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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ‘I Don’t Even Know if I Want to Be in Politics’

“The last two years have been pretty hostile,” the congresswoman said, expressing frustration with the “smothering approach” within her own party.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) isn’t sure if she still wants to “be in politics” anymore. In an interview with The New York Times published Saturday, the congresswoman, arguably one of the highest-profile figure of the left right now, expressed frustration with the “smothering approach” she said she was experiencing from within her own party. “The last two years have been pretty hostile. Externally, we’ve been winning. Externally, there’s been a ton of support, but internally, it’s been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Times’ Astead Herndon. Yet she also held the door open to running for Senate down the line. “I genuinely don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to be in politics. You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn’t even know if I was going to run for re-election this year,” Ocasio-Cortez said. Noting that she chose to run for re-election at least partly to prove she “wasn’t a fluke,” she said the “lack of support” from within her own party had almost changed her mind.