Iowa Western Community College was packed full of people on Friday, November 8th when Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continued his campaign for the 2020 general election Democratic nomination.

This is the first time that AOC has been stumping for Sanders outside of New York, making this her first trip to Iowa for this cause.

“We don’t watch the polls, we change the polls,” Ocasio-Cortez said at the Reiver Arena event.

The two had been on a two-day campaign tour through Iowa. They stopped in Council Bluffs, Des Moines, and Coralville.

“Whether your running for City Council, whether your running for your PTA, whether your running for president, this is not about something that we allow to happen to us,” she said. “We don’t let this race happen to us, we don’t watch the Presidential race. This is not a movie, this is a movement.” After hearing AOC say this the crowd of around 2,000 erupted into cheers.

AOC went on to say that our destinies are tied. Instead of asking what the individuals want and need, it’s more of a what do the Iowans believe, and what do Nebraskans, believe when we all need healthcare.

Sanders went on to explain how healthcare got brought into the campaign, and how the campaign isn’t solely focused on healthcare.

“Don’t let anybody tell you this is a debate about healthcare, it is not,” explained Sanders. “Nobody can rationally defend the cruelty and dysfunctionality of the current system.”

Sanders has also proclaimed a climate change plan that is the most comprehensive of all of the presidential candidates. The estimated price tag for this deal is a whopping $16.3 trillion.

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Paxton DeVault

Senator Bernie Sanders came to Iowa Western's campus with NY Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on November 8, 2019 to stump for the Democratic nomination.

Ocasio-Cortez initially wrote the Green New Deal, and Sanders was one of the first, big names to sign on.

It states “The climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future. But we must act immediately.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest representative ever sworn into congress, she supports Sanders because they share the same values which include Medicare for all, college for all, and the Green New Deal among other ideas including education tution for free including universal, high quality, affordable child care.

“We believe that quality education is a human right from preschool to graduate school,” said Sanders. He touts that we can get “the best public education system in the world, because we are going to honor and respect our teachers and provide them with the compensation they deserve.”