DE-SEN: Ocasio-Cortez deploys staff to campaign against Tom Carper [View all]

[RandySF]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year old former waitress who shocked Democratic Party politics by defeating Rep. Joe Crowley, D-New York, in a primary last month, is deploying members of her growing campaign staff to help another liberal upstart seeking to unseat a longtime Democratic incumbent.

Ocasio-Cortez this week decided to send at least three paid campaign staffers to Delaware to help Kerri Evelyn Harris, an Air Force veteran and community activist who is challenging three-term Sen. Thomas R. Carper, D-Delaware, in a Sept. 6 primary. Aides to Ocasio-Cortez and Harris shared the details first with CBS News.

Harris, a political novice based in Dover, Delaware, began her campaign in February, seeking to run to the senator's left. She is only the second Democrat to challenge Carper since he joined the U.S. Senate in 2000.

There is no reliable polling to gauge Harris' viability in Delaware, where just a few thousand Democrats voted when Carper faced a primary challenge in 2012. If she wins, Harris would be Delaware's first biracial lesbian woman to serve in Congress -- and the first-ever to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Harris faces daunting odds, given Carper's four decades of political success -- but so did Ocasio-Cortez in her fight against Crowley, a 10-term congressman who many expected would one day succeed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, as the top House Democrat.

At least three of Ocasio-Cortez's paid staffers will move temporarily from New York to Delaware by next week to help Harris ahead of her Sept. 6 primary against Carper, according to Corbin Trent, an Ocasio-Cortez spokesman. Another New York-based staffer will help with Harris's digital outreach, according to Drew Serres, a spokesman for Harris.

The spokesmen acknowledged that the move is partly a thank-you to Harris and five members of her campaign team who traveled to New York to campaign for Ocasio-Cortez in the closing days of her primary against Crowley.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-deploys-campaign-staff-to-help-another-liberal-democrat/