Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez congratulated failed presidential candidate Andrew Yang after he dropped out of the race Tuesday night, saying he ran a “great race.”
Ocasio-Cortez made the statement on Twitter Tuesday as polls closed in the New Hampshire primary, showing Bernie Sanders leading the field and Yang finishing in last place.
“You ran a great race, @AndrewYang. Your campaign focused on the future, and looked like you were having a lot of fun doing it,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote to the businessman-turned-politician.
“Thank you for bringing up ideas like [universal basic income] and opening a discourse on how we better value undervalued work like caregiving,” she added.
Universal basic income, or UBI, was the main tenet of Yang’s campaign, which he said would be a policy to give every American $1,000 a month.
Yang also campaigned on issues like the fight against automation in the work place and reorganizing the US economy and work force.
Yang got about 1 percent in the Iowa caucus and was in last place in the New Hampshire primary before ending his campaign.
“I am so proud of this campaign,” he tweeted before ending his campaign. “Thank you to everyone who got us here.”