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“And they said it won’t work in the Midwest.”

That was how New York democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opened her speech at a packed and enthusiastic rally in Kansas City Friday night, one of two events the 28-year-old congressional candidate held alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in an effort to prove that an agenda confronting entrenched corporate power and demanding economic justice has far-reaching appeal.

“Whether you live in Vermont or the Bronx or Kansas, you are outraged by a situation in which three people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of America.”
—Sen. Bernie Sanders

The two rallies on Friday—both of which were filled to capacity, with the Wichita event drawing an estimated 4,000 Kansans—were organized on behalf of progressive congressional candidates James Thompson and Brent Welder, both of whom are running on platforms that mirror those of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez: Medicare for All, a living wage, tuition-free public college, robust support for unions, and other central progressive priorities.

“I’m running for Congress because billionaires and giant corporations have too much control over our government,” Welder, a former labor attorney who doesn’t accept corporate cash, said to applause Friday evening. “As a worker’s rights advocate and labor lawyer, I’ve spent my career fighting the giant corporations that rig the economy against workers and our community.”

Since Ocasio-Cortez’s landslide victory over corporate Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley in New York’s primary last month, pundits and Democrats alike have raised doubts about the viability of democratic socialism beyond “the coasts” and have cautioned candidates against sprinting “too far to the left” in Midwestern states like Kansas.

If the overflowing rallies and electric atmosphere at Fridays’ rallies are any evidence, these warnings couldn’t be more wrong-headed.

“Whether you live in Vermont or the Bronx or Kansas, you are outraged by a situation in which three people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of America,” Sanders said during the afternoon event for Thompson, a civil rights lawyer who hails from the Koch brothers’ home district of Wichita.

“I just do not accept what the pundits are talking about when they say blue state and red state and purple state,” Sanders added. “I believe that any state in this country where working people are struggling is a state prepared to fight for justice.”