Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is not going to go unchallenged in 2020, with a growing number of Republicans having announced their candidacy in recent days, including one who would meet the freshman Democrat’s qualifications for being a member of “The Squad” — except for the whole “radical socialist” part, that is.
“I’m a Jamaican immigrant. And I love America. Not the America radical socialists want to see, but the America that is a land of opportunity for all. That’s what I’m fighting for,” New York businesswoman Scherie Murray, 38, declared in a series of social media posts Wednesday announcing her candidacy for the Republican nomination in Ocasio-Cortez’s district (tweets below).
In her campaign launch, Murray has made clear that she’s not going to pull any punches on her potential opponent. “There’s a crisis in Queens and it’s called AOC,” Murray said in a tweet she’s pinned to the top of her page. “She isn’t worried about us — she’s worried about being famous. That’s why I’m running for Congress.”
“You deserve someone who will fight for you, not fight for the limelight. Someone who will build bridges, not burn them down,” said Murray in a post presenting her official 2020 announcement video. “Lawmakers should be working together to build a stronger, safer, more prosperous America, but your representative in Washington chooses self-promotion over service, conflict over constituents, resistance over assistance,” Murray says in the video.
“Queens and the Bronx need someone who will create jobs instead of turning them away,” Murray says in reference to Ocasio-Cortez’s opposition to the Amazon HQ2 deal, which would have brought 25,000 jobs to her district and nearly $30 billion in tax revenues to the state.
In an interview with Fox News Wednesday, Murray elaborated on her opposition to Ocasio-Cortez, stressing her “job-killing Green New Deal” and “killing the Amazon New York deal” as some of the reasons she believes the congresswoman needs to be unseated. She also takes aim at the Democrats’ “Medicare-for-All” as something that will ultimately destroy quality health insurance in the U.S.
As Fox notes, Murray is the fifth Republican to announce her bid for the primary. The other potential Ocasio-Cortez challengers are “former police officer John Cummings, medical journalist Ruth Papazian, construction contractor Miguel Hernandez and entrepreneur Antoine Tucker,” Fox reports.
Ocasio-Cortez was rebuked on both sides of the aisle for leading the opposition to Amazon’s building of HQ2 in her district, which would have massively benefited her constituents. Her explanation for why she so strongly opposed the deal offered to Amazon prompted fierce backlash, including from fellow New York Democrats.
“If we were willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves, if we wanted to,” she said in February. “We could hire out more teachers. We can fix our subways. We can put a lot of people to work for that money, if we wanted to.” The comment sparked widespread criticism for her apparent lack of understanding of how tax incentives work.
Related: Ocasio-Cortez Explodes Over People Saying She ‘Didn’t Understand’ Amazon Deal
Murray’s tweets below: