The GOP Is Using Some ‘Fuzzy Math’ to Attack AOC

Key Points – A recent New York Post story attributing a 70% rise in major crime in Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (AOC) district since 2019 to her influence is criticized for misleading data use and misplaced blame, as members of Congress do not control local policing.

-Despite such attacks, AOC’s political influence remains strong.

-Currently on a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Senator Bernie Sanders, her endorsement is highly sought after in New York City’s mayoral primary, where she could significantly impact the race, potentially by backing a progressive challenger to frontrunner Andrew Cuomo.

-AOC is also frequently discussed as a future candidate for higher office.

AOC Under Attack from the Right

From the early 1990s until sometime in Barack Obama’s second term, crime wasn’t a salient issue in national politics. Then, suddenly, it was, before falling crime rates, since the end of the pandemic, the issue has started to recede.

But that’s not the case for the New York Post, in which crime is nearly always the biggest story.

The New York tabloid, over the weekend, published something of a bizarre story, wielding crime statistics in one particular Congressional district, with the apparent goal of embarrassing that district’s member of Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“Major crime,” said the Post, “rose by an eye-popping 70% in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Bronx and Queens district since the ‘defund the police’ socialist lawmaker took office in 2019.” The stats, which cite “a Post analysis of NYPD data,” are compared with a 30 percent increase citywide.

“Major crimes consist of murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft,” the Post said of their definition of “major crimes.”

The story mostly uses quotes from residents who dislike the Congresswoman, with one resident declaring, “she’s not doing… She doesn’t live in the neighborhood, she doesn’t care.”

Another person quoted in the story blames AOC for a brothel being set up across the street from her childhood home.  The story also blames the Congresswoman’s “ inflammatory anti-cop rhetoric” for contributing to the NYPD’s recruitment crisis.

AOC and a Bizarre Use of Data 

There are a few things about this story that are somewhat strange. For one, crime statistics and trends are not often presented in six-year increments, and starting the clock in 2019 makes little sense unless it’s specifically targeted at the moment when AOC arrived in Congress.

Beyond that, it’s not typical for members of Congress to be personally held accountable for crime statistics in their districts, the way mayors or even city council members are. As an elected member of the House, AOC does not make decisions about the allocation of policing resources in that particular district.

And while the Post story mentions that AOC flirted with “defund the police” rhetoric around 2020, the police were not defunded, and Ocasio-Cortez has not used that type of rhetoric recently. The Post story cannot point to any actions associated with Ocasio-Cortez’s service in Congress that can be directly blamed for the crime surge.

The police in New York have been far from defunded, with Mayor Eric Adams recently announcing a $3.4 billion NYPD budget for the 2026 fiscal year.

Who Will She Endorse? 

AOC, who has been re-elected easily every time she’s run since 2018, has been mentioned as a possible candidate for higher office, whether Sen. Chuck Schumer’s U.S. Senate seat or the presidency in 2028.

As AOC continues her “Fighting Oligarchy” tour along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), her endorsement has also been sought after by candidates, including Democrats who are running for mayor in New York’s wide-open primary.

A Substack post by Michael Lange this week paints AOC as “the only hope of stopping Andrew Cuomo,” the former New York governor who, despite resigning in disgrace, is the frontrunner in the mayoral race, which operates according to ranked-choice voting.

AOC reportedly met with Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, two progressive candidates in the race, indicating that she could endorse one of them and make their challenge to Cuomo more viable. (Adams, the incumbent mayor who was indicted before a shady deal with the Trump Administration dismissed it, is also running again.)

“The progressive left in New York City lacks a singular institution capable of not only moving votes en masse, but making the hard decisions necessary to winning close elections,” he writes. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, by an ultra-rare combination of persona and power, remains the exception. Occasionally sidelined by leadership, the new ‘face of the Democratic Party’ remains overwhelmingly popular with the electorate itself.”

About the Author

Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.

This has been updated to fix a coding issue.