-Cortez turned in “only 13 signatures from members of the progressive group that has dubbed itself the ‘Tea Party of the left’ — two short of what she needed to get on the ballot.”

After complaints, a judge booted her from the ballot under the WFP’s name.

The blunder probably won’t cost Ocasio-Cortez much — she’s still favored to win the Democratic primary in her district, which has been rescheduled for later this month — but she was probably hoping to avoid having to do any real campaigning in her district, particularly given that there are complaints among her constituents that she prioritizes national issues over local ones.

She’d also likely prefer to focus her efforts on former Vice President Joe Biden’s national, presidential campaign. On Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez was named to the former Veep’s national policy team and will coordinate the candidate’s platform on climate change (Ocasio-Cortez, the author of the disastrous, monstrously expensive Green New Deal, is considered an “expert” on the issue).

Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign told The Hill in a statement that the decision has no impact on its strategy.

The Working Families Party also says it will focus its own efforts on getting Ocasio-Cortez re-elected, regardless of which line she appears on on the final ballot.

“As the pandemic was erupting, we did not believe it was appropriate to put canvassers or voters’ health at risk. We stopped collecting signatures — knowing it would not affect our ability to help in the Democratic primary,” the party noted in a statement from its leadership Wednesday.