Alexandria

WASHINGTON — It’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s turn to defend her record and battle accusations that she’s lost touch with her district.

The out-of-nowhere winner of 2018′s most spectacular election upset, the New York Democrat faces a June 23 primary in which her chief rival, a former Republican, has adopted the mantra “AOC is MIA.” The mighty U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched a digital ad, with English and Spanish versions, asking why Ocasio-Cortez isn’t supporting “good-paying jobs in the tech industry.”

As Congress’ youngest woman and one of its most recognizable faces, the 30-year-old former activist and bartender remains a heavy favorite to win. Yet with her hard-left views, her celebrity status and the job losses that have staggered her New York district during the COVID-19 pandemic, her opponents say they sense weak spots.

“There’s a real contrast here between AOC’s record, what she’s done for the district, and this perception of her being this Hollywood glam girl,” said Scott Reed, the chamber’s senior political strategist.

The congresswoman’s campaign declined to make her available for an interview. Her pollster, Celinda Lake, said Ocasio-Cortez stands little chance of losing.

“They’re out of touch with the district,” Lake said of the chamber, the nation’s largest business organization.

Ocasio-Cortez began airing a TV spot this week that underlines the importance of turnout in what’s likely to be a low-turnout primary. “Listen, if we want change, we’ve also got to vote for it,” she said.

“She knows how dangerous primaries can be and she’s taking it seriously,” said Sean McElwee, who conducts research for progressive candidates.

The chamber and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Ocasio-Cortez’s top challenger, are focusing chiefly on two things. One is Ocasio-Cortez’s March vote against a $2 trillion economic relief package, the other her opposition to Amazon’s plan to build a jobs-rich headquarters in a Queens neighborhood in the district, which the company abandoned in 2019.

“She voted against the interests of my neighbors,” Caruso-Cabrera said in an interview, citing the bill’s money for the unemployed and small businesses. Congress approved the legislation.

Caruso-Cabrera has cast Ocasio-Cortez as a divisive elitist who ignores the district, which also covers parts of the Bronx. Caruso-Cabrera said that after Congress approved the coronavirus bill and the pandemic was ravaging New York, Ocasio-Cortez “stayed in a luxury apartment in D.C. with a Whole Foods in the lobby.”

Ocasio-Cortez, the only Democratic vote against the relief legislation, said in a debate last week that she opposed it because its help for large corporations was a gift “for Donald Trump and his friends.” She also said the bill denied benefits to many immigrants. She said the Amazon headquarters plan guaranteed no jobs for district residents and would have cost taxpayers money and boosted rents.

Ocasio-Cortez campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said the lawmaker has been in New York and Washington 96% of the time, attending over 200 events in the district.

She said the campaign has helped raise over $1 million to help community groups weather the pandemic, and Ocasio-Cortez has attended two protests in the district against police treatment of African Americans, helping distribute protective masks. She said she remained in Washington for days after the relief bill passed feeling ill but wasn’t tested for the coronavirus.

Caruso-Cabrera, 51, has vulnerabilities in the overwhelmingly Democratic district. A registered Republican until several years ago, she’s a former CNBC anchor who lived in Trump Tower before moving to the district last year.

A 2010 book she wrote proposed eliminating entire government agencies including the Education Department. It suggested ending Social Security’s and Medicare’s automatic benefits and instead giving people money to control themselves, risky proposals Congress has rejected. A foreword by her co-anchor Larry Kudlow, now Trump’s economic advisor, called her ideas “long-overdue reforms.”

Caruso-Cabrera said she favors strengthening Social Security and Medicare. “I’m a Democrat,” she said.

Reed said the chamber urged Caruso-Cabrera to run last fall. Ocasio-Cortez is expected to have one of the lowest scores when the chamber releases rankings next week on lawmakers’ votes on business-oriented bills.

The organization tangled with Ocasio-Cortez in a Texas primary in March, when she backed an unsuccessful liberal challenger to pro-business Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar.

This time, Ocasio-Cortez’s advantages will be tough to overcome.

