Fox News baselessly claims Democrats 'may try to eliminate' AOC's district

Fox News published a report Tuesday claiming the Democratic Party “may try to eliminate” New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s seat in the House of Representatives.

But the conservative outlet’s only source for the claim is a single line in a 170-word editorial published in the New York Post.

“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., would do well to prepare to see her House seat vanish after this year’s redistricting over to her targeting of ‘established Democrats’ with funds from her Courage to Change PAC, according to a New York Post editorial,” senior news editor Edmund DeMarche wrote at FoxNews.com.

The Post editorial only mentions the possibility of Ocasio-Cortez’s seat being removed in a line at the very end: “Don’t be surprised when the established Democrats who’ll control redistricting after the 2020 Census do their best to eliminate her seat.”

The Post’s very short editorial vaguely implies, without any citation, that Ocasio-Cortez has upset the Democratic Party and is in “hot water,” offering no evidence of any kind for the suggestion that the party might seek retribution by eliminating her seat.

And Fox News ran with it, despite the lack of any reporting or the extreme unlikelihood that the Democratic Party would want to eliminate a reliably blue House seat.

New York has 27 congressional districts, 21 of which are currently held by Democrats and 5 by Republicans, with one seat currently vacant after Republican Rep. Chris Collins resigned and pleaded guilty to insider trading.

Ocasio-Cortez’s seat, the 14th Congressional District is, one of the most heavily Democratic. She won in 2018 with 78% of the vote. Her Democratic predecessor, Joe Crowley, won with nearly 83% of the vote in 2016 and 74% of the vote in 2014.

Aside from the New York Post editorial and the Fox News report, no other credible outlets reporting that Ocasio-Cortez’s seat could be eliminated.

Fox News report claims at the end of its article that “the Associated Press contributed to this report,” but there are no recent stories from the Associated Press on the congresswoman that mention the possibility of New York’s 14th Congressional District being in jeopardy.

Fox News has been a frequent source of stories designed to paint Ocasio-Cortez in a negative light. In a survey of Fox News content done by Media Matters for America in 2019, the network mentioned Ocasio-Cortez on-air every day for 42 straight days, racking up 3,181 mentions of her.

Fox News has often fabricated stories or amplified baseless conspiracy theories and allegations.

The New York Post has also frequently targeted the congresswoman.

On Feb. 22, the Post published 12 separate stories about Ocasio-Cortez, including one story singling her out for wearing a “luxe designer dress on The View.”

“The Post is just mad that you can look good fighting for working families,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to the barrage of stories.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.