Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) mentioned Thursday that the far left had an “outsized impact” in shaping public notion of the Democratic Occasion, which he argued harm them within the 2024 election cycle.
In an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, Torres mentioned he’s involved the far left’s embrace of unpopular coverage positions has led to an impression that the entire celebration shares these views. He pointed to the “Defund the Police” motion as a major instance — which arose within the wake of high-profile police killings of Black Individuals, corresponding to George Floyd in 2020.
“I have a concern that the far left is pressuring the party to take policy positions that are deeply unpopular among most Americans,” Torres mentioned, including later that “the majority of Democrats never endorsed a movement like ‘Defund the Police,’” regardless of the general public associating the 2.
“If you are speaking to the far left, then you could be forgiven for thinking that ‘Defund the Police’ is a popular movement in America, but if you’re speaking to working-class people of color, then you would realize that it was never a mass constituency for a movement like ‘Defund the Police,” Torres mentioned. “And so we should be taking positions that are in line with the majority of Americans.”
Acosta challenged Torres’s conclusion that the phrase was a major issue within the election, noting that even Democrats who embraced it in 2020 haven’t been pushing the difficulty in the previous few years.
“I don’t think so,” Torres mentioned, when Acosta requested whether or not his critique is unfair. “Because the far left has an outsized microphone and therefore has an outsized impact in shaping the perception of the Democratic Party.”
Torres famous that New York Democrats had some key wins on this election cycle — pointing to Reps.-elect Laura Gillen and Josh Riley and Reps. Tom Suozzi and Pat Ryan.
“The election cycle was not completely depressing. There was a ray of light in New York. We saw an impressive transformation of the Democratic Party in New York state under the leadership of Hakeem Jeffries,” Torres mentioned, referring to the Home minority chief.
He careworn, nevertheless, that the victories got here from centrist candidates.
“The common thread among all of them is all of them are left-of-center Democrats,” Torres mentioned of these he talked about. “The center-left is capable of winning the swing districts that we need to win to make Hakeem Jeffries the Speaker of the house.”
The interview got here after Torres took to social media to critique his personal celebration, saying the “far left” contributed to Vice President Harris’s loss and helped ship President-elect Trump again to the White Home. The presidential race was referred to as for Trump early Wednesday.
“Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx,’” Torres wrote Wednesday on the social platform X.
