Baffled AOC questions voters who split ticket for her and Trump — here’s what they said
Far-left New York “Squad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed some of the surprising responses she got from people who voted for President-elect Donald Trump and herself or other down-ballot Dems.
The Bronx and Queens Democrat, who was easily re-elected Tuesday, quizzed her 8 million Instagram followers in hopes of learning more about Dem Vice President Kamala Harris’ landslide loss to the Republican former president, which stunned pollsters and Democratic Party bosses alike.
“It’s really simple… trump and you care for the working class,” said one respondent, reflecting the massive shift toward the Republican Party among non-college-educated voters since 2016.
Another person wrote, “[W]anted change so I went with Trump and blue for the rest of the ballot to put some breaks.”
A third respondent described the trade-off between a split-ticket vote and party-line Democratic vote.
“Action & Progress >> Stagnation & Excuses,” the person wrote. “Both of you push boundaries and force growth.”
Another writer said, “Voted Trump, but I like you & Bernie. I don’t trust either party establishment politicians.”
A senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill, asked by The Post about the results of AOC’s informal survey, said, “If either party wants a sweep, they have to figure out how to harvest authenticity.
“That’s who wins. Trump is authentic. Harris was grown in a lab. People can tell,” the source said.
Socialist Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was one of the first progressive pols to offer the Democratic Party a post-mortem.
“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” said Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats.
AOC’s 14th District swung to President-elect Trump by one of the highest margins among Big Apple voters.
In 2020, nearly four out of five voters (77%) voted for Joe Biden, and 22% cast ballots for Trump. But in 2024, just 65% voted for Harris, and 33% voted for Trump, according to city voting records reported by the Daily Kos show.
In 2018, Ocasio-Cortez, now a close ally of Sanders, said she had won election while Trump was in office by sticking to “a laser-focused message of economic, social and racial dignity for working-class Americans.”
Both the congresswoman and the senator still endorsed and stumped for Harris in 2024.
Democratic sources spilled to The Post the day after the 2024 election that Harris’ platform had heavily relied on its elite pool of donors, shifting its messaging in the final weeks to pillory Trump, 78, as a “fascist” threat to American democracy.
That entirely ignored voters’ concerns about inflation, unchecked immigration and other working-class concerns.
Harris, 60, also flip-flopped or failed to clarify where she stood on many of her past progressive stances such as banning fracking for oil and natural gas, decriminalizing illegal border crossings and the approving of sex-change operations for incarcerated migrants.
A post-election survey by the Democratic firm Blueprint shows that the top three reasons the vice president lost to Trump were rising inflation, too many migrants coming into the country and the Democratic nominee’s hyperfixation on “cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.”
“She was more for rights then [sic] the economy & when she talked ab it she didn’t have a plan,” an Instagram respondent told AOC.
The senior Democratic congressional aide told The Post that the messaging misses made it easy for Trump to beat Harris.
“The Democratic Party wrote the symphony of Donald Trump — they even conducted it,” the source said. “All he had to do was take a bow.”
Other misses by the Harris campaign included her pandering too much to suburban women while not enough to blacks, Hispanics and Asians — as well as Generation Z voters, polling data confirms.
As with many in her party, Ocasio-Cortez, 35, had been defiant in the face of Trump’s electoral- and popular-vote win, which was fueled by the largest multiracial coalition a Republican presidential candidate has clinched in decades.
“This is going to be a very, very, very, challenging difficult time … for millions of people in this country,” AOC posted in a fearful Instagram post from her spotless kitchen after the election. “This is going to be a very scary time.”
“I’m not here to sugarcoat what we are about to experience,” she added. “It’s an enormous setback because the fascist won a lot of working class support, which has happened in history.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), however, was ready to jettison all of the failed Dem rhetoric, saying his party’s tent had grown “too small.”
“A firm break with neoliberalism. Listen to poor and rural people, men in crisis. Don’t decide for them. Pick fights. Embrace populism. Build a big tent. Be less judgmental,” Murphy posted Sunday on X. “We are beyond small fixes.”
Still, some of AOC’s supporters seemed to reject Harris because she had not leaned far enough left — especially on Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.
“I know people that did [split their vote between Trump and the Dems] and it was bc of Gaza,” someone replied to AOC on Instagram.
Another person wrote, “Voted for trump and you, not genocide Harris. Dems need bernie!!”
A third respondent said, “[V]oted for Trump in Arizona but voted for dem Ruben instead of Kari lake,” referring to Arizona Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego and GOP foe Kari Lake, whose race was still not called as of Monday morning, although Gallego was reported ahead.
“He’s good handling war,” the person added, apparently referring to Trump.
A fourth person echoed the reasoning that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave when he abandoned his run and endorsed Trump.
“He speaks of war as something that is bad,” the respondent said of the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president. “Democrats became the party that supports war.”
Reps for AOC’s congressional office and campaign did not immediately respond to a Post request for comment.
