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From New York to the Heartland: Ocasio-Cortez Debuts on National Campaign Stage

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Bringing a Progressive Movement to Red States

Welcome to Wichita, Kan., the biggest city in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in a decade. Can Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders’s support for an insurgent candidate help change that?

“They say that the movement won’t work in Kansas. They say, ‘Don’t go to Kansas, they won’t accept you there. They won’t share your values there, that you won’t have common ground with anyone.’ We all know that that is not true.” Welcome to Wichita, home of Koch Industries, as in billionaire Republican megadonors Charles and David Koch. This district hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in over 20 years. Trump won the general election in Kansas by a landslide. But the left has an interesting story here. Bernie Sanders got twice as many votes as Hillary Clinton in the primary. Sanders’s message of universal health care and affordable education resonates with Kansans. “I’m a single father. My occupation right now is construction. I do a lot of remodeling. I’m a huge supporter of Bernie. And I think it’s awesome that Alexandria, you know, won the election there.” Thousands here recently lined up to see rising Democratic star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sanders. The pair came to Kansas to rally for progressive Democrat House candidates. Leftists are hoping that Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning win in New York’s 14th District can serve as a model even in red states. “The people support the ideas that James is campaigning on. All right? It’s just a question of bringing them to the polls. If James wins here, this will be not only another progressive member to the Congress, this’ll be a shot heard around — not just this country — the world. “I’m excited and humbled to be here.” “Happy people.” “Because I’m a teacher and have concerns about funding, not only in my classroom, but just across districts, I felt it was important to come. I work in a population that is very impoverished. During the winter you would see our kids coming to school in blankets.” “I’m so happy to introduce Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” “This is the defining moment, not just for the state of Kansas, but for this nation.” “The thing is is that there are a lot of working families here. There’s a lot of blue collar here. And I think the reason that Trump won resoundingly here was because of that.” “It was very empowering to hear her speak. She comes from the Bronx. I grew up in one of the poorest zip codes in Wichita, so it’s very moving to be here today because it hits home.” “You all are very lucky, and very blessed to have James Thompson as a candidate. To have a man that so truly cares for the needs of working-class people and fights for the dignity of his neighbors. You’re very lucky.” “Because I know what it’s like to struggle to make ends meet. What it’s like to have to choose between, you know, paying for food for your kids or paying the rent.” It’s a long shot for Thompson. But even if he comes close, it will be further proof of concept for progressives who want to reimagine the Democratic Party and take back power from Republicans. “We must’ve gotten off at the wrong stop because people told me that Kansas was a Republican state. Doesn’t look like that today.”

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Welcome to Wichita, Kan., the biggest city in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in a decade. Can Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders’s support for an insurgent candidate help change that?CreditCredit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Less than four weeks after she stunned the political establishment with an upset victory in a New York House primary, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stepped out onto the national campaign stage for the first time this week, an emerging star of the insurgent left bringing her message to the heartland.

She campaigned in two conservative Midwestern states at rallies for House candidates who are also delivering a progressive message to their constituents.

“Change takes courage,” she told a packed auditorium at a downtown convention center in Wichita on Friday, in the first of two appearances in Kansas before heading to Missouri on Saturday. “Change takes guts.”

“What you have shown me, and what we will show in the Bronx, is that working people in Kansas share the same values — the same values — as working people anywhere else,” she said.

It was a message that had carried Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 28, to victory in New York last month and all but assured her election to Congress in a heavily Democratic district in Queens and the Bronx. And whether establishment politicians like it or not, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic socialist, is now rushing to transport her unapologetically left-wing message to other parts of the country.

In Wichita, she shared the energy with the white-haired lion of the left, Bernie Sanders, who came on stage after her to deafening cheers, telling the crowd, “Whether you live in Vermont or the Bronx or Kansas, we share common hopes and aspirations that are much greater than the superficial differences that may separate us.”

But even those who came primarily to see Mr. Sanders were aware of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her message. Many had seen her on social media and television and said they were inspired by her youth and enthusiasm.

Nicholas Beddow, 25, a preschool teacher wearing a vintage “Bernie for President“ T-shirt, said he hadn’t heard of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez until she won her primary, but now was a full-throated supporter. “She’s very strong,” he said.

The fact that she is young, he said, “carries the progressive message further.”

He said he felt that message could resonate, even in an area labeled the Bible Belt. “I’m thinking we can give it a blue buckle right in the middle,” he said.

That could be a tough sell in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in a decade. But Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Sanders nevertheless were campaigning here and in Kansas City, Kan., on Friday in support of two candidates, Brent Welder and James Thompson, who are running progressive, grass-roots campaigns in districts Democrats consider winnable.

