On Tuesday, Yuh-Line Niou clinched the Democratic nomination to represent lower Manhattan in the State Assembly. The 65th Assembly District—which includes Chinatown, the Lower East Side, the Financial District, and Battery Park City—is largely Democratic, and Niou is expected to handily win the general election on November 8.

Niou (her full name is pronounced “you-lean nee-oh”) is an unconventional candidate for what is certainly an unconventional race. With 32 percent of the vote, she fended off five other candidates, including the incumbent, Alice Cancel. In April, Cancel had beat Niou in a special election to fill the seat held by former speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver, after Silver was forced out of office last November following a conviction on federal corruption charges.

The 33-year-old is now poised to become the first Asian-American to represent the district (which is today more than 40 percent Asian), as well as the first Asian-American to represent Chinatown or any part of Manhattan in the state legislature.

Niou was born in Taiwan and lived in Idaho and Texas before attending The Evergreen State College in Washington. She worked as an aide to Washington state lawmakers before moving to New York in 2010 to get her master’s in public administration at Baruch. She then served as the chief of staff for Flushing Assembly member Ron Kim, New York’s first Korean-American elected official, commuting from the Financial District, where she lives with her fiancé.

But running for office had never crossed her mind—until community members and state politicos approached her following Silver’s ouster. “I was tapped,” she said. “They said, ‘You live in the district, you know how Albany and constituent services works.’” At Kim’s office, her team helped up to 60 constituents a day—more than any other member, she says. If elected, she and Kim would be the only two Asian-Americans in the State Assembly.

Niou, an ebullient conversationalist who speaks between torrents of roaring laughter, is refreshingly candid and relentlessly upbeat. She spoke with Vogue.com about her time working the bar at the beloved since-shuttered Chinatown karaoke spot Winnie’s, allegations that she voted for the first time only three years ago, and the worst insults flung her way on the campaign trail.