AOC Will Have a Tough Time Playing the ‘Woman of Color’ Card Against Her New GOP Challenger

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in for a fight come 2020, as she now officially faces a new challenger in her Queens district who’s already gaining momentum and name recognition.

Scherie Murray, a local businesswoman, happens to be female. And she happens to be black. And she happens to be an immigrant from Jamaica.

And she also happens to be a Republican.

Since Democrats — especially radicals like Ocasio-Cortez — have decided that identity politics is the game they’re going to play in 2020, it appears that they’ve just met their match.

According to Fox News, the 38-year-old Murray announced her intention to challenge Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday and launched an opening salvo that obliterated her radical socialist opponent on two major issues that affect voters in their congressional district.

“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.”

Murray, who immigrated to the United States when she was nine, kicked off her campaign by publishing a video that highlights just how bad Ocasio-Cortez is at her job.

“Your representative in Washington chooses self-promotion over service, conflict over constituents, resistance over assistance,” Murray said in the video. “Queens and the Bronx needs someone who will create jobs instead of turning them away.”

You can watch Murray’s campaign kick-off video below.

In the video, Murray points out that Ocasio-Cortez is more focused on political celebrity status than she is on actually helping people in her district, state and country.

Though Murray is new to politics, she already looks like a threat to Ocasio-Cortez in 2020, as it appears she’s not afraid to debate the issues that matter. That’s territory that Ocasio-Cortez is completely unfamiliar with.

When challenged to debate real issues, Ocasio-Cortez immediately defaults to whipping out the race and gender cards. She’s even used the strategy on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is no stranger to playing similar cards herself.

Murray seems to have strategically omitted any mention of President Donald Trump or his policies in her campaign video. It’s a brilliant play: after all, she’s a Republican in a dark blue district.

It’ll be interesting to watch how the socialist congresswoman will react should Murray climb the political ladder and secure her party’s nomination for the seat in 2020.

Without any cheap tactics at her disposal, Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t have much left to stand on.