For a politician who easily won reelection, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) doesn’t sound very eager to continue in public office.
“I don’t even know if I want to be in politics,” the progressive star said in an interview with The New York Times on Saturday, after Democrat Joe Biden clinched the presidential election.
Ocasio-Cortez discussed the “extreme hostility” her ideas have faced within her own party, prompting the Times to ask if she’d consider a run for the Senate.
“I genuinely don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t even know if I want to be in politics. You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn’t even know if I was going to run for reelection this year.”
She continued: “It’s the incoming. It’s the stress. It’s the violence. It’s the lack of support from your own party. It’s your own party thinking you’re the enemy.”
Ocasio-Cortez has backed aggressive measures to combat climate change, promote universal health care and defund the police. Her views have made her a prominent target of President Donald Trump and the GOP.
Ocasio-Cortez said she pursued reelection to prove that the progressive movement was “real,” and that guaranteed health care was a true mandate from Democrats. But she characterized her chances of remaining in the public arena to pursue those goals as 50-50.
“I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same,” she said.
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