AOC rallies to Biden's side as progressives split over backing his 2024 campaign

WASHINGTON — At a moment of existential turmoil for President Joe Biden, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has stepped up as a firm ally of the embattled incumbent, using her platform to speak out against the flurry of Democratic voices who are calling on him to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.

As former President Donald Trump was wrapping up his lengthy speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination Thursday, AOC — as she’s widely known — took to Instagram Live to speak directly to thousands of followers to make the case against Biden dropping out.

She questioned the viability of replacing Biden atop the ticket at this late stage, warning that some Republicans would challenge that legally and said doing so could lead to “a presidential election being decided by Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court,” like in 2000.

Ocasio-Cortez emphasized, repeatedly, that she respected the view of ordinary voters who want to see a change atop the ticket and said she wasn’t guaranteeing that Biden would win if he stayed in the race. But she warned that things could get more chaotic for Democrats if Biden were to make the extraordinary move to end his campaign just weeks before the Democratic convention.

“If you 10,000% are super-convinced that the candidate, or president, cannot beat Donald Trump, then do what you think is in your good conscience. But I have not seen an alternative scenario that, I feel, does not set us up for enormous peril,” she said.

In a twist for the left-leaning Ocasio-Cortez, her comments make her among the more forceful pro-Biden voices in the party right now. While over 10% congressional Democrats have called for Biden to withdraw from the race, few have spoken out to criticize those voices and