How Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pulled off one of the most surprising political upsets in U.S. history

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old bartender from The Bronx, defeated U.S. Representative and U.S. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley in one of the most surprising political upsets in U.S. history. With all but nine of the district's 447 precincts reporting, Ocasio held an insurmountable 57.5% to 42.5% lead over Crowley in the Democratic primary in New York state's 14th Congressional District, which is entirely within New York City and includes parts of Queens and The Bronx. Crowley has graciously conceded defeat to Ocasio.

As someone who is not a New Yorker, but followed the race for the Democratic nomination in the 14th District of New York on social media, I can explain a number of reasons behind Ocasio's surprise victory:

• Ocasio did have some political experience prior to running for Congress, specifically, she was an intern for the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy while she was a college student at Boston University in Massachusetts.
• Ocasio, despite having limited campaign resources, ran a virtually-flawless grassroots campaign with a strong and convincing progressive message, and, just by following Ocasio's campaign Twitter page, it's obvious that Ocasio genuinely cares about the people who, if she were to win the general election, would become her constituents.
• Ocasio's support for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) strongly resonated with Democratic voters who strongly oppose Donald Trump's immigrant concentration camps and family separation policies, and I strongly believe that Ocasio's support for abolishing ICE helped Democratic voters view Ocasio as a stronger political opponent of Trump and his far-right Republican allies than Crowley.
• To say that Crowley's campaign was awful would be an understatement. Crowley seemed to care more about raking in campaign money from corporate political action committees than actually trying to convince people to vote for him, Crowley made a number of mistakes during his campaign that made it painfully obvious that Crowley was completely out of touch with the people of a very diverse congressional district, and Crowley reportedly never asked his own allies for help for his campaign.

I congratulate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on winning the Democratic nomination in the 14th Congressional District of New York, and I hope she wins the general election in November and is able to honorably represent her constituents as a Member of Congress! People like Ocasio are the future of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement!