Nate Silver blasted for claiming Ocasio-Cortez criticism rooted in sexism, racism

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FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver took heat Tuesday night for a tweet claiming Republicans are so critical of incoming Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because of her “race and gender.”

Ever since she scored a major upset in her New York congressional primary, Ocasio-Cortez has become a household name. But conservative pundits and GOP lawmakers have heavily scrutinized her tweets and public statements over various inaccuracies.

Silver argued that the animosity toward the self-described Democratic Socialist is based in bigotry.

Responding to another tweet about how Republicans were more fixated on the 28-year-old congresswoman-elect than the Oval Office showdown between President Trump and top congressional Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Silver said:

“There are lots of reasons Ocasio-Cortez drives certain Republicans crazy, foremost among them her race and gender. But it's also that she's quintessentially a New Yorker and DC political culture is formal and prudish when NYC mostly isn't those things.”

That sparked a fiery reaction.

Silver eventually offered up this clarification:

“Put differently, New Yorkers are very good at trolling, and Washington has extreme troll-vulnerability. It's always made for a mismatch but more pronounced now that we're in the Golden Age of Trolling. We may need to move the capital back to Philly to keep it a fair fight.”