I think AOC has several factors working in her favour, although still faces an uphill climb.
- The district is split between Queens and Bronx, Crowley’s the boss of Queens, AOC’s Bronx born and raised. The battle lines get drawn easily here.
- The district is almost majority Hispanic, she’ll still face an uphill climb against an incumbent among this group regardless of her own race, but she’ll have an easier time persuading Hispanics to vote for her compared to an Alexandra Smith-Thompson.
- A lot of the white population in the district is basically hipsters (Astoria is the only sizeable community in the district with a large white population), and they’re more persuadable than old-school Catholic Irish or Italian ethnic whites.
She's Puerto Rican and much of the Latino population in the district is Colombian, Ecuadorian, etc. with long-standing relationships with Rep. Crowley. The Bronx portion of the district does have a large Latino community but also has a large Irish, Italian, and Albanian community. Not true to say that Astoria has only sizable white population. Whitestone, Sunnyside, and Woodside have a large Irish Democratic base.
