U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez announced Thursday that she is engaged to Riley Roberts, her long-term partner. Riley Roberts is a marketing professional who she first met while they were students at Boston University a decade ago.
According to Insider, and later on social media, the couple got engaged in Puerto Rico’s family hometown. Roberts appeared in a 2018 documentary about politics in which he spoke out in support of Ocasio Cortez’s career.
Ocasio-Cortez is a Bronx-born ex-bartender who now represents Queens. She was the charismatic star in the “squad,” a group of progressive congresswomen, whose 2018 elections helped bring the chamber back to Democratic control.
The 32-year old self-described democratic socialist defeated Joe Crowley, a powerful Democratic incumbent, in the year’s primary. He easily won in 2020 over former CNBC broadcaster Michelle Caruso–Cabrera.
Ocasio Cortez, along with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, has tried to lead the Democratic Party where it long feared treading: Steap taxes on the wealthy. Eliminating an immigration enforcement agency. To combat climate change, propose “economic transformation”.
Sanders and Ocasio Cortez spoke recently in support of organizers who led the successful union drive at Amazon Warehouse in Staten Island. She supports a bill that bans stock trading by members and their families.
The House censured Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, Arizona, for creating an animated video in which he killed Ocasio Cortez with a sword. This was a remarkable rebuke that highlighted Washington’s political tensions.
