Democrats raise $280G for Georgia Senate runoffs, AOC pushes 'embrace the base'
Ocasio-Cortez suggested she believes the dollar figure shows Georgia has more Democratic support than many may have believed
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter on Thursday to announce more spikes in Democratic funding for the Georgia Senate runoffs set for Jan. 5 – races that the New York Democrat has said she is dedicated to fighting for.
More than $280,000 was raised the previous night by grassroots groups to support Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock -- the two Democrats hoping to unseat the state's two Republican U.S. senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Ocasio-Cortez suggested she believes the dollar figure shows Georgia has more Democratic support than many may have believed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Trump appears to have lost the historically red state often considered a sure win for the GOP, by less than half a percentage point -- or roughly 14,000 votes -- to Joe Biden.
Both Senate races were too close to call following voting Nov. 3, making the runoffs necessary.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Ocasio-Cortez has signaled she is making wins for Ossoff and Warnock a priority -- not only to help Democrats gain control of the Senate but also to show centrist Democrats they've been wrong to push back against progressive policies that she believes the party's voters prefer.
“I’m going to be spending my next couple of months doing everything that I can to extend help and offer support to the work of fantastic leaders … to make sure that we don’t have a Republican Senate majority, that we win these races in Georgia, that we secure a Democratic Senate majority,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.
The runoff elections will determine whether Republicans keep their majority lead in the Senate or if Democrats will achieve a 50-50 split, allowing Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to break tie votes after she takes office in January.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}AOC SLAMMED BY STATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER FOR POOR ELECTION NIGHT RESULT
But it’s not just Republicans that Ocasio-Cortez has been pushing back on.
She also took aim at U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on Thursday, after the moderate said he would work to prevent any “socialist agenda” being pushed through.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Democrats had hoped to more easily gain the Senate Majority and maintain majority in the House by greater margins during last week’s general election.
The House kept their majority standing, but lost at least six seats giving them one of the narrowest House leads in decades – forcing Democratic leadership to ask why.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Defund the police? Defund, my butt," Manchin wrote on Twitter on Wednesday night. "I'm a proud West Virginia Democrat. We are the party of working men and women. We want to protect Americans' jobs & healthcare. We do not have some crazy socialist agenda, and we do not believe in defunding the police."
Ocasio-Cortez responded by posting a photo of her staring down Manchin after he stood to clap for Trump during the president's State of the Union address in 2019.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The congresswoman from New York City has pushed back against recent criticism of initiatives like “defund the police” and the Green New Deal, her signature climate proposal, claiming Democrats lost votes because moderate candidates were not able to excite the base.