Former NYT editor: Missing Ocasio-Cortez ‘akin to not seeing Trump’s win coming in 2016′

Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson expressed dismay at her former paper on Wednesday for not covering an important Democratic party election taking place in New York that resulted in 28-year-old millennial Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez unseating 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley, stating on Twitter that “missing her rise is akin to not seeing Trump.”

The commentary from Abramson, who served as executive editor of the Times from 2011 to 2014, comes one day after Ocasio-Cortez stunned the political establishment by easily beating Crowley, who was seen as a possible candidate for House Speaker if Democrats take back the House this fall.

“Kind of pisses me off that @nytimes is still asking Who Is Ocasio-Cortez?” wrote Abramson. “When it should have covered her campaign. Missing her rise akin to not seeing Trump’s win coming in 2016.”

https://t.co/9EjYhKDYs5
Kind of pisses me off that @nytimes is still asking Who Is Ocasio-Cortez? when it should have covered her campaign. Missing her rise akin to not seeing Trump’s win coming in 2016.

— Jill Abramson (@JillAbramson) June 27, 2018

The race had appeared to belong to Crowley, who outspent Ocasio-Cortez 10-to-1 and declined debating her in the primary. Ocasio-Cortez was bartending as recently as last year and was an organizer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016.

This photo is from Nov. 14, 2017. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, was then working as a bartender.

Less than a year later, she defeated the likely next Speaker of the House, and will almost certainly be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress pic.twitter.com/JgHjdQWAF6

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) June 27, 2018

{mosads}Abramson was fired from the Times in 2014 after several reports, most notably a 2013 piece in Politico titled “Turbulence at the Times,” quoted several sources at the paper off the record describing her as having a volatile temper and being “impossible” to work with. She currently teaches at Harvard.