NEW YORK – Twenty-four-year-old Sasha Weinstein moved to Astoria last fall for a desk job as a data analyst for a nonprofit.
But as he sought an outlet for his hyper-progressive political views, he landed at New York City's chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which endorsed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's congressional candidacy without much fanfare on April 22, just two months before she would become a national sensation.

The very next day after DSA's blessing, Weinstein was off door-knocking in a congressional district he had never even cast a ballot in. He knew little about the 28-year-old Ocasio-Cortez and even less about 10-term Rep. Joe Crowley.

What he did know is that her willingness to run as an outright socialist was "a big deal" to him.

Medicare for all. Tuition-free college. Housing as a human right. No money from corporate lobbyists. Her boldness met the urgency of the political moment for him.

So for the nine weeks leading up to the late June primary, he hit more than 9,000 doors, many of which housed people like him who had not participated in the district's midterm congressional elections.

LIke nearly everyone else, he never thought victory was possible until he started seeing the returns on Election Night. Turnout in New York's 14th Congressional District spiked 68 percent over the last midterm primary, demonstrating the power of engaging a fresh voter pool. The campaign claims it knocked on 120,000 doors in all to get its 15,897 votes.
"I definitely think we got to the group of people who don't usually vote in primaries and don't usually vote in off-years," he says. "There's obviously, like, a lot of simmering resentment about income inequality, stagnating wages and endless student debt that just needed somewhere to go ... People really wanted to be talked to."

Ocasio-Cortez's stunning victory has already earned a thousand fathers. It is a win for Latinos in a district that is half Hispanic. It is a win for a new generation against the No. 4 ranking House Democrat. It is a win for progressives against the city's political machine. Outspent 10-to-1, it is a win over big money. And though the storyline has highlighted her Bronx roots, Ocasio-Cortez actually beat Crowley by an even larger margin in Queens, where two-thirds of the votes were cast.

But the fact that she won by 15 points – a double-digit landslide by any measure – clearly demonstrates there wasn't one rhyme or reason for her fairy-tale campaign.
"It's a diverse district but those margins are not attributable to her being Latina. All the white folks voted for her," says Jimmy Van Bramer, a New York City council member who represents part of the district.

Ocasio-Cortez's tiny Queens campaign office sits at the end of a vibrant strip of restaurants and shops in Jackson Heights, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country. For a mile and a half east of the office, there's a cluster of humming Mexican salons, Colombian cantinas and Ecuadorean bars. Earlier this week, air horns blasted down the street as Colombia played in a World Cup game.

Close by this neighborhood is Sunnyside Gardens, a much whiter, more gentrified enclave that has become a settling spot for young hipsters and middle-aged families. Ocasio-Cortez won both areas.
Van Bramer says he spoke to one middle-aged white woman on Election Day who told him, "I think [Crowley's] going to win, but I'm gonna vote for her because I want to push him to the left."

When he returned to his Sunnyside Gardens polling station at the Queen of Angels Catholic Church later that evening when polls closed, he was astonished to see the tally in her favor by more than 2-to-1. "Essentially she won every block," he says. "That would've been part of the Crowley base."

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez greets a reporter near Rockefeller Center in New York.

Despite some narratives attributing Ocasio-Cortez's victory to a rising Hispanic electorate, initial reviews of the vote totals have identified white voters as one of her strongest constituencies.

"The second highest turnout Assembly District on Tuesday – AD 36 – is home to the highest percentage of white voters in the district. Ocasio took 70 percent of the vote there," noted Hayley Prim, the campaign manager for Cynthia Nixon's insurgent challenge to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

David Shor, a data scientist for Civis Analytics, has found that "young white turnout was off the charts and that helped her a lot."
It's not as if Crowley completely took the race for granted. He spent $1.5 million and hit area homes with an abundance of mailers. But the flare-up over the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant families at the southern border became a galvanizing force for young progressives that Weinstein began noticing as he hit doors.

Crowley denounced Immigration and Customs Enforcement as "fascistic" but Ocasio-Cortez went further, calling for it to be abolished.

"This is a moral problem and your response has been to apply more paperwork to the situation, to have ICE collect more information on immigrants, and that puts our communities in danger," Ocasio-Cortez told Crowley during a televised debate, pounding the table as she spoke.

"That abolish ICE plank hit with young people," Weinstein says.

It's hard to believe it's only been a little over a week since Ocasio-Cortez's primary victory. Her campaign has been flooded with media requests – a thousand remain, according to her spokesperson. After an initial whirlwind tour of television interviews, she has taken a step back from public appearances to catch her breath. As the nation's newest and most in-demand progressive luminary, she'll need the rest.

But the organic movement she spawned is still churning along, without a break in its step.
This week, Weinstein was back hitting doors a couple neighborhoods away in Brooklyn, where another Latina democratic socialist and first-time candidate is challenging an established incumbent for a state Senate seat.
Two years ago, when Bernie Sanders first introduced Weinstein to democratic socialism, he admits he really didn't even know what it meant.

Now he's a leading foot soldier in the country's largest city to make it mainstream.