AOC’s Opponent: ‘The Latino Community’ Is Endorsing Me

Tina Forte, the QAnon-promoting Republican challenger for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s House seat, claimed Thursday that not only are her opponent’s voters endorsing her, but so is “the Latino community.”

In a Newsmax interview that also featured Steven Elliott, the GOP candidate who will face Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) in November, Forte said her strategy to beat the overwhelming favorite Ocasio-Cortez involves going door to door.

“I’ve walked the district. I knock on doors. I speak to the people. They don’t want her anymore,” said Forte.

“I have her voters endorsing me. The Democrats are endorsing me. Ruben Diaz endorsed me,” she said, apparently referring to a 79-year-old out-of-office Bronx politician who has publicly opposed abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

“The Latino community—they are endorsing me over AOC because of her radical left agenda,” claimed Forte, whose campaign website makes no mention of any endorsements.

In 2020, Ocasio-Cortez won re-election in New York’s 14th Congressional District, which is nearly half Hispanic, with over 71 percent of the vote. That year, she was endorsed by Mijente, a grassroots organization for “Latinx and Chicanx people who seek racial, economic, gender and climate justice,” according to its website.

The Daily Beast revealed Wednesday that Forte’s husband and son were caught up in a federal drug and gun bust in 2019 that resulted in guilty pleas by them both.

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