Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is blaming the “corruption” of New York’s “dysfunctional” Democratic Party for the party’s disappointing showing in the Empire State on election night.

The results were not as disappointing for Democrats as Republicans would have liked. Democrats held onto the governorship and the legislature in Albany, but Republicans performed better than expected in deep blue New York.

The GOP picked up four seats in Congress in the state, which could be pivotal in the battle for control over the House of Representatives.

“If Democrats do not hang on to the House, I think that responsibility falls squarely in New York State,” the congresswoman, who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, told the Intercept on Wednesday. 

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez called the Republican gains in New York a “glaring aberration” among Tuesday’s results and blamed the party leadership within the state. 

“I think, in New York, the way that those campaigns were run were different than the way a lot of winning campaigns across the country were run,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said.

In particular, she criticized the Democratic leadership for its messaging on public safety. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said that Democrats chose “to validate … and amplify Republican narratives on crime.” 

Democrats, she said, focused on assuring voters that they did not support defunding the police rather than focusing on positive Democratic public safety positions — such as gun control.

Her strongest criticism, however, was reserved for the structure of the Democratic Party in New York, which she referred to as “political machinery” that functions on “political corruption.”

“It’s very clear that the New York State Democratic Party was designed under [Governor] Cuomo to be very reliant on the governor’s seat,” she said. “Cuomo may be gone, but … much of the political machinery that he put in place is still there. And this is a machinery that is disorganized, it is sycophantic. It relies on lobbyists and big money. And it really undercuts the ability for there to be affirming grassroots and state-level organizing across the state.”

While the congresswoman did not give specific examples of corruption, she called for a “political cost to being heavily backed by big money” and criticized what she sees as the undue influence of the real estate and charter school lobbies on Democratic state politics.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez offered her own solution to the self-diagnosed problem of the New York political machine: Allow her “progressive” acolytes to gain power within the party apparatus, the same progressives who “organized and helped deliver that margin” on Election Day.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez also reiterated her call for the state party chairman, Jay Jacobs, to resign, one that she has been making for more than a year — since the Democratic Party declined to endorse its own nominee, socialist India Walton, in the Buffalo mayoral race. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez called on Mr. Jacobs to resign over remarks he made explaining the party’s refusal to endorse her. 

At the time, Mr. Jacobs compared Ms. Walton’s nomination to a hypothetical situation in which David Duke won a Democratic primary. 

“I have to endorse David Duke? I don’t think so. Now, of course, India Walton is not in the same category but it just, it just leads you to that question — is it a must? It’s not a must,” Mr. Jacobs said at the time. 

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez criticized him for “comparing a Black single mother who won a historic election to David Duke.” Mr. Jacobs later apologized for his remarks.

Ms. Walton ultimately lost to the incumbent Democratic mayor, who ran a write-in campaign. On Thursday, Governor Hochul praised Mr. Jacobs to reporters from Puerto Rico, telling them he did a “great job.”