Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) transferred $1 million to Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed weeks ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Ocasio-Cortez is campaigning in Michigan this week for El-Sayed.

“I’m not waking up on November 4th wishing I did more to combat the smears aimed at Abdul,” she said in a statement to The New York Times.

“I’m leaving everything I can on the field,” she added.

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Ms. Ocasio-Cortez spent Thursday on a bus trip across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with Dr. El-Sayed and is set to hold three events without him in the Detroit region on Friday.

She made the donation to the Abdul for Michigan Victory Fund, a joint effort between his campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is openly weighing her next political steps, which could include a presidential run, a re-election campaign or a Senate bid in New York for the seat currently held by Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader.

Mr. Schumer had supported Dr. El-Sayed’s rival in the primary but an allied super PAC has spent more than $30 million so far on Dr. El-Sayed’s bid in the general election.

Whoever wins the Michigan Senate race — Dr. El-Sayed is running neck and neck against Mike Rogers, a Republican former congressman — could determine control of the chamber.

The relationship between the two progressive firebrands goes back to 2018, when Ms. Ocasio-Cortez first ousted a Democratic incumbent in a primary, endorsed Dr. El-Sayed’s campaign for governor and traveled to Michigan to campaign with him. He lost that race.

“The gloves are off in Michigan’s razor-tight Senate race. @MikeTobinFox is on the scene in Pontiac as crowds line up for a campaign event featuring Reps. AOC and Ayanna Pressley,” Fox News wrote.

“The showdown comes as Vice President JD Vance calls Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed a ‘little weasel’ and tells him to ‘shut his mouth.’ With the race described as a statistical dead heat, both sides are pulling out their political heavyweights,” it continued.

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“Photos show crowds at rival Michigan rallies where AOC backed Abdul El-Sayed and JD Vance campaigned for Mike Rogers,” Newsweek stated.

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While campaigning with El-Sayed, Ocasio-Cortez claimed the Trump administration is “attacking women’s ability to have an education.”

“What they’re making harder; what they’re not going to give people student loans for, and it’s nurses, it’s teachers, [and] it’s social workers,” she continued.

“They don’t want women to go to college,” she added.

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Newsweek shared further:

Ocasio-Cortez used her Marquette appearance to accuse Republicans of attempting to make El-Sayed appear frightening to Michigan voters.

“What they’re betting on is that if they can make you scared of him, then that means you won’t listen to him,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “They know that if people start listening to him, that they might like what they hear, and they don’t want that to happen.”

She also contrasted El-Sayed with Rogers.

“When no one was watching, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed was getting glasses for kids,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But when no one was looking, Mike Rogers was taking checks from pharmaceutical interests. When no one was watching, he went to go work for them in the revolving door after he left Congress.”

El-Sayed focused part of his speech on affordability, saying it “should not be this hard” to buy groceries, fill a gas tank, afford a home or see a doctor.

“Shouldn’t be this hard to keep our money here,” he said. “Spend it on roads and bridges here, build our schools here, provide healthcare here.”

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