Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has backed off a potential Democratic primary challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2024 — just one month after refusing to rule out the possibility.
The Bronx and Queens lawmaker, 33, is “not planning” to try to unseat Gillibrand, her campaign spokeswoman told The Post on Monday.
Politico previously reported that AOC’s fellow left-wing Empire State reps Jamaal Bowman and Ritchie Torres are also taking a pass on a Senate bid, as is former Hudson Valley Rep. Mondaire Jones.
With the field apparently clear of significant intra-party challengers, the 56-year-old Gillibrand has banked endorsements from key Democratic-supporting interest groups.
Hazel Dukes, president of the New York chapter of the NAACP, told The Post Monday that the senator deserved an “A-plus” for her work in Congress.
“She works hard. She’s active in the community. I think she’s doing a good job,” Dukes said. “She’s been fighting for women’s rights and against sexual harassment and domestic violence. She’s been strong on education and good on health issues. She’s fought for veterans.”
The pro-choice group EMILYs List re-endorsed the senator last month.
“Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has always been a pro-choice champion for the people of New York and for all Americans, fighting tenaciously to protect reproductive freedom, uplift women and families, and defend against extremism,” EMILYs List President Laphonza Butler said in a statement.
Manhattan Democratic Party leader Keith Wright has also backed Gillibrand, who is serving her second full term in the Senate after being appointed by then-Gov. David Paterson to fill a vacancy left by Hillary Clinton in 2009.
“I’m absolutely backing Gillibrand’s re-election,” he told The Post. “She’s doing a great job. She’s got seniority. She and Chuck Schumer are the equivalent of James Brown — the hardest working senators in the United States of America.”
Gillibrand won re-election over Republican Chele Farley by a two-to-one margin in 2018, but she may find the going tougher in 2024.
A March Siena College poll showed Gillibrand’s favorability rating at just 46% among registered voters — with only 43% on board with giving her another six-year term.
Republicans have attacked Gillibrand as a do-nothing lawmaker, with former Rep. Lee Zeldin saying earlier this year that she was “wasting a Senate seat” and calling her “Senator what’s-her-name” as well as “one of the laziest, most forgettable unaccomplished senators in the country.”
“New Yorkers are getting rolled and screwed, because we have a senator who is not doing a good job representing all of us in New York,” Zeldin said during a panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March.
AOC had told Politico in April that she would not rule out a run for “higher office,” urging the reporter: “Print that.”
“There’s a world where I’m here for a long time in this seat, in this position,” she said. “There’s a world where I’m not an elected official anymore. There’s a world where … I may be in higher office.”
Gillibrand has previously expressed concerns to donors that disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo might launch a political comeback and attempt to unseat her. She has also fundraised off of a general election challenge from Zeldin, who ran a stronger-than-expected campaign for New York governor in 2022.