AOC claims credit for strong New York City census count

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., claimed credit for the stronger-than-expected New York City population count, saying her organizing efforts encouraged residents to complete the census forms.

Ocasio-Cortez said her campaign spent more than $3 million on multilingual mailers, advertisements and organizing events to help her constituents participate in the once-a-decade census count. 

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"It worked!" Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "The Bronx & Queens were top performers nationally."

New census numbers released Thursday showed that New York City’s population swelled to a record 8.8 million people – 7% more than what pre-census estimates predicted. Ocasio-Cortez's team noted the strong numbers in her two boroughs, with Queens exceeding census estimates by 8% and the Bronx by 5%. 

"Overall, this helped direct an estimated $53 million in federal resources to the district, in addition to saving New York a congressional seat," Ocasio-Cortez's campaign team said in a statement Friday. 

Statewide, New York's population grew overall in the last 10 years — but due to major population booms in Texas, Florida and elsewhere, the Empire State will lose one congressional seat, not two as some had predicted. 

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The strong showing in New York City appears to have shored up her district and the clout of Big Apple Democrats. 

Ocasio-Cortez's seat was once considered a possible target for elimination since she's ruffled feathers in New York and elsewhere by supporting progressive challengers to establishment Democrats. But the new census figures mean likely an upstate Republican district will be wiped out and Democrats will seek to redraw the congressional maps to ensure more Democrats are elected to Congress.

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"I think New York could turn into a bloodbath for Republicans," Dave Wasserman, a prominent redistrict expert at the Cook Political Report, said in an interview Friday with Fox News. "Democrats could convert the existing 19-8 delegation into a 23-3 delegation through redistricting alone."