“Women like me aren’t supposed to run for office, I wasn’t born to a wealthy or powerful family. Mother from Puerto Rico, dad from the South Bronx. I was born in a place where your zip code determines your destiny.
My name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I’m an educator, an organizer, a working-class New Yorker. I’ve worked with expectant mothers. I’ve waited tables and led classrooms. And going into politics wasn’t in the plan. But after 20 years of the same representation, we have to ask: Who has New York been changing for?
Every day gets harder for working families like mine to get by. The rent gets higher, health care covers less, and our income stays the same. It’s clear that these changes haven’t been for us, and we deserve a champion. It’s time to fight for a new York that working families can afford. That’s why I’m running for Congress.
This race is about people versus money—we’ve got people, they’ve got money. It’s time we acknowledged that not all Democrats are the same. That a Democrat who takes corporate money, profits off foreclosure, doesn’t live here, doesn’t send his kids to our schools, doesn’t drink our water or breathe our air, cannot possibly represent us.
What the Bronx and Queens needs is Medicare for all, tuition-free public college, a federal jobs guarantee, and criminal justice reform. We can do it now. It doesn’t take 100 years to do this. It takes political courage.
A New York for the many is possible. It’s time for one of us.