Ocasio-Cortez gets so many death threats that knocking on her office door makes staffers 'stiffen'
The 29-year-old, who has become 'the second-most-talked-about politician in the country right now' after Trump, said that she misses not being in a political bubble
The youngest Congresswoman in the United States' history, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has been featured in Time magazine's latest cover, gets frequent death threats. Reports state that the democrat socialist has received so many death threats till now that her staff has been trained to evaluate visitors to her Capitol Hill Office. This also includes people who leave Post-It notes on the plaque in the hallway, according to reports.
The 29-year-old, who has become "the second-most-talked-about politician in the country right now" after Trump, told the magazine in a profile that she misses not being in a political bubble.
"I miss being able to go outside in sweats. I can’t go anywhere in public and just be a person without a lot of people watching everything I do," she told Time this month.
TIME’s new cover: “Change is closer than we think.” Inside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s unlikely rise https://t.co/qV0hB6qDRd pic.twitter.com/L0RUIvuC3U
— TIME (@TIME) March 21, 2019
The congresswoman from the Bronx, who has been dubbed as the "Wonder Woman of the left and wicked witch of the right" in the interview, also talked about how her millennial generation has grown up in a country that falls short of its promise.
"An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity. I have never seen that, or experienced it, really, in my adult life," she said.
The interview also explored Ocasio-Cortez's influences, including her father who moved his family from a working-class New York City neighborhood to a tonier Westchester address to improve his children's schooling options. By the time she finished her first year at Boston University, she was told her father had lung cancer.
“Change is closer than we think.” Inside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s unlikely rise https://t.co/qV0hB6qDRd pic.twitter.com/iMEZktjwYo
— TIME (@TIME) March 21, 2019
"I didn't know that it was going to be the last time that I talked to my dad," the lawmaker said of one hospital visit, "but toward the end of our interaction, I started to feel like it was. I said goodbye, but I think he knew, and I knew. And so I started to leave, and he kind of hollered out, and I turned around in the doorframe, and he said, 'Hey, make me proud'."
Despite the Congresswoman's soaring popularity in the past, it is not yet clear how much sticking power she continues to have as her latest poll numbers show her approval ratings are dramatically sinking.
According to the poll data released by the Gallup Organization on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez's public approval rating nosedived between September and February. Although the lawmaker's popularity has catapulted over the past few months, the number of people who have unfavorable views of the 29-year-old has grown faster than her fan base, according to Gallup surveys. The polls also state that she has more admirers among non-whites, women, self-identified Democrats and Americans between the age 18-35. Every other demographic is against her.
The Latina politician recently garnered heavy criticism for her opposition of the Amazon deal, where the online tech giant had proposed to build its second headquarters in Queens. However, because of rampant opposition to the deal, Amazon decided to scrap the deal, nearly blaming the politician for it. The cancelation of the deal cost 25,000 jobs, which the Amazon office would have brought to New York City.
According to a Siena College poll, at least 38 percent of voters from the state of New York picked the 29-year-old lawmaker as the story's biggest "villain", and just 12 percent of the respondents said that she was instead a "hero".
