US midterms: European left commends progressive advances

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress

On Tuesday 6 November, the people of the United States went to the polls to elect all 435 Members of the House of Representatives, 35 of 100 Senators, and 36 of 50
State Governors, and to decide numerous other local elections and statewide
initiatives.

As a result, the Democratic Party gained 28 seats and took the majority in the lower
House of Representatives. The Democrats also gained control of seven additional
governorships, including in the crucial Upper Midwest states of Illinois, Michigan
and Wisconsin.

We commend the people of the United States for repudiating President Trump and the
Republican Party, which, after two years advancing a radical-right political programme
designed around corporate profit at the expense of working people, again showed its
true face by running the most openly racist, xenophobic and misogynist campaign in
recent memory.

We particularly commend the election of an unprecedented crop of left-wing
Democrats, led by Democratic Socialists of America members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
and Rashida Tlaib, who respectively become the youngest woman and the first
Palestinian-American ever elected to Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib will join a record number of newly-elected women and
minority candidates to carry forward the progressive electoral revival led by
Senator Bernie Sanders, whom we also congratulate for winning his re-election bid,
again as an Independent, with 67.4% of the vote.

from the European Left Party’s North America working group