Ocasio-Cortez ends 2018 with nearly $370,000 in campaign cash

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) closed out 2018 with nearly $370,000 in cash on hand, according to her latest filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Ocasio-Cortez raised just short of $70,000 between Nov. 27 and Dec. 31, the filing shows. That haul was largely boosted by some $43,000 in small-dollar contributions, a sign of her grass-roots fundraising appeal.

{mosads}Among the largest contributions Ocasio-Cortez received in December was a $2,000 transfer from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) campaign committee, and a handful of $1,000 contributions from individual donors, the filings show.

The first-term lawmaker’s year-end fundraising haul comes as some Democrats raise the prospect of fielding a primary challenge against Ocasio-Cortez, who has rankled some in the party’s establishment wing by aligning herself with a group calling to primary incumbent Democrats.

The group, Justice Democrats, helped fuel Ocasio-Cortez’s insurgent bid against former Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) last year. Her eventual victory in that race rattled the political establishment and handed Ocasio-Cortez a kind of rock star status in the progressive movement.

Justice Democrats announced its first primary target of the 2020 cycle earlier this month, putting out a call for candidates to challenge Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) in Texas’s 28th District.

Despite recent chatter of a primary challenge to Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old has gained an outsize following among progressives and sweeping national visibility, which could parlay itself into funding for a potentially contested reelection bid.