Ocasio-Cortez endorses challenger to Democrat Lipinski in Illinois race

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the progressive freshman lawmaker who ousted a longtime incumbent in the midterms last year, is backing a challenger hoping to unseat one of the most conservative House Democrats in an Illinois race.

Ocasio-Cortez announced her endorsement of Marie Newman Tuesday. It is the first endorsement the congresswoman has made in the 2020 House races.

Newman is running against Rep. Dan Lipinski in Illinois’s 3rd Congressional District. She lost to the incumbent in 2018 by just more than 2,000 votes.

“Marie Newman is a textbook example of one of the ways that we could be better as a party — to come from a deep blue seat and to be championing all the issues we need to be championing,” Ocasio-Cortez told The New York Times.