Ocasio-Cortez Gets Primary Challenger — Daughter Of Bengali Muslim Immigrants

She clearly doesn’t spend much time working for her Brooklyn constituents, so it makes perfect sense that someone else wants the job.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spends a lot of time on social media, weighing in on every subject under the sun. She also galavants about the country, hitting all the late-night talk shows and receiving rock-star welcomes at liberal conclaves.

So Badrun Khan says, hey, I’ll do the job if you can’t.

Khan, 47, a community activist, a mother and a daughter of a Muslim immigrant family, this week announced her campaign against the New York Democratic socialist for the June 2020 primary.

“Badrun Nahar Khan, is a first generation immigrant and the eldest daughter of Bengali born parents who migrated to the United States in search of a better life and greater opportunity. Badrun was born in New York and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She is married and is a proud mother of two beautiful teen-age daughters,” she says on her website.

As a child growing up in NYC during the 1970’s, Badrun experienced her families struggles to provide a good life for their children. Badrun’s parents were hard working individuals, they worked countless hours in their own small business and instilled the value of education and hard work to their children.

Social life was not always easy and Badrun experienced how difficult it was being the lone Bengali Muslim in her class. Badrun fully understands that her life’s experiences and the benefits of living in a culturally diverse community offered invaluable lessons that stay with her today.

The former bartender went from rags to riches when she knocked off Rep. Joseph Crowley, then the House’s fourth most powerful Democrat and considered a possible successor to Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. While the New York district — part of the Bronx and part of north-central Queens — is highly liberal and roughly half Latino and Hispanic, Crowley says AOC is “vulnerable” in 2020.

“I do think that she’s probably most vulnerable in a first re-election,” Crowley, who served 10 terms in Congress, said last month.

Republicans know that. It’ll be an uphill battle, but already seven Republicans are preparing to challenge Ocasio-Cortez in 2020.

“She’s fired everyone up,” Rey Solano, a 2020 challenger, told Politico. “She’s really annoyed a lot of people.”

“The standard-bearer of socialism in America is in CD 14,” Ruth Papazian, another candidate, told the D.C.-based publication. “If you’re going to stop the spread of socialism, and especially the encroachment of socialism throughout the outer boroughs, you have to stop [Ocasio-Cortez].”

Republicans will have plenty to target. The Democratic socialist has been pushing socialist plans since she took office and, more locally, she helped scuttle a deal with Amazon that would have brought thousands of jobs to her district and other boroughs of New York City.

 

 

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