Money Is Not Destiny Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s New York City primary upset shows that traditional measures of electoral strength are not always reliable.

https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/money-not-destiny
Before last Tuesday’s New York primaries, it was easy to get the idea that the most intriguing challenger of an entrenched House Democratic incumbent was 34-year-old Suraj Patel. Taking on Carolyn Maloney, who had been representing Manhattan’s Upper East Side for a quarter century, Patel was described by The New York Times as “running the most millennial of campaigns.”
Patel won attention for unorthodox stunts like what he called “Tinder banking,” using straight and gay dating apps to recruit campaign volunteers. The president of a family-owned hotel company, Patel also made the New York Post for giving out contraceptive keepsakes in wrappers emblazoned with his name and the slogan, “SAY IT WITH A CONDOM.”
But Patel, who worked on the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns, mostly won attention in the most traditional way possible — by the size of his campaign bankroll. As the Times reported five days before the primary, “Mr. Patel, a hotel executive, made a splash by amassing $1.2 million in a few short months — rivaling Ms. Maloney’s haul.”
Like almost all primary challengers to entrenched congressional incumbents, Patel fell short, losing to Maloney 59-to-41 percent. But Patel’s aggressive wooing of younger voters and his even more aggressive fundraising helped distract the Times and many national campaign reporters from a far more dramatic story in the outer boroughs — the giant-killer primary victory of left-wing insurgent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.