Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasts Democrats, Biden campaign for dropping the ball with Latino voters

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) criticized Democrats for failing to sway Latino voters in the 2020 presidential election.

The congresswoman's remarks came just hours after Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden lost Florida after underperforming with the Latino community in the state.

President Donald Trump won the state with 51.21% of the vote.

What are the details?

Ocasio-Cortez made the remarks Tuesday night, pointing out Democrats' apparent problem with Latino voters and how the party didn't work hard enough to convince Latino voters to vote for Biden.

She tweeted, "The necessary effort simply hasn't been put in."

Ocasio-Cortez also shared a news clip featuring remarks from journalist Hunter Walker, who said, "Progressive allies of Biden were raising alarms about this over the summer. The Biden campaign did do a little more Latino outreach, but he has really struggled to on that front."

The congresswoman wrote, "I won't comment much on tonight's results as they are evolving and ongoing, but I will say we've been sounding the alarm about Dem vulnerabilities w/Latinos for a long, long time. There is a strategy and a path, but the necessary effort simply hasn't been put in."

What else?

Business Insider pointed out on Wednesday that Jennifer Molina, the Biden campaign's Latino media director, vehemently defended the campaign's outreach, and said it had "aggressively" increased voter contact and visibility for the Latino community.

"This includes tabeling in Latino supermarkets, like Cardenas, canvassing, phone banks, text banks, chiva buses, mobile billboards, taco trucks, and banda performances near election day sites," she said in a statement. "We're confident our historic investments of tens of millions of dollars will mobilize the community."

It seems fair to point out that Biden's support in the Latino community fell short in Florida after Trump was successfully able to paint the Democratic candidate as a socialist. Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described Democratic Socialist, perhaps did not realize — or outright ignored — that the notion deeply resonated with the state's Cuban voters and turned them away from Biden throughout the election.

Anything else to know?

Biden wasn't the only Democrat to lose Florida on Tuesday night: Two female freshman Democratic congresswomen lost their respective re-election races.

Democratic Reps. Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell lost in Miami-Dade.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez defeated Mucarsel-Powell, and former TV news host Maria Elvira Salazar defeated Shalala.

This story has been updated.