Democratic Activist Announces She’ll Challenge Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez For Her House Seat

While New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is seemingly constantly battling with her conservative opponents in the House over policy issues, she’ll have to wage another battle in 2020 after it was revealed Wednesday that she’ll be challenged for her 14th District seat by a fellow Democrat.

According to The Hill, Badrun Khan, a Democratic activist from the Queens area, made her House run official Wednesday while taking a shot at Ocasio-Cortez in the process.

“REAL Results… Not Empty Promises,” Khan boldly states on her campaign’s website, presumably taking aim at Ocasio-Cortez.

On her campaign website’s “About” section, Khan describes herself as a community activist and daughter of an immigrant family.

“As a proud Democrat, advocate, community activist, mother and a proud daughter of an immigrant family, Badrun Khan has spent her entire life fighting for justice, equality and fairness in her community,” the website states.

Campaign issues Khan intends to tackle include enhancing Social Security and Medicare benefits, making the illegal drug epidemic a priority, ending gridlock in Congress, and ensuring U.S. military veterans have proper access to healthcare.

Ocasio-Cortez responded to news of her new challenger on Wednesday, saying she will continue to focus on doing her job and not her potential 2020 opponents.

“I just focus on delivering for my district and doing the best job. I try not to focus too much on other folks in the field,” she said.

Recently, Ocasio-Cortez signaled possible support for backing primary challengers to a number of top House Democrats, including ones who could run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Henry Cuellar. She has already announced support for Marie Newman, a primary challenger to one of the few Democrats in the House who oppose abortion, Rep. Daniel Lipinski.

Khan’s challenge to Ocasio-Cortez won’t be a walk in the park, as the freshman congresswoman already has an army of grassroots support, especially in the realm of social media, where candidates are able to reach younger voters with ease.

According to The Inquisitr, Ocasio-Cortez’s strong base of online supporters recently threatened to begin a campaign to boycott broadcaster ABC after one of their affiliate stations ran an ad that depicted Ocasio-Cortez burning.

The controversial ad, ran by New Faces GOP PAC — a conservative group ran by former congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng — was aired during the last Democratic presidential debate. Heng proclaimed in the ad that Ocasio-Cortez is the “face of socialism and ignorance” before showing the New York lawmaker on fire and revealing her skull.

In the wake of the commercial, “#BoycottABC” trended on Twitter, though it was later pointed out that the commercial might have only been aired on ABC stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.