Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Submits Over 5,000 Signatures to Board of Elections, Demonstrating Ballot Strength Against Rep. Joe Crowley

Breaking with New York City political convention, 100% of Ocasio-Cortez’s petition signatures were collected by volunteer canvassers.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez submitted more than 5,400 signatures to the Board of Elections today for New York 14’s Democratic Congressional primary, demonstrating grassroots strength in her race for NY-14, covering parts of The Bronx and Queens. Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign organized an all-volunteer grassroots field campaign, which mobilized more than 140 volunteer witnesses to collect the campaign’s signatures. In a remarkable feat for New York City politics, not a single paid petitioner was used in the effort.

The effort alone is historic, as Ocasio-Cortez’s candidacy is creating the first primary election for NY-14 in 14 years.

Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez is a third-generation Bronxite, educator, and organizer mounting a historic grassroots candidacy in the Bronx and Queens. Ocasio-Cortez grew up experiencing the reality of New York’s rising income inequality, inspiring her to organize and run on a progressive platform rejecting Corporate PAC funds. As a member of a large Puerto Rican extended family, she saw the differences in the education and opportunities available to family members living in the Bronx versus family living in Westchester County. After graduating Boston University with degrees in Economics and International Relations, she worked in the office of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, seeing firsthand the heartbreak and family separation caused by the unaccountable tactics of ICE. After this, she was passionate about returning to work with Latinx youth in the Bronx and across the United States to eventually work as an Educational Director with the National Hispanic Institute, a role in which she helped Americans, DREAMers and undocumented youth in community leadership and college readiness. After the financial crisis of 2008, tragedy struck when her father, Sergio Ocasio-Roman, passed away, forcing her family to sell their home. Alexandria pulled extra shifts to work as a waitress and bartender to support her family during this time, deepening her commitment to issues impacting working-class people. During the 2016 presidential election, she worked as a volunteer organizer for Bernie Sanders in the South Bronx, expanding her skills in electoral organizing and activism that has taken her across the country and to Standing Rock, South Dakota to stand with indigenous communities, then back to New York’s 14th Congressional District to launch her people-funded, grassroots campaign for Congress. Today, her filing creates the first primary in this district for 14 years.