In St. Louis on Saturday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez campaigned with Cori Bush, a community activist and nurse, whom some members of the progressive left hope can become another standard-bearer for their message. After knocking on doors together during the day, they appeared at a rally at night, with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez bounding onto the stage at an eclectic concert venue to raucous cheers.

Speaking to a youthful, cocktail-sipping crowd, she called for a different kind of political leader but did not directly attack Ms. Bush’s opponent, William Lacy Clay, a popular nine-term Democrat and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

”More than ever, we need a salt-of-the-earth Congress,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. And she seemed somewhat uncomfortable with the recent assertion that she was the party’s future. ”No person is the future of the Democratic Party,” she said, later adding, “The future of the Democratic Party is not in my hands.”

The trip to the Midwest was a critical test for whether she and her Bronx-born brand of Democratic socialism resonate in the heartland — and whether she is overplaying her hand.

In the weeks since her primary victory, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has publicly endorsed a flurry of candidates across the country. On Twitter and in interviews with the media, she has championed a progressive policy agenda that includes Medicare for all, tuition-free public college, ending private prisons and abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

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Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s trip to Kansas is a critical test of whether she and her brand of Democratic socialism can resonate in the heartland — and whether she is overplaying her hand.Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

While she has quickly become a political sensation, however, she has also revealed her inexperience. She provoked some outrage by referring to Israel’s “occupation” of Palestine, for instance, saying later that she was “not the expert on geopolitics on this issue.” She incorrectly said unemployment was low because “everyone has two jobs.”

Still, her appearance in Kansas alongside Mr. Sanders was the clearest indication yet that she views herself as one of progressivism’s next ambassadors — and that far-left Democrats, at least, see her as a key player in the party’s effort to retake the House.

“If there was a better way to say it’s the highest, the best, the number one event we’ve ever had, I would,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview the day before Friday’s rally. If candidates can show that even Kansas “can be changed running on progressive principles,” he added, “then it’s possible anywhere.”

Conservatives in the state have taken notice of the support for progressive ideas that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Sanders have championed. Earlier this week Mr. Trump tweeted support for Mr. Welder’s Republican opponent, Kevin Yoder. And Mr. Thompson’s opponent, Ron Estes, the incumbent, sounded the alarm on the Wichita rally even as it was taking place.

“At this very moment self-described socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are hosting a rally in Wichita for Kansas Democrats,” he wrote in an email to supporters. “Their goal is ambitious, extreme and dangerous.”

Despite all the enthusiasm surrounding Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, many establishment Democrats have bristled at the suggestion that the far-left ideas espoused by her and Mr. Sanders represent the party’s position. And they reject the notion that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s victory last month over Joseph Crowley, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, signaled a fundamental dissatisfaction with the party’s aging leaders.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s swift rise has also exposed divisions in the party over whether the insurgent candidates can capture victories across the country in general elections, against Republicans.

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this week, Joe Lieberman, the former Democrat-turned-independent Senator from Connecticut, urged voters to vote for Mr. Crowley on a third-party line instead of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez because, he said, her policies were too far left.

“Her election in November would make it harder for Congress to stop fighting and start fixing problems,” he wrote.

Some political strategists question whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s presence in districts vastly different from hers will turn off, rather than invigorate, voters.

“I would hope that she would keep her eye on the critical need to elect a House Democratic majority to stop Donald Trump and allow and trust candidates to run their campaigns in a way that results in the majority that we need,” said Steve Israel, a former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and longtime New York representative. “There’s an important role for her to play in progressive districts, and with vitally needed base voters. But a message that resonates in some districts could seem out of tune in others.”

But supporters of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s Democratic socialism have primarily exhibited a sense of optimism — in her, in her star power, in the progressive message generally — since her victory. They note that Mr. Sanders won the 2016 presidential primaries in both Kansas and Michigan and hope they can build on that energy.

They also point to the fact that many Democratic candidates have embraced key pieces of the progressive policy agenda, including Medicare for all and a higher minimum wage.

For his part, Mr. Sanders has said he sees Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s success as proof that his progressive message is not only spreading, but winning. (He did not endorse Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.)

His swing with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez through Kansas came about organically, according to a person familiar with the decision process, after they realized they were both interested in going to the state to support candidates there. Both were eager to show that a message that works in Burlington, Vt., and New York City can also work in a red state.

The same goes for Michigan, where Ms. Ocasio-Cortez will campaign next weekend with Abdul El-Sayed, a former director of Detroit’s health department, who is running for governor. Inspired by her message and campaign style, Dr. El-Sayed first connected with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter. He now hopes he can one day tell his young daughter about the night “Auntie Alexandria” won in New York.

“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s win is a validation point,” he said in an interview. “She showed us how it’s done.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: New Yorker’s Firebrand Socialism Plays in Heartland. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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