After five GOP contestants for her congressional seat, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now has a challenger from her own party forcing her to take on a primary.
Twenty-six-year-old Badrun Khan, a second-generation immigrant of Bengali descent who was born in New York, threw down the gauntlet against Ocasio-Cortez in a primary for a seat in Congress as a representative of New York’s 14th congressional district, according to a Sept. 19 Twitter message.
I couldn’t be more excited to launch my campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives.https://t.co/TWXX6Ed7oo
— Badrun Khan (@BardunKhan) September 19, 2019
Khan states on her website she has “spent her entire life fighting for justice, equality and fairness in her community.” She adds she is fighting for “REAL Results… Not Empty Promises.”
About healthcare, her website says she “will fight to make sure Health Care is made available for all and that those who have existing coverage can choose to keep what they currently have.”
Though it may be considered by some to be an uphill-race against the Democratic socialist, Ocasio-Cortez could be vulnerable to a primary challenger, according to a survey recently conducted by the “Stop The AOC” political action committee, as reported by the New York Post.
The study, executed among Democrat voters in the 14th congressional district, found that 47 percent of Democrats in the district view Ocasio-Cortez favorably and 29 percent view her unfavorably, with 24 percent saying they were unsure.
In July, an immigrant from Jamaica also announced that she is challenging Ocasio-Cortez in the 2020 election.
Scherie Murray said in a video announcement that she has been building bridges for years as a businesswoman who helps minority men and women get jobs and as a community leader.
“I’ve built bridges between constituents in our community and elected officials that represent them. Between different nationalities and races, and between political parties,” she said.
“Queens and the Bronx need someone who will create jobs instead of turning them away,” she added, referring to Ocasio-Cortez’s role in squashing a deal with Amazon to set up a second headquarters in New York City, depriving New Yorkers of an estimated 25,000 jobs.
Murray, 38, who said she was 9 when she and her family migrated from the Caribbean, told Fox News that she’s running as a Republican and that she supports the president.
“There is a crisis in Queens, and it’s called AOC,” Murray told Fox News. “And instead of focusing on us, she’s focusing on being famous. Mainly rolling back progress and authoring the job-killing Green New Deal and killing the Amazon New York deal.”
“Medicare for all, I think a lot of people are happy with their current health insurance,” she said, before saying the Green New Deal, a widespread proposal that Democrats say would combat climate change, would “certainly kill jobs.”
Murray is the fifth Republican to announce she’s running against Ocasio-Cortez, joining John Commings, a former police officer; medical journalist Ruth Papazian; Miguel Hernandez, a construction contractor; and entrepreneur Antoine Tucker.
Epoch Times reporter Zachary Stieber contributed to this report