Ocasio-Cortez Adds Excitement to Sanders Rally as Campaign Claims Record Crowd in Iowa

By Nick Coltrain, Des Moines Register

09 November 19

.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday made the first trip of her life to Iowa, and helped draw what U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign is calling the largest crowd in the state so far in the 2020 cycle.

More than 2,400 people filled an Iowa Western Community College arena to hear Ocasio-Cortez, a political celebrity who recently endorsed Sanders’ presidential campaign, and Sanders himself.

It’s a hundred more than South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s campaign estimated drawing a week prior at the Iowa State Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice Dinner, typically seen as a landmark in the race to caucus day. It's hard to say how many Iowans were at either rally; the dinner draws supporters from all over the country, and Council Bluffs' proximity to Nebraska naturally drew supporters and onlookers from the Cornhusker state as well as Iowans.

The crowd exploded when Ocasio-Cortez walked onto the stage Friday, and erupted again when she greeted them with “Who here is ready for the revolution?!” Ocasio-Cortez credits Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, with inspiring her to seek elected office.

“We need to stitch this movement together, bit by bit, stitch by stitch, and that’s how we’re going to win,” Ocasio-Cortez said, following a call to “stitch together” a cross-class and cross-demographic coalition. “… That’s not just how we’re going to win a Bernie Sanders presidency, but that’s how we’re going to win our future back. That’s how we’re going to win our country back. That’s how we’re going to win it all.”

“I love her,” Hannah Cook, a 20-year-old student from nearby Glenwood, Iowa, said after the event, slumping her shoulders and rolling her eyes up for emphasis. “I was so excited when I saw that (she was going to be here).”

Cook and her friend Kelsey Pavelka said they both probably would have come out regardless of Ocasio-Cortez's presence. But the freshman congresswoman, and youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, brought a new energy, they said.

Pavelka said Ocasio-Cortez comes across as authentic on social media, and seeing her in person helped build on that connection. Pavelka and Cook, a daycare worker and nanny, respectively, said Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez spoke to their specific concerns with health care and child care.

The Friday rally was the first of three campaign events Sanders was to hold with Ocasio-Cortez, with two more scheduled Saturday. They were to travel from the western edge of the state, hold a “climate crisis summit” in Des Moines midday Saturday and end with a rally in Coralville.