Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a Boston University alum with a bachelor's degree in economics and international relations. As mic.com reports, she interned at the immigration office of Senator Ted Kennedy during her college years, and later went to work as an organizer in the 2016 presidential campaign for her fellow democratic-socialist Bernie Sanders, and like Sanders, Cortez has proven to have a message that clearly registers with voters. With her victory in the primaries, it will be a real shake-up for the left, both within public offices, and the electorate, if she gets elected to office in the November midterms.

The Cortez victory shows that money doesn't have to be everything in American politics

Purely from a numerical standpoint, Cortez had the odds against her. According to OpenSecrets.org, Cortez had just $300,000 in her campaign funds, which is a tenth of opponent Joseph Crowley’s three million dollar campaign. Almost seventy percent of Cortez's campaign funds came from individual contributions of $200 or less, while individual contributions made up less than one percent of Crowley’s campaign funds.

Aside from money though, Cortez had less political experience than Crowley. While Crowley is a ten-term Representative, Cortez is a former bartender and waitress from the Bronx, though still politically active beforehand through political groups such as Democratic Socialists of America, and endorsed by many others.

While Trump might have announced his presidential campaign by saying "the American dream is dead," Cortez’s victory is evidence to the contrary.

At the humble age of 28, she has unseated Joseph Crowley, who served as a representative for the 14th Congressional District of New York, which covers "some of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country — some even say the world" according to Mic, for ten consecutive terms and has run, unopposed, since 2004.

Crowley was slated to take over the House Minority Leader position from Nancy Pelosi, who is exactly fifty years older than Cortez.

A Cortez victory means trouble for established Democrats

As one of the most powerful Democrats in America today, Pelosi has, for better or worse, become one of the faces of the Democratic Party during the Trump Administration.

More specifically, the face of the established Democratic party. With Trump’s anti-establishment stance registering with the right, and Cortez’s similar stance registering with the left, it is clear that the identity of both parties might be changing before our eyes.

With so many new faces being brought into Washington, it has made several long-standing politicians decide their position, and where they want their party to head in the future. Do they fight to maintain the values they’ve known for as long as they’ve been in government? Or do they choose to side with more far left or far right stances like those of Cortez and Trump, respectively? With those elected by the country not having lifelong experience in politics like so many other elected officials, it is clear that their usual strategies won’t work here, and they must learn to adapt.
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