Her household name is a major edge, and her Hispanic heritage is a strong suit in her multiracial district. The $8.2 million she’s raised is more than seven times what Caruso-Cabrera has collected.

“Given how she came into office, she should be the last person to take anything for granted, and obviously she’s not,” said Howard Wolfson, a longtime New York Democratic strategist.

In a stunner of a primary two years ago, Ocasio-Cortez ousted Rep. Joe Crowley, who overwhelmingly outspent her and was considered on track to become House speaker. She accused him of being detached from the district, which grew increasingly diverse during his two decades in office. It currently is half Hispanic, with many of the rest Asian and African American.

Since coming to Washington in 2019 with a huge class of first-term lawmakers who gave Democrats the House majority, Ocasio-Cortez has established a marquee niche.

A self-proclaimed democratic socialist, she’s an author of the Green New Deal, a plan for curbing planet-warming emissions that’s gone nowhere in Congress.

She’s pushed other liberal efforts on health care and immigration and has clashed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for defying the party line. Those confrontations have diminished, and Ocasio-Cortez, after campaigning for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, has now said she’ll vote for the party’s presumed nominee, Joe Biden.

Much of her clout comes from Twitter, where she has 7.2 million followers. All of this has earned her a cameo in countless Republican ads that depict her, Pelosi and Sanders as dangerous radicals.

Reed said the chamber’s digital ads target 30,000 likely voters with pro-business views and will cost six figures. He said the group may spend more.

“We play to win, but sometimes we play to make a statement,” Reed said. If she prevails, he said the chamber would warn anti-business lawmakers that “we’re going to keep an eye on them.”

Reporting from Alexandria, Va. — Landini Brothers is an old-fashioned Italian joint that lacks the sleek aesthetic of the power lunch spots in Washington, and makes no apologies for it. The walls are stone, the ceilings are low and a sign behind the bar declares: “Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy.”

But it’s one of the best places to catch top Republican operatives in action, thanks to one attribute the trendy eateries near the White House cannot claim: proximity to the GOP’s political hub. Within several blocks of the restaurant’s King Street location are more than two dozen Republican media, polling and public relations firms.

Tucked away discreetly in the quaint row houses of Old Town Alexandria, the political shops are largely invisible to passersby. But they are mightily influential in shaping the party’s message and strategy. Many helped produce and place the ads that battered Democratic candidates in November’s midterm election. Several of the secretive nonprofit organizations that paid for those ads are also based in Alexandria.

Together, they’ve turned King Street into a small-town version of K Street, Washington’s famed corridor of lobbying and law firms.

“We used to always joke that if they wanted to wipe out Republican Party, all they had to do was [destroy] Old Town,” said GOP ad maker Jim Innocenzi, whose office is a block south of King Street.

The glut of Republican consultants leads to sidewalk chit-chat and tactical confabs in local restaurants. The tavern Jackson 20 — named for President Andrew Jackson, whose image is on the $20 bill — is said to have the best breakfast. Landini Brothers and the Majestic Cafe are lunch favorites. (Recently spotted dining together at the latter: veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio and Phil Musser, who runs the political action committee of former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible 2012 presidential candidate.) The Morrison House — dubbed “MoHo” by some — is the place for after-work libations.

“It’s not like we all get together in some bunker in the morning,” joked Craig Shirley, an author of books about Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns whose public relations firm, Shirley & Banister, is in a 1740-era townhouse off King. “It’s nice because it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than K Street and you can be on Capitol Hill in the same amount of time.”

The first major Republican firms arrived in the 1980s, drawn by affordable rent, lower taxes and the easy commute for Virginia residents. Today, Old Town is home to such groups as the American Conservative Union and L. Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center. It’s also attracted onetime K Street denizens such as former GOP national Chairman Ed Gillespie, who opened a consulting firm on Prince Street after leaving the White House in 2009.

A few blocks away, above the boutiques on King Street, are 60 Plus and the Center for Individual Freedom, two of the conservative non-profit groups that spent millions on political ads targeting Democrats this past fall.

