Sen. Tammy Duckworth Warns: If Democrats Move Too Left, We Could Lose 2020

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-WI) on Sunday warned that if her party shifts too far left, it could cost Democrats the midwestern vote in 2020. The comment came after CNN’s State of the Union host Jake Tapper asked Duckworth if New York’s stunning electoral upset—in which democratic socialist candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez toppled the more traditional Democratic incumbent Joseph Crowley—represented the future of the party. “I think it’s the future of the party in the Bronx, where she is,” Duckworth responded, before noting her concern that Ocasio-Cortez’s far-left politics could alienate more moderate voters. “I think that you can’t win the White House without the midwest and I don’t think you can go too far to the left and still win the midwest,” she said. Ocasio-Cortez later fired back on Twitter, writing: “With respect to the Senator, strong, clear advocacy for working class Americans isn’t just for the Bronx.” She then listed a series of midwestern states that Bernie Sanders won in the 2016 primary, adding: “We then lost several of those states in the general. What’s the plan to prevent a repeat?”