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AOC Meets Her Match: High School Civics Teacher Plans To Teach Her a Lesson

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New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has yet another challenger for her congressional seat.

Republican John Cummings, a retired high school civics teacher and former police officer, plans to run on his “life experience” as a Bronx native, IJR reported.

Like his fellow challengers, Cummings will attempt to warn New Yorkers of the dangers in Ocasio-Cortez’s far-left policy positions.

“I have filed paperwork to run for Congress to stop the creep of socialism into our American way of life. Period,” Cummings said, according to IJR.

“Our current representatives have lost sight of what the Founding Fathers knew would be the tie that binds us all together as Americans: liberty,” he added. “This campaign will be about liberty vs. socialism.”

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Cummings’ campaign strategy makes sense: Only by exposing Ocasio-Cortez’s radicalism can the civics teacher hope to win a potential GOP primary and face off against the progressive congresswoman.

Fortunately for Cummings, his humble background makes him an ideal candidate to make the case against socialism.

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Not only is he a lifetime Bronx resident, but Cummings has also served his community as both an NYPD Harbor Unit officer and a teacher at a local high school. He’s a true local, unlike Ocasio-Cortez.

“My message is I am you, I’ve lived and worked in that district my entire life. I shop where the people shop, I live where they live, I eat where they eat — I know where the good restaurants are, I sit on the Cross Bronx like everybody else, and that message resonates,” he told Fox News.



Cummings is confident that his anti-socialism message will aid his campaign.

“And once that you commit to something like that, to socialism, — and like I said before, I despise socialism — once you commit to that, all of your freedoms and liberties disappear,” Cummings told IJR.

“I find socialism so antithetical to everything that this country is about that it’s one of the reasons I actually jumped in the race.

“I think that once people catch on to that — as I said before, I think that transcends party — and I think people will move over and gladly cast that ballot for me.”

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Despite the former cop’s qualifications and conviction, Cummings still faces overwhelming odds.

Ocasio-Cortez won over 72 percent of the vote in the 2018 election; the GOP candidate, Anthony Pappas, took home just over 13 percent.

Despite those lopsided numbers, Cummings does have one statistic on his side: Ocasio-Cortez’s favorability ratings. A March Gallup poll found that 41 percent of respondents held an unfavorable view of the freshman congresswoman.

Cummings is encouraged by the fact that another New York congressional candidate recently overcame her own long odds: Ocasio-Cortez herself.

Before Ocasio-Cortez ran, Cummings thought it “impossible” to unseat former Rep. Joe Crowley, as he mentioned in an appearance on Fox News.

But as Cummings told the New York Post, Crowley’s loss showed him that someone “from the outside” could defeat an incumbent, as Ocasio-Cortez did in stunning fashion.

Now, he’ll try to pull off the same trick — but as a Republican facing even greater odds.

If anyone’s up to the challenge, it’s this lifetime Bronx resident and civics teacher.

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