“I think for a lot of conservatives there’s something about being outside Washington, even though it’s not very far outside,” said Greg Mueller, whose Alexandria-based CRC Public Relations has represented clients such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that attacked Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry’s Vietnam War record during the 2004 presidential campaign.

Still, Alexandria — seven miles from downtown Washington and just across the Potomac — is a somewhat incongruous base for conservatives. The town voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in 2008 and is known for its liberal politics.

“We’re very open and everyone is welcome, even Republicans,” said Brian Moran, chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party, who lives in Alexandria and whose brother, James, represents the area in Congress. “But I do hope they entered short-term leases, because the Democrats will be back in charge in 2012.”

A walking tour of Old Town provides a window onto the extensive GOP network that has taken root. Start off with a cappuccino at Landini Brothers at 115 King, then stroll west, past the 1724 home of city founder William Ramsay, now the Alexandria Visitors Center.

At 515 King, three floors above a SunTrust Bank branch, is the small, unmarked office of 60 Plus, which bills itself as a conservative version of AARP. The organization plowed at least $7 million into defeating Democratic House candidates in 2010, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. There’s no sign on the door, but a large photo of former President George W. Bush and 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin can be glimpsed through the window.

Farther west on King, above the fabric store Calico Corners, is the office of GOP media buyer Kyle Roberts, who handled the presidential campaign account of Sen. John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin in 2008. At the same location are Scott Howell, a Dallas-based ad maker, and political consultant Blaise Hazelwood, former political director of the Republican National Committee.

Proceed west to Alfred Street. A half-block north, in a stately townhouse, is the polling firm run by Whit Ayres, who moved here from Atlanta in 2003 to be closer to the GOP political center.

“If a client comes to town to look at polling firms, you’re more likely to get an interview if you’re along the tracks they’re walking,” Ayres said.

Another block west along King are two row houses owned by Tony Fabrizio, who was chief pollster and strategist for Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential bid. His unmarked office is at 915 King above Ten Thousand Villages, a store featuring fair trade crafts from countries such as Uganda and India. He shares the second floor with Multi Media Services, a media-buying firm that has placed ads for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Republican National Committee.

Next door, above a spa that offers massages and Botox treatments, is the Center for Individual Freedom, an organization formed in 1998 by a former tobacco lobbyist. Fabrizio is listed in public records as its chairman. In the recent midterm election, the center spent at least $2.5 million on negative ads against about 10 Democratic members of Congress.

There’s no sign or nameplate for the center, just an unmarked buzzer next to a locked wooden door.

Take a right on North Patrick Street and left on Cameron Street to find the American Conservative Union, housed in a modest gray row house with peeling green shutters. Several blocks south, a large brick complex at 325 S. Patrick Street houses the Parents Television Council and Media Research Center, conservative watchdog groups founded by Bozell, nephew of the late arch-conservative William F. Buckley Jr.

The tour is not complete without a drive past 66 Canal Center Plaza, a modern office building along the Potomac. Suite 555 houses a battery of Republican political shops. There’s Americans for Job Security, a pro-business group that ran at least $9 million worth of ads against Democrats in 2010, and Crossroads Media, which placed many of those and similar spots.

Crossroads’ founder, Michael Dubke, is a partner with GOP strategist Carl Forti in another firm in Suite 555, the public affairs consultancy Black Rock Group. Forti is also political director of the nonprofit groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS — not to be confused with Crossroads Media — which together raised more than $70 million for conservative candidates last year.

Forti said he picked the location because the rent is cheaper than in Washington and it’s close to his Mount Vernon, Va., home.

Ad maker Steve Murphy, who runs one of the few Democratic political shops in Alexandria, has another theory: “What I’ve noticed over the years is that Democratic firms want to be in the District of Columbia, where they are proud to associate themselves with the federal government, and Republican firms want to be in northern Virginia, where they are proud to disassociate themselves from the federal government. It really is a political cultural thing.”

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Tom Hamburger in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.