Voters react to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing to beat of protesters chant
Video survey showed mixed reactions to the viral video of the New York congresswoman
Registered voters in a new survey had a polarized reaction to a video of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing to the beat of protesters angrily chanting at her.
Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., held a town hall last week in Queens, where protesters shouted at her, holding up signs, some of which contained profane language. As protesters chanted "AOC has got to go," the far-left congresswoman sat on the stage and danced to the beat of her hecklers' voices.
Toward the end of the video, members of the audience began to turn on the protesters, urging them to let Ocasio-Cortez speak. At one point, she derided a man holding up a sign that read "Wake up New York. Vote for Tina Forte. F**K AOC." Ocasio-Cortez, noticing the sign pop up in the audience, sarcastically called the man’s message "classy."
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks during a news conference to discuss legislation that would strengthen Social Security benefits, on Capitol Hill October 26, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
In a video survey that played the clip and allowed respondents to track their reaction in real time, 149 registered voters, evenly split between Democrats (blue line), Republicans (red line) and independents (yellow line), had a number of different feelings about the protesters, as well as Ocasio-Cortez’s reaction to them.
Pollster Lee Carter, who conducted the survey through her company Maslansky + Partners, said that it was difficult to give the video a grade, calling the reactions "mixed."
Some voters thought that Ocasio-Cortez did OK in the "face of disrespect," and gave her credit for letting the actions of the crowd "roll off her back." Others were furious and felt she was being dismissive of the people she is supposed to represent.
"[Voter said things like] ‘AOC needs to take constituents seriously, even if they don't agree with her. She doesn't take them seriously.’ And so we can see that once again AOC is polarizing, but gets all of our attention," Carter told Fox News Digital.
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The video graph of real-time reactions showed that Republicans and independents held a slightly positive reaction to the chants of the protesters, while Democrats remained more neutral, if not somewhat negative.
When Ocasio-Cortez began to dance, the real-time reaction showed that Democrats, Republicans and independents had a slight negative reaction to her actions, but still remained largely neutral.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks as she joins abortion-rights activists as they demonstrate following Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Washington, Friday, June 24, 2022. ((AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin))
A similar incident occurred a week earlier when anti-war protestors interrupted another town hall the congresswoman was hosting. A pair of protestors heckled Ocasio-Cortez for her support in sending weapons to Ukraine during its war with Russia.
Ocasio-Cortez is up for re-election in New York’s 14th Congressional District in November. She faces off against Republican Tina Forte, a local business owner